If the competition to close Manhattan's next mega apartment sale is heating up as the Observer's Max Abelson suggests, then Corcoran's Joan Kaplan looks like she's hoping to be a contender. The price of Lionel Pincus' 7,000-square-foot Pierre duplex, which has been on and off the market for more than a year, was just dropped from $50 million to a much more modest $43 million. The price cut comes on the heels of a recent court decision, which gave Pincus's sons, Henry and Matthew, the right to sell the duplex over the objections of Princess Firyal of Jordan, Pincus's former girlfriend. (Pincus was deemed mentally and physically incompetent in 2006.) The reduction also comes a week after it was reported that Pincus now owes over $10 million in property liens. A floorplan of the newly-discounted 30th and 31st-floor duplex is after the jump.

Everything takes forever at Yahoo, the once high-flying, now famously sluggish Internet giant. Today's layoffs of 1,500 employees have been expected for months. And yet the strange thing is so many Yahoos seem unprepared.

Would you pay $25,000 and up to be stuck on a boat with John Mayer? He sure hopes so! [ebay, via Enq]

As Jeff Zucker foists his last hopes for NBC on Leno and his arsenal of funny newspaper-clipping typos, his arch nemesis—future galactic despot Les Moonves—couldn't help but engage in a favorite pastime:

Women in 2008 "made no significant gains in winning more top U.S. business jobs," according to a new study released today. (If you work on Wall Street, consider it the Cruz-Callan conundrum.) The good news? Women are expected to make major strides in the year ahead, since Barack Obama's victory has led to an increased desire for—yes, you guessed—change. Oh, and because men have screwed up everything they've touched over the last few years. [Reuters]

For members of NY Film Critics Circle, an average morning before its awards vote goes like this: 1. Order breakfast. 2. Refresh memory on last month's releases. 3. Review LA Critics' awards the day before.

Julia Allison: entrepreneur, feminist, hero of our time. She's publicly announced her desire to go to business school, and when she went to visit Harvard Business School the other day "quite a few people" had read her blog and came at her with all types of questions! So naturally she sat down and made a video about her intentions—not just for her own education, but also for her fake company, Nonsociety, which she would like to sell in 3-5 years. After the jump, watch Julia expound on her well thought-out scheme to make "fuck you [Nick Denton] money":

Just about every media company, from us (small) to Time Inc. (big) to many others of varying sizes, shapes, and predilections have been laying people off lately. Because everything is terrible, especially the prospects of media employment! Still, we don't want to be perceived as negative. So we've assembled a roundup of the major media companies that haven't had any big layoffs throughout this new depression, and analyzed why they've been so fortunate. Praise them:

The fake-trailer aesthetic harnessed so exquisitely in Tropic Thunder has been revived for Terminator Salvation, whose new teaser isn't a preview of an action film as much as it's bombastic, uncanny self-parody.

Yes, the Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning author really is here interning for the morning! Earlier, we prompted you to ask him questions. In the comments, I'll moderate by asking him the best ones, and he'll answer. [Photo by Terry Richardson] Read on... BTW, his handle is bigjimdorito in the first few answers, and then James Frey later on.

Eileen Ford, the co-founder of Ford Models (her husband and partner, Jerry Ford, passed away earlier this year) has been trying to sell her New Jersey mansion for two years now. Last week the Journal reported that she'd discounted the property from $8 million to $6.5 million. Luxist has a few photos inside the home.

[Clothier Tracy Feith, "Sex and the City" costumer Patricia Field, and be-drugged actress (a "SATC" guest star!) Tatum O'Neal celebrating the 30th anniversary of Screaming Mimi's; image via WENN]

With a brand new, Hitlerific project to promote, Hollywood's most-powerful-man-currently-on-the-cover-of-Details, Tom Cruise, has been offering the media unprecedented access.

Hedge fund titan Cliff Asness is not a happy camper today. The founder of AQR Capital (and a man once described as one of the smartest guys in the business) is firing back at Dealbreaker.com for reporting on his firm's losses and suggesting he'd fired his own secretary, as well as at former employees of his fund, who appear to have been ripping him to pieces in anonymous comments: "The internet's a great place for anonymous ignorant fools who feel like tough guys in the know when they post their verbal vomit. Enjoy your fun while it lasts. When we go back to doing great for clients what are you going to do for fun? Well, whatever, I'm sure it will be dishonorable and cowardly." [Dealbreaker]

So far, intern James Frey has brought us doughnuts (some with sprinkles!), fetched coffee and is now out on a beer run. But he completed his first assigned task: a factchecking report on this morning's Gawker posts. While we applaud our intern's effort, James Frey is surprisingly not the most reliable factchecker.

Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman, currently fighting to protect his seat from vile comedian Al Franken, got some good news and some bad news this week. The good news? Minneapolis officials lost 133 ballots, and they just gave up on finding and counting them. Those 133 ballots would most likely have given Franken a net recount gain of about 46 votes, based on the voting habits of Minneapolitans. So Coleman's 192-vote lead is looking good, as the board of elections moves to considering the thousands of challenged ballots. But here's the bad news: Coleman's under investigation by the FBI!

Once and future late-night afterthought Jimmy Fallon hit his stride on his second day of videoblogging, treating viewers to an early glimpse of the set of his show and reacting gleefully about the Leno news—

Senate Candidate 5? It's Jesse Jackson, Jr.! Someone connected to the congressman apparently had ROD BLAGOJEVICH convinced that ROD BLAGOJEVICH would make a cool million dollars by appointing Jackson to Barack Obama's Senate seat, against the president-elect's wishes. Jackson says he was told he's "not a target of this investigation," and says he'll cooperate with the investigation. This makes two Obama allies caught seeming a bit corrupt in the Blagojevich filing!

Looking for some proof that the American cultural economy is as busted as the financial one? Google just released its annual "Zeitgeist" report, which aggregates the billions of searches conducted on the site over the course of the year. Here are the top ten most popular searches for concert tickets: 1. Jonas Brothers; 2. Coldplay; 3. Hannah Montana; 4. Kenny Chesney; 5. Carrie Underwood; 6. Radiohead; 7. Lil Wayne; 8. Madonna; 9. Eagles; 10. Rascal Flatts. [Google Zeitgeist]

All eyes were on Conan last night in anticipation of what, if anything, he'd say about NBC's surprise announcement that Jay Leno would upstage his long-planned ascension to The Tonight Show throne.