This is Michaela Watkins, and she's apparently the newest addition to the cast of Saturday Night Live, the ancient sketch comedy show that is relevant again because a) you can watch just the funny bits online and b) there was apparently a presidential election this year. (Ok fine and c) they have a good cast and it seems less terrible in its current incarnation than it did the last time everyone talked about how they were watching it again.) In the attached clip, Watkins is doing her audition bit: a pretty great impression of noted blog-runner and grudge-holder and Internet Doyenne Arianna Huffington! Hooray, making fun of Arianna Huffington will soon hit the mainstream! Click to watch.

Hollywood PrivacyWatch: 11/10 — My girlfriend and I were sitting diagonally from MATTHEW MODINE on the 9pm JetBlue flight from Burbank to JFK. He was sitting in the shitty seats in front of the exit row, which do not recline. The upgrade to the "Even more leg room" seats run $40, guess times are tough for Matthew or he decided to make the trip to NYC last minute. My girlfriend and I were sitting there for a good portion of the flight trying to remember what movie he was in, all I came up with was Vision Quest and that movie with Randy Quaid and Paul Reiser, which now I know is called Bye Bye Love thanks to IMDB. [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]

♦ Frank Bruni had the economy in mind when he visited Market Table on Carmine Street: The restaurant earns two stars for its reasonably priced menu and comforting atmosphere that's like a "wool blanket, emphasizing good sense over high style." [NYT]
♦ David Bouley's Bouley will be closed tonight in preparation for its re-opening tomorrow at 163 Duane St. [Zagat]
♦ We though the lousy economy was killing off ridiculously silly ideas. Apparently not. The dude responsible for Guest House and Home is opening Greenhouse, New York's "first environmentally-friendly club," tonight. [NYP]

Click to viewThe immense former Port Authority building where Google now does business in Manhattan has an impressive history. Truck drivers once drove onto elevators and motored around the building's upper floors. Today, the place has been Googlefied with snacks, ping-pong tables, and a jillion Legos. Free scooters let staffers zip one part of the supersize building to another. But the best thing about this video? Google Docs manager Jonathan Rochelle talks up his office for 2 minutes and 42 seconds without once using the word "cool." We just wish The Big Money's camera crew had shown us the 50,000 sq. ft. Google is emptying out for sublease, too.

Oh, good for Ryan Lizza. The campaign reporter was going to write a book about the 2008 election, but then David Remnick hired him and said "don't write a book, write for my fancy magazine instead," and so Lizza did. Now he's got a deal to write a book about the first year of Barack Obama's presidency, which ought to at least be a nice change of pace from all the books about the 2008 elections we're about to get, yowza. Of course, he's still not alone: also writing a book on Obama's first year is Newsweek's Jonathan Alter. Everyone else who's ever been published is, of course, finishing their 2008 election books. Let's take a look at the lineup: Newsweek's Richard Wolffe is writing Renegade: The Education of Barack Obama. He's got reporting from the trail, interviews with Obama and aides, and his sexy accent. Will Be Published: June 2009. Should Be Published: The day after inauguration, when Obama's terrible secrets can finally be revealed. Too late, America! Evan Thomas and the staff of Newsweek will release 250 pages on the campaign, based on the seven-part Secrets of the Campaign piece we all read on the internet. The title: Long Time Coming: The Historic, Combative, Expensive, and Inspiring 2008 Election and the Victory of Barack Obama. That is a terrible title. Will Be Published: Early January. Should Be Published: This week. Well, it basically was published last week, but whatever. Washington Post's Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson are working on their own untitled campaign book, "a narrative history of the entire campaign." Will Be Published: Fall of 2009. Should Be Published: Are you serious? Fall of 2009? We'll be reading books about the 2010 midterms by then guys! Get it done ASAP! New York's John Heilemann and Time's Mark Haperin are working on a book too, without a title or publication date. Should Be Published: Never, unless Heilemann dumps Halperin. Then publish it whenever you like. Historian Michael Takiff's book? We know nothing about it. He would like it to be called The Making of the President 2008. But no one has bought it yet, we don't think? Sad. Should Be Published: In July, like Theodore White's Making of the President 1960 book was, back when people read books. Not-Quite Campaign Books: Washington Post's Anne Kornblut is writing Rejection: Why America Isn't Ready for a Woman President PBS's Gwen Ifill is writing The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama. Jabari Asim is writing What Obama Means MediaMatters' Eric Boehlert is writing a book about bloggers. Did we leave anyone out? Yes, probably. Americans Clamoring For All Things Obama [LAT] Newsweek's Wolffe Inks Obama Book Deal [Calderone/Politico] Books Written and Inspired by Obama Get an Election Boose [USAToday] Washington Post's Anne Kornblut Writing Hillary Book for Crown in Mid-Six Figure Deal [NYO] A Race to Deliver Election Books [WSJ]

Hey, it's President-elect Barack Obama's head on a piece of toast! Why not? It's currently up to $202.50 on eBay, and damn, we had such high hopes for this recession. "Nothing has been added to the bread - no butter or oils." [Ebay]

It looks like Michael Bloomberg has won the battle to redevelop Willets Point in Queens. The City Council will officially vote on the matter tomorrow, but key members of the Council announced earlier today that they'd reached an agreement on the outstanding issues that had thus far kept the plan in limbo. Which means by 2013 several thousand New Yorkers will get to watch the Mets play ball at Citi Field without getting off their living room couches. [NYO]

Jean-Claude Van Damme has always expressed himself by using the, how you say, the kicking? The kicking and the doing the splits? But now that he has the weirdly thoughtful meta-meditation JCVD in the offing, the Muscles from Brussels has been making the American press rounds, attempting to beat the English language into submission like it was Dolph Lundgren's high-cheekboned, Aryan face. We've already enjoyed the actor's "fruit-opening" secret to acting, but let's all marinate in his latest, greatest interview (with BlackBook) and attempt to figure out just what the hell he's saying. Join us, won't you?

I confess: I completely missed the Tesla Roadster parked outside when I walked into Joey & Eddie's, the San Francisco watering hole where Valleywag used to hold weekly meetups with readers. But there was no mistaking the guy parked at the bar: It was Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors. He had driven up to surprise me at the behest of Adeo Ressi, the founder of VC-ratings site TheFunded.com, who was Musk's housemate in college. Matt Marshall, the editor of VentureBeat, also dropped by. Musk pressed a set of keys on me and offered a Tesla test drive; I turned them down. Honestly, I figured I'd crash the thing, and I didn't want to put a further dent in Tesla's already parlous cash balance. But I finally agreed to go for a ride with Marshall. How was it, you ask?Kind of boring. If you like amusement-park rides, you'll love the Tesla Roadster. If, like me, you sit there calculating the infinetesimal odds that the operator's insurers will allow a rollercoaster to actually pose any real danger to you, you'll hate it. I spent the ride up to Coit Tower and back thinking about how much coal was burned to generate the electricity now being thrummed away by the Roadster's motors. Back at the bar, Musk was affable enough, considering I've hinted he's taking out his midlife crisis on his employees and may be scheming to take over Tesla Motors completely by running it into bankruptcy. He laughed at the last idea, and then thanked me for the suggestion, saying he hadn't thought of that particular financial maneuver. Musk still blames cofounder Martin Eberhard for Tesla's current straits. When Tesla raised its fourth round of funding in 2007, Musk says, Eberhard, then CEO, told investors that the Roadster's cost was $65,000, giving it a $25,000 gross margin. "It's right there on the slide, with Martin's name on it!" Musk told me. The company, he adds, was already in the middle of a search for a CEO to replace Eberhard. A private-equity firm which had invested in Tesla sent some consultants to help Tesla sort out supply-chain issues, and they found that the Roadster's parts actually cost the company $140,000. "We might as well have sent customers $50,000 and saved the bother of making the car," said Musk. Former Flextronics CEO Michael Marks, a Tesla investor, confirmed their findings — and that's when Musk decided to fire Eberhard and replace him temporarily with Marks. Just as now, the company's cash position was running low, and Tesla tapped existing investors for new funding, despite having just raised a round. He revealed none of this at the time, he says, because it would have jeopardized the company's ongoing CEO search. (Not that that worked out particularly well; Musk installed Ze'ev Drori, then replaced him last month.) That's Musk's version, anyway. I'm skeptical, if only from experience with Musk; when he was running PayPal, I remember him making statements that company insiders told me didn't match the facts. But as he was leaving to drive back to the Valley, Musk mentioned that his divorce from his sci-fi novelist wife Justine was a mutual matter; he got the paperwork in first, but she was getting ready to file papers, too. That, at least, checks out. I'm still not sure if I should trust Musk's account of what led Tesla to these perilous straits. But I do believe now that he's brave enough to drive a Roadster up to San Francisco and deliver it in person.

[Lindsay Lohan and girlfriend Samantha Ronson (not pictured) arrive in London today; image via Bauer-Griffin] Aaron Altman's new line beats the original, "Yeah It's Pretty Much The Same. We Just Go Like This."

Kiliaen Van Rensselaer has a breezy attitude about this current financial apocalypse, but not because he's the fabulously wealthy direct descendant of the founder of the Dutch West India Company; it's because he knows that he's a self-made man, and he knows that while recessions are ruinous for the poors, they are only setbacks for plutocrats. Like his own family, for instance! Kiliaen (pictured with unpopular socialite Olivia Palermo, who we hear he used to date) is confident that the world judges him on his actions alone. Foolish rich people, when will you learn not to be profiled by the Observer? Spencer Morgan will just hang you with your own quotes:

This will be hilarious: Self-obsessed videoblogger Robert Scoble, managing director of FastCompany.tv, has a new boss — who's the same as my old one. Noah Robischon is leaving his job as managing editor of Valleywag's publisher, Gawker Media, to run Fast Company's websites, which include Scoble's personal blog, Scobleizer.com.Everyone assumes Gawker Media publisher Nick Denton personally pulls the puppet strings at Valleywag, but since I was hired last year, I've reported to Robischon, a friend I've known since we were both at Time. Damn: This means Denton actually is personally pulling the puppet strings now, doesn't it? I'm in so much trouble. But not as much trouble as Scoble: "I'm excited to be getting back into day-to-day editorial, and building something new," Robischon writes. Translation: Scoble will have to start making sense.

The national debt now stands at $10.6 trillion and the federal government needs to borrow at least $1 trillion a year to keep the country in business. What's the Treasury Department going to come up with that kind of cash? Maybe Hank Paulson was on to something when he delivered a press conference this morning and positioned himself next to a gleaming bottle of refreshing Dasani water. Now Barack Obama just needs to tap a marketing guru and cut a few high-profile endorsement deals. The giant image if the Geico gekko on the side of the White House won't be pretty, but at least you'll have a job to go to tomorrow!

Have you heard the one about the Disney Channel star in a nude-photo scandal? No, not that one. Or that one. But rather Adrienne Bailon, the co-star of Disney's series Cheetah Girls and, before last weekend, among the network's last remaining female talent not to have half-naked pictures of herself circulating online. Good thing she has a friend in the crisis-publicity racket, right? Alas, she has neither a crisis nor a friend if her mercenary flack-turned-famewhore gossip Jonathan Jaxson's stunningly dumb TV mea culpa is any indication.We'll get to the details in a bit, but we know what you're probably thinking: Who? But even if Bailon's name escapes you, Jonathan Jaxson is likely enough of a gossip-culture parasite to leave a mark: The 25-year-old former publicist for the Backstreet Boys is the same freak who last year solicited Perez Hilton's aid in boosting the profile of his upstart blog, JJ's Dirt. And by "solicited," we mean "offered to whore himself out for a private Perez sex tape in exchange for interviews and other [ahem] resources." When both the sex tape and Perez's help failed to materialize, Jaxson fed their IM chats to Page Six and eventually published the blogger's phone number on JJ's Dirt.

"The dollar isn't doing so well," says a general who demands to be paid in euros near the end of the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. The violent follow-up to Casino Royale is the first action film of the recession, and one of the film's shadowy villains is America, whose place in the film is corrupt enabler at best, and malevolent evil at worst. The fast and fabulous Solace has already satisfied audiences overseas, but with its North American premiere this Friday, we're about to find out if audiences here are ready to root against America.In Marc Forster's follow-up to Casino Royale (the new film picks up an hour after the first one ended), death is given no particular extravagance - from when you wake up, wherever you wake up, it's a straight line to the grave, and Bond leaves them where they die in his arms. The muscled bullet of a secret agent tracks the movements of the shadowy Quantum organization, with help and harm from his American friends along the way.

Singer Katy Perry is at best a pretty pop princess in retro riot grrl makeup and at worst an enemy of the gay civil rights movement. Her song "I Kissed a Girl" is a paean to girls getting drunk and sucking mug with other girls while their boyfriends watch. I don't want to sound uppity, but it's kind of a shitty song with a shitty message—that cutesy fake homosexuality is silly fun and good for attracting boys. So it pisses me off a bit that she's on the cover of Out magazine's "Out 100" issue this month. Why is this tittering dykesploitationist worthy of gay hero status? Sure, OK, Out isn't exactly the arbiter of gay culture it sometimes seems to fancy itself, but still! The bulk of the little bit on Perry is pretty praising (though they do at least mention the fact that some gay activists aren't happy with the song or Ms. Perry—who also has a song called "Ur So Gay" about a po-mo/homo ex-boyfriend who like, drinks wine and drives a hybrid) and that, I think, is pretty embarrassing for the magazine. Harmless fun is only fun when it's, well, harmless. This kind of co-opting of a hard-fought cause does, I suspect, do some damage. Both of her geigh-themed ditties are kind of "jokes" in that way where they actually aren't jokes at all but the problem is that people who are smart enough to "get" "it" (common idiots, out of work chimps) are also smart enough to, you know, not like her music. It's her impressionable teeny bop fan girls who I worry about. I worry, frankly, that when they are of age... they will go wild.

Punch in your zip code and SitorSquat.com will show you all the public restrooms in your immediate vicinity. And, yes, the site offers an iPhone app, so you can take advantage of the service when you're walking down Broadway and your bladder is about to explode. [SitorSquat via Buzzfeed]

Social media has undoubtedly democratized the Internet. But is this information free-for-all putting PR on the endangered industries list? To find out why not even social media will be able kill PR, head to the Horn Group Offices. Tonight, AllThingsD's Kara Swisher and some PR types debate why controlling the channels of communications may be more important than ever. Cocktails start at 4:30 p.m.; the panel starts at 5:30 p.m. For those of you who are over Web 2.0, see what's next. Eric Rodenbeck, founder and creative director of Stamen Design will be discussing the evolution of the Internet at the Commonwealth Club at 6 p.m. If your hump-day happy hour can't start early enough, LinkedIn is sponsoring another networking event downtown. Hobnob with other professionals at the Wine Bar SF from 12-1:30 p.m. (Photo by Brian Solis)

The identity of the Paula Abdul obsessive found dead in a car outside Abdul's home last night has been revealed to be Paula Goodspeed, who Idol-watchers might recall as being the contestant who showed off a portfolio of "life-sized Paula drawings" and miscellaneous Paulapernalia. (Video after the jump.) She was then led before a judging tribunal that included her hero—certainly not an easy feat—before launching into a brain-scrambling rendition of "Proud Mary" that elicited predictable humiliation from Simon Cowell over "all the metal in her mouth." Following that was a disturbing interview (editors underscored it with a horror movie soundtrack) in which Goodspeed pledges that, "It's not over. I'm not just going to step singing just because you don't like my voice."

Remember Fred Tanne, the lawyer who sued his estranged wife (along with her alleged lover and father) for giving him herpes? Bad news: The STD test results are in and it turns out that Fred and Amy (left) do, indeed, have herpes. The problem is that they don't have the same type of herpes, which means Fred didn't contract it from his wife. Awkward day at the offices of Kirkland & Ellis! [Above the Law]