Recently, we re-introduced Gawker Pin-Ups, in which we scour the web (and your Facebook pages) for hottt photos of people in (or vaguely around) the media. And I was thinking: why fight the system when you can be the system, or at least make the system work for you? One of the jobs I never got fired from was art modeling, which is like one step above food preparation. It was more interesting than telemarketing, which I did get roundly dismissed from. Pop quiz: if I'm laid off by the end of this month, and I get paid by the pageview, then why not use it for my very own benefit? No way: I would never exploit my likeness for pageviews. Haha, yeah right. Click through, cookie. (Do not want? Do not care!)

Britney Spears shopping with her sons Sean Preston and Jayden at FAO Schwarz ... Oprah leaving her hotel to head to opening night of Alvin Ailey ... Model Miranda Kerr bundled up for a walk ... Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber pushing a stroller and carrying dry cleaning in NoHo ... George Hamilton leaving his hotel ... Tom Cruise carrying Suri outside of their apartment building ... Katie Holmes arriving at the Schoenfeld Theater ... Kate Winslet on her way to the premiere of her new movie ... Sarah Jessica Parker carrying son James' backpack on a walk in the West Village ... Russell Simmons leaving Britney Spears' birthday party at Tenjune ... and Ciara leaving dinner at Tao on East 58th Street.

This morning, it was announced that NBC Universal is cutting 30 people from its sales team. But that is just the beginning. TVNewser says that NBCU has started a round of planning 500 layoffs which could continue through today and into next week. We'll be updating this post as more NBCU layoff news comes in [More info on NBC News cuts now added]. Here's what we know so far:

The New York Times ran a story a couple weeks back about a sad little latchkey kid who deemed himself a food critic while eating dinner at a restaurant by himself. Yeah, he like took a wee notebook along and everything. It's devastating and precocious and weird and vaguely annoying. Which means it would make the perfect movie! Saturday Night Live head Canadian Lorne Michaels and MGM scion John Goldwyn have bought the rights to the story, which they hope to turn into a "a youth-themed empowerment film."

Citigroup might want to consider keeping its branches open 24/7: It's going to take a really long time to thank 270 million tax-paying Americans! [EVGrieve]

Is haggard MSNBC host Chris Matthews actually running for Senate from Pennsylvania? Against five-term senior Republican Arlen Specter? Really? Politico says he's house-shopping in Philadelphia! He's asking insiders whether he should step down from MSNBC before his contract expires! Oh, and about that contract: it expires in June.

It's ugly out there today, isn't it? Viacom announced this morning that it plans to eliminate 850 positions, cuts that will take place "broadly" across the conglomerate's portfolio of media properties. NBC Universal followed up with the news it's slashing 1,350 positions. Credit Suisse revealed plans to pink-slip 5,300 people. DuPont said it would cut its payrolls by 2,500 people. And AT&T took the cake today with the announcement that some 12,000 employees will be on their own in the near future. If your boss asks to speak with you for "a moment" in the privacy of the conference room today, don't forget to bring tissues with you. [CNN, Dow Jones, WSJ]

Yesterday you guys thought that the weighty R&B singer was Aretha Franklin. Which, um, yes. Today we have a celeb who smokes drugs, a famous dude who has lots of parking fines, and two way too skinny famous friends.

The other day, professional gaffe machine and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell accidentally leaned into an open mic and said, regarding Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano's appointment to head the Department of Homeland Security, "Janet's perfect for the job, because for that job, you have to have no life. Janet has no family. Perfect. She can devote, literally, 19, 20 hours a day to it." Uh oh! Big mistake, Ed. You are guilty of singleism. Campbell Brown and Gail Collins are not happy!

Barack Obama and George Bush have plenty of policy differences, of course, but does the President-elect really represent change when it comes to the wardrobe he's bringing with him to Washington? Maybe not! Both men are fond of American-made suits, white dress shirts, and light blue ties. And you'd be hard-pressed telling them apart if you only focused on the clothes, and you didn't get to peek at the size inside. (In case you're wondering, Obama wears a size 40 or 42; Bush is a 44 long.) On your left, you'll find our very own Presidential Fashion Challenge. See if you can tell which one is Barack Obama and which one is George Bush. It's harder than it looks.

The family of Jdimytai Damour, the Wal-Mart worker who was trampled to death at a Long Island store by a Black Friday mob hungry for discounts at any cost, has filed a lawsuit holding the company responsible for his death. And they're not just blaming the store's lack of security that morning; they're blaming Wal-Mart's ad campaign for turning sedate Long Islanders into a callous capitalist stampede of death:

The long-feared Viacom pre-post holiday layoffs are here, and they're not pretty. We heard earlier that as many as 300 layoffs might be coming at MTV today, but the total, Viacom-wide numbers are even worse: 850 people are being cut, about 7% of the company's global staff. And top management is "suspending salary increases" next year, if it makes you peons feel any better. The full internal memo that went out this morning is after the jump; if you know more about the specific breakdown of the layoffs, email us. UPDATES: additional memos from MTV and Paramount added below:

♦ Publishing heiress Anne Hearst—the mother of socialite Amanda and wife of writer Jay McInerney—has sold her former three-bedroom, fifth-floor apartment at 203 East 72nd Street for $1.85 million. She and Jay shouldn't have to worry about packing any boxes: The couple has been living in an East 9th Street penthouse for the past couple of years. [Cityfile]
♦ Lincoln Center Theater artistic director André Bishop has sold his five-bedroom townhouse in Carnegie Hill for $5.6 million, nearly $2 million less than original $7.5 million asking price when it was first placed on the market back in February. [Cityfile]
♦ Adam Bronfman, the youngest son of Edgar Bronfman Sr. (and brother of Edgar Jr. and Matthew), has paid $7 million for a pied-à-terre at 170 East End Ave, the same building where Johan Santana, Dominique Levy, and Michael Fascitelli have all picked up apartments in recent months. [NYP]

Dylan Lauren stands to inherit a vast fortune, but if you were concerned that her candy emporium would be upended by the recession and declining demand for $4 lollipops, Dylan isn't at all worried that's not going to happen. "I am in a great recession-proof business, since candy is the ultimate indulgence for little cost," she tells Vanity Fair. Dylan—seen here posing next to a giant Swedish Fish—also says that if you're looking to pick her up a Hanukkah present, "a gift certificate for tennis lessons, kick-boxing lessons, or massages" would do just fine. Duly noted! [VF]

Think American moguls are panicking as they see their fortunes vanish into thin air? The situation is even worse in Russia, where the country's oligarchs have collectively lost an estimated $230 billion over the past six months. (Roman Abramovich, left, has seen his net worth plunge by $20 billion.) The Business Sheet has the full rundown of Russia's biggest losers here. [BusinessSheet]

Wow, whatever happened to piercing your own ear with an old needle and cork and contracting septicemia? Today's teenage girls aren't even content with run-of-the-mill razor-slashing: They are cutting their skin and embedding things inside their bodies. A group of radiologists performed a study on ten girls ages 15 to 18 and removed 52 foreign objects, including metal needles, metal staples, metal paperclips, glass, wood, plastic, graphite pencil lead, crayon, and stone. Among eleven other things, one girl had "an unfolded metal paperclip more than six inches in length" removed from her. (We're guessing her high school doesn't have a metal detector.) We sincerely hope the girls in the study can now break this strange habit and focus their obsession, like normal, healthy adolescents, on undead creatures who suck young human blood.

Both are ubiquitous on the social scene, both have hot husbands, and, as of today, both are 365 days away from turning 40. Author/socialite Plum Sykes and her twin, designer/socialite Lucy Sykes, turn 39 today. Jay-Z is also celebrating his 39th birthday. Ms. Tyra Banks is turning 35. Marisa Tomei is celebrating her 44th. Saturday Night Live's Fred Armisen is 42. And actor Jeff Bridges is 59.

• First Britney Spears' guests whispered behind her back about how she looked "vacant" and "out of it" at her big birthday party. Then the singer's ex Kevin Federline told People that Spears' craziness had him "concerned with my children," whose well-being he felt compelled to fight for via custody battle when Spears "went behind my back" and filed for divorce, leaving him "completely blindsided." Finally, her first husband was thrown in jail.

♦ It's not just creditors going after Donald Trump these days: An employee of Trump's golf course in LA says in a lawsuit that the club prohibited her from taking lunch and bathroom breaks. She's only asking for $15,000, though, so obviously she didn't learn much during her stint working for the real estate mogul. [TMZ]
♦ A lawyer for Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos says there's "not a shred of truth" to the rumors the couple is splitting up. [OK!]
♦ Britney Spears' birthday party didn't exactly go as planned. None of her close friends showed up and onlookers say she spent the whole time looking "vacant" and "empty." [R&M, P6]
♦ NBC is furious that news of David Gregory's Meet the Press promotion leaked earlier this week. The likely culprit? NBC political director Chuck Todd. [P6]

"NBC is holding back from anointing David Gregory as the new host of Meet the Press because 'they're furious about leaks.'" [NBC-hating Page Six]