As a stunt, Google has wrapped subway trains in New York City with ads for Google Maps. Inside, ads give specific directions to tourist landmarks like Madison Square Garden. Unfortunately, they misplace Grand Central Terminal by several blocks, directing people to subway lines which do not run through the station. A mistake we can see someone sitting in a cube in Mountain View making — but doesn't Google have a large New York office full of employees who might have been called on to vet the ads in their 20 percent time?

In the last two days, we told you about layoffs at Forbes.com, Essence, Entertainment Weekly, and National Geographic, with a bonus false alert at Nylon thrown in for good measure. And the sad fact is that these are just the ones we could get around to doing. All these media layoffs are like a band-aid being pulled off verrrrryyyy slowly, and—unfortunately for the laid-off—each progressive wave of cuts makes us want to tune out the pain even more. This is the saddest thing of all. When good people get laid off they deserve to elicit some shock; they deserve to be remembered, and talked about, and reminisced upon. They deserve for the people who cover their demise to go into detail about who they were, and what they've done in their careers, and the big stories they broke, and how they changed things, and who they knew, and where they might go from here. They deserve commenters to bemoan their departure and joke about their good lines and reassure them that they'll be missed. But we have to face reality here: it ain't gonna happen. The media now is like a city with a high murder rate, where people get shot dead with such mind-numbing regularity that it gets harder and harder to summon the appropriate amount of outrage for their doom. We all still imagine that when our time comes, there will be a collective pause amongst our peers, and everyone will silently cross themselves and wonder how it could happen to such a talented person. But realistically, we'll be just another number. The best you can do now is say your little blanket agnostic prayer at night for all these assorted victims, then keep your head down and hope that you can ride out the downturn until good days come back again. On that note, here's some more layoff news we didn't get to today:

Now that the Communist Party has gone after Bond girl Olga Kurylenko for becoming "movie kept girl of capitalist super stud," the actress has been freed to divulge all about her humble, Socialist upbringing. Just how humble was it? Well, as Kurylenko tells Jimmy Kimmel, she was kept locked in a fridge until she reached maturity (in Soviet Russia, you see, fridge owns you).Then, when pressed by Kimmel about injuries suffered while making the film, Kurylenko one-upped her co-star Gemma Arterton by claiming she lost not just a superfluous sixth finger but a third arm as well! Hmmm, a third arm... there's gotta be a 007 sexual innuendo in there somewhere...

Here's a nice thing. Shepard Fairey, that skateboarding RISD-trained artist who created that now-iconic Barack Obama "Hope" poster (plus that whole "Andre the Giant Has a Posse" thing), has lent his talents to the marriage equality movement in California. In poster form! It says "Defend Equality" and shows a fist and is powerful and butch about the whole thing. We like it! [via Queerty] Click thru for larger.

Did Barack or Michelle deliver some stern words to Billy Ray Cyrus after he invited the Obama children to be on the Hannah Montana show anytime they wanted? After all, we begged the Obamas not to do it—too much potentially damaging child-star drama!—and now Miley's Dad seems to be backtracking. Billy "Achy Breaky Heart" Ray sounds chastened:

Big ups to everyone who made it out to VH1 Classic Rock Autism Celebrity Bowl Off at Lucky Strike Lanes last night. You can browse a gallery of them here, a Malta Summit of Z-lister statesmen and royalty including Corey Feldman, Bachelorette dumpee Jesse Csincsak, and Gretchen Bonaduce and Tiffany—posing in the same photo. (Denis Leary couldn't make it, but sent along a message saying that "knocking down pins with a big heavy ball is about as backwoods retarded as your stupid, lazy-ass kids.") But it's attendee Billy Morrison who most caught our eye, less for what we now know are his musical contributions to The Cult and Camp Freddy, but rather for channeling the unmistakable essence of a certain superproducer headshot worshipped 'round these parts like a Shroud of Defamer Turin. Click for your full, glorious view of what Grazerhead hath wrought. [Photo credit: FilmMagic]

Do you feel that tingly spark in the air today, especially as you near Times Square? It's because Total Request Live, MTV's long-running afterschool music video special is coming to an end after ten years, signing off on Sunday with a special big send-off bash. Yes, one of the last remaining programs on the cable net to still air videos (albeit at truncated lengths and often interrupted by shrieking teenagers) will be no more, ceding like everything else to the Date My Moms and Hills of the world. Ironic, because in some ways, actually, the top 10 videos of the day countdown show helped create the new MTV landscape that eventually came to usurp it. The draw of TRL was never really the actual videos. It was the spectacle view of dizzying Times Square, the live-ness, the celebrity appearances, the affable and comfortably hip hosts (Carson Daly! And, um, Jesse Camp! And that girl from One Tree Hill!) It was really about the lifestyle of liking music, the thrill of just being thrilled, the ecstasy and immediacy and bittersweet fever dances of being a kid and out of school and having stumbled upon this great big infinite thing called Personality (I like this song—I am rock! You like that video—you are pop!). That celebration of the culture of music, rather than the music itself, has spilled over into the network's current top hits, like The Hills. That particular reality dollop of non-fat Cool Whip expertly employs the hit songs of tomorrow to evoke, along with the swirling cameras, a soaring and sprawling range of feelings. Like music usually is in real life, music on MTV now serves as the illustrative background to the people dating and getting made and dancing and competing and existing in the fore. And we've TRL to blame/thank for that—for adding a bit of shape to the world as it's seen through the MTV lens. It said "here we are, set at on all sides by movies and television and pretty people and hormones, and here, in brief, is the soundtrack to accompany all of it. And you chose it." And those huge picture windows overlooking the crowds and lights and glitz, through which we could look out and others could look in! A glass case of emotion! !!! Click to view

This week's Democratic Party weekly address by our audaciously hopeful President-elect will not be on boring old NPR. Barack Obama's going to upload to YouTube, reports the Washington Post. The WaPo says the Obama administration will also make "online Q&As and video interviews" part of its communications strategy. Think this is payback for Google CEO Eric Schmidt's late-to-the-game Obama endorsement?If so, it's scant reward for America's CTO. If transition co-chair Valerie Jarrett's two-minute talk yesterday is any indicator, most of these clips will be no more exciting than a White House press release. Obama himself, though, has one of the most awesome telepresences I've ever seen. Mr. President, get yourself a bulldog and a skateboard and you'll blow Avril Lavigne and Justin Laipply right off the Most Viewed (All Time) page.

When the Yellowstone Club filed for bankruptcy earlier this week, company execs were quick to reassure the clubs roster of billionaire moguls that the resort would remain open for the ski season. Now it looks like Bill Gates, Barry Sternlicht, Peter Chernin, Dan Quayle and the club's other members are going to need to find someplace else to spend Christmas vacation. Court filings indicate that the club doesn't have enough money to make monthly payroll, or even pay this month's food and electricity bills. What will happen? One suggestion: "Gates can just buy it and save the hassle of worrying about where to ski this winter." [WSJ]

The odds that you remember the drunken, depraved glories of your employer's past holiday parties are virtually nil, so most of Hollywood shouldn't be too upset today to hear how the recession-to-be is affecting this year's big industry fetes. Variety reports that Disney and Viacom won't be celebrating at all, while other studios are scaling back their own events and even awards-season premieres to the extent their needy talent will allow. And if the global economic meltdown didn't feel like a crisis before, wait until you hear how the caterers will be hit:

Wow, here's a clip that doesn't make you envy Neel Kashkari. The hawk-eyed Ferrari lover who's been assigned to run the government bailout of our dead financial system took a little trip up to Capitol Hill today to speak to Congress about how all that money is being used. Rep. Elijah Cummings did not appreciate Neel's tone! "Let me tell YOU something," he hollered at Neel, whose eyes went wide. He recovered well though. Neel, you are one unlucky sacrificial lamb, buddy. Watch the rage of Cummings below:

♦ One of the recession's teeny silver linings: In an unprecedented move, luxury brands like Chanel and Louis Vuitton are cutting prices for US customers. [WSJ]
♦ Supermodels—they're just like us! Helena Christensen braved the crowds in London yesterday to grab a polka-dot Comme des Garçons cardigan from H&M, and proudly wore it out that night. [Grazia]
♦ Does Agyness Deyn care about the fate of fluffy animals or not? On Wednesday, she DJed at the Humane Society's Cool vs. Cruel ceremony with boyfriend Albert Hammond Jr. But she's apparently not averse to wearing fur on the runway or to non-animal rights events. [Fashionologie]

Gene Wood, an operations manager at Ask.com, the Barry Diller-owned search engine beloved by Midwestern moms, wrestled a mugger to the ground rather than lose his iPhone, for which he paid $499. While riding on a subway train in San Francisco and watching a movie, Wood felt a hand reach behind him and snatch the phone. Wood, who is 6 feet tall and weighs 240 pounds, jumped from his seat and pursued the thief. Here's his harrowing account of how he got his iPhone back through hand-to-hand combat — and got away with just one small, if nasty, head wound:

Gawker reports—and the Daily News confirms—that Ashley Dupre has taped her first TV interview since she got mixed up in a very minor scandal involving a politician that you may or may not have heard about back in March. Diane Sawyer sat down with the $5,000-an-hour woman yesterday for ABC News; the interview is expected to air next Friday as part of a two-part 20/20 special. It's quite likely Dupre collected substantially more than her standard rate for the Sawyer sit-down. Although ABC News cannot officially pay her for an interview per network policy, rumor has it she was compensated with a "consulting fee" and for "archival footage," which should keep her attired in $632 Fendi belts for many months to come.

Uncool, America. We realize it must have been a rough week for Jennifer Aniston, so we were hoping we could pass along some great news that her guest appearance on 30 Rock last night as a...woman who likes to do a lot of things but is ultimately crazy but not in a particularly ha-ha funny way?...boosted the show's ratings. Unfortunately, a season low of 7.5 million tuned in for the episode, which also happened to feature three Night Court cast members. Anthony Edwards's return to ER, however, boosted the show by 1.2 million viewers to 9.8 million. The moral? We're not really sure. Put Michael J. Fox on Kath & Kim and see what happens. [E! Online]

Dreamily inventive billionaire Bill Joy, the cofounder of Sun Microsystems, has predicted doom for the human race in the pages of Wired. He has a new reason for pessimism: A Manhattan condo he put on the market for $40 million has reportedly sold to Australian actor Hugh Jackman for $21 million — down from a previously rumored sale price of $25 million. The five-bedroom, three-floor condominium has a view of the Hudson River. We have a theory on why Joy sold, even at such a discounted price.It's not like he needs the cash. But we don't think Joy, who joined Kleiner Perkins three years ago, as a partner in the once-storied venture-capital firm which funded Amazon.com and Google, among others, has much time to enjoy the place. Kleiner, like much of the venture-capital business, is struggling, especially with its bets on cleantech which have been battered by both the credit crunch and falling oil prices which make alternative energy sources less profitable. Better to unload it at any price — and invest in real estate closer to the office. As for Jackman, we figure the X-Men star simply knows a bargain when he sees one.

Before the premiere of this fall season, NBC head Ben Silverman liked to brag about the extensive movie star outreach he'd done to populate his shows: Selma Blair in Kath & Kim! Christian Slater in My Own Worst Enemy! Sadly, Kath was poorly received, Enemy has just been axed (alongside another show called something like Project Lipstick, we think?), and the rest of the fall lineup is skidding out like Silverman's Knight Rider retread. You might imagine, with all this broadcast carnage, that some of it might be Silverman's fault. Nuh-unh! protests Page Six:

Is everybody ready for some sweet prostitute interviewing? A tipster tells us "100% reliably" that Ashley Alexandra Dupre, the famous Eliot Spitzer hooker, sat down for her first-ever prime time interview yesterday. Our source says that Diane Sawyer filmed the interview for ABC at a midtown studio, in secret, and that the network is planning to air it next Friday. The network hasn't announced it yet, so you heard it here first, assuming it happens. The other, less solid part of this rumor involves how Ashley got paid for her time: Our tipster is somewhat less sure of this part, but has also heard:

More layoffs today in the wonderful world of media: In addition to cuts at EW and Essence, 8-10 people were let go yesterday from InStyle. Blackbook canned its creative director. Jim Cramer's NYC-based finance site, TheStreet.com, closed its offices in San Francisco. Bauer Publishing laid off five editorial people from Life & Style. Forbes dismissed staffers assigned to ForbesAutos.com, scaled back ForbesTraveler.com, and closed its conference business. But despite rumors to the contrary, Nylon says it is not closing down, so it isn't all bad news today.

· DreamWorks is in talks with Clint Eastwood to direct ghost movie Hereafter, which Spike Lee will later decry as featuring only white ghosts. ("Where are the black spirits?! You mean to tell me sheets don't come in brown? Another chapter of African-American afterlife history whitewashed by The Man.") [Variety] · The 18th Environmental Media awards (first we're hearing of them, but we're usually tied up this time of year at the Tire Fire Honors) singled out Into the Wild and 30 Rock, the latter commended for "its great strides in recycling older, less-overhyped sitcoms." [Variety] · Because there's no better way to kick off the weekend than a gloomy economic prospectus, enjoy this collection of downward trends and projected fat-trimmings sure to make 2009 your liquor-store-robbingest best! [THR] After the jump: What surely-no-longer-virginal Disney Channel star is about to get her own show on a tanking network?· Hilary Duff has signed a talent and development deal with NBC. They plan on building a new series around the star, tentatively titled, Law & Order: Hilary Duff Unit. [THR] · HD consumers prefer Blu-ray 10-to-1 over other -ray Colorz. [THR]