If you're the average superstar, surrounding yourself with a dream-team of handlers is probably the single most important decision you'll make: Any weak link in the commission-claiming chain can result in the kinds of career missteps that result in disastrous tumbles down the Hollywood food chain, where you'll soon find yourself groveling for any elephant-voicing breadcrumbs the studios are still willing to toss your way. (Needless to say, with plenty of strings attached). Vince Vaughn knows this all too well, and he's reportedly disposed of his entire team in one phoned-in management massacre. From the Deadline Hollywood Daily exclusive:

We know that we're only eight years into the Aughts, but we're pretty sure that Joe Simpson has got the Worst Father Of The Decade Award wrapped up. Ever since the sinister minister took the reigns of boobalicious daughter Jessica's "career" (which was like, on her 2nd birthday), he's managed to turn his dingbat cupcake into an oh-no-she-didn't laughingstock (ChickenOrFishGate 2004, anyone?), a divorcee at 25, and a has-been in the music industry. Oh, and then there's the rousing success story that was Blonde Ambition (still stuck at $6,422). The latest double-whack Joe's served to Jess include setting her up on a doomed-from-the-start fiasco of a relationship with Cowboys QB Tony Romo, who's since dumped her admittedly fine ass, and now, turning against the always Simpsons-friendly OK Magazine by (yes, really) handing them a "strongly worded letter" demanding a retraction.

Sandra Soroka, the New York videoblogger who dumped her boyfriend through her Facebook status message may not have had her Flickr account hacked by outraged Digg users, as we previously reported. Some now suggest she staged the hack, hoping it would stem the tide of invective flooding her Facebook inbox, according to Underwire. "You can't write anything because I'm not saying anything," Soroka told fellow videoblogger Sarah Meyers, who reported Soroka was closing all her online accounts. Doesn't look like that worked, hmm?

Vimeo founder and recent firee Jakob Lodwick and his girlfriend, Star Editor at Large Julia Allison, have decided to end their shared website venture. "I don't enjoy the attention anymore. Don't misunderstand that: I love attention when it is earned. I love celebrity that sits atop compelling achievement," Jakob writes. Julia pointed out that Jakob refused to come with her to a meeting with Sequoia Capital, "one of—if not THE—biggest venture capital firms in Silicon Valley." Then she pointed out that "This was YOUR idea in the first place." She wrote: "I think it's really sad. I think you're really sad." She was addressing Jakob, but she might as well have been talking to you, or to me.

Can't a girl publicly humiliate her boyfriend by dumping him via her Facebook status message anymore without getting harrassed by a horde of social news readers? Nope. New York videoblogger Sandra Soroka tried to get away with it. The image above got over 1,600 votes on Digg. Somewhere along the way, somebody decided to exact revenge on poor Sandra, deleting all her photos on Flickr and replacing them with this one. And it's absolutely grotesque. Click, only if you dare.

Yahoo president Sue Decker isn't the only Valley executive with a troubled marriage. Commenters are still talking about our report three weeks ago that Google sales chief Omid Kordestani's relationship with his wife, Bita Daryabari, was on the rocks. Rumors are flying: One commenter says Gisel Hiscock, the New York-based Google finance executive with whom Kordestani's been carrying on an affair, is moving to Mountain View to be closer to Kordestani. Others contend that Kordestani and Daryabari are reconciling, and that he hasn't even moved out. My question: Why are so many people outside this marriage emotionally invested in it? Kordestani is hailed as a hero inside the Googleplex for building Google's multibillion-dollar advertising business from scratch. Daryabari is active in politics and philanthropy. Still, that doesn't seem to explain the obsessive level of interest in this heretofore obscure couple.

Affairs of the heart are never easy for outsiders to understand. But when they stray into the office, they, alas, become everyone's business. Which is why we asked, a while back, which Googler had put his marriage at risk over an affair with a coworker. As commenter notelling correctly guessed after we ran a blind item, it's Omid Kordestani, Google's top sales executive. Kordestani's no mere sales guy, however. For one, he's worth $2.2 billion, thanks to his Google shares. And inside the Googleplex, he's referred to as the company's "business founder," responsible for the fabulously successful money machine that is AdWords. With his stunningly beautiful and intelligent wife, Bita, shown above to the left, Kordestani might seem to have it all. But all was not enough.

Is Yahoo due for a breakup? Of course not. A recent report by Sanford Bernstein, a Wall Street research firm, has sent the stock sailing, but in practice, it's a silly idea. How one would actually separate the display-advertising business (worth $25 billion!) from the search business ($15.6 billion) seems questionable, and selling off Yahoo's stakes in Yahoo Japan and Alibaba would mean shutting the company out of Asia's largest markets. Besides, we think Bernstein's analysis undervalues some of Yahoo's assets.

Having finished the fight to bring out hot new shoot-'em-up videogame Halo 3, and in the process helping Microsoft rake in $300 million in sales, Bungie has, as rumored, reclaimed its independence from Microsoft, which acquired the studio in 2000. As part of the deal, Microsoft is holding onto a small equity stake and will continue to churn out Halo titles with the aid of Bungie. Meanwhile, the studio will be free to develop new titles and publish games with Microsoft Games Studio — so there's really no need to overreact. Sure, Bungie put Microsoft's Xbox videogame console on the map — but as the Xbox morphs into a set-top box for the living room, bringing Internet music and video downloads straight to your flat-screen TV, it's not clear that hot videogame titles are what's going to drive sales in the future.

Videogame enthusiasts are freaking out over rumors that Halo's proud papa, Bungie, is disentangling itself from Microsoft. But would it matter? Losing a franchise that put the Xbox console on the map and recently sold $170 million its first day would be devastating for a Microsoft division still fighting to operate in the black. But if the two seperate, Bungie would walk away with its independence while Microsoft would walk off arm and arm with Master Chief, since it owns the rights to the Halo franchise. It could find another studio to pump out sequels. As with movie studios, the videogame-playing public pays attention to individual games, not the developers who make them.

"Every woman in the history of the world, at one point or another, has voiced complaints to the man she's seeing—and it is our collective fantasy (something which almost always remains a fantasy) that said man actually listen to our complaints, take time to reflect upon them, and then—holy crap—maybe... evolve ?!?! This is one of those (tragically rare) instances, and all I have to say is, if every guy so freely admitted his mistakes, no one would get any work done. They'd all be busy having incredibly hot makeup sex," wrote Star editor-at-large Julia Allison about her on and off boyfriend, College Humor millionaire Jakob Lodwick. Guess he got tested for STDs after all! But what was the gallant gesture that finally got Jakob into Julia's good graces and panties? How, exactly, did he evolve?

My friend Alice likes to say that we're living in the Too Much Information Age, and you don't have to look further than any breakup between any two people who both have blogs to understand what she means by that. And if those two people are both Internet-created pseudocelebrities, you have the voyeuristically fascinating, oddly revelatory theme park of narcissism that is the Julia Allison—Jakob Lodwick breakup.

By the time you read these words, Lindsay Lohan will already be back in rehab, but allow us to rewind a bit. At this morning's press conference at the Santa Monica Police Department following the DUI arrest, an intriguing wrinkle to the usual "troubled starlet gets drunk and coked up, then initiates a high speed chase" story was revealed: The panicked driver of the SUV being pursued by the actress was the mother of Lohan's personal assistant, whose resignation earlier in the evening seems to have precipitated the events that you will be reading about all day long. Reports the LAT:

Certainly, it will be hard to beat the crazymaking fun of the Bartha blowup, but in terms of strange documentary effluvia leaking out of a long-dead relationship, it's not this week's only gift. For this week marks the civil case in Manhattan Supreme Court involving Wall Street Journal columnist (and conservative TV commentator) John Fund. The short version has Fund engaging in ugly-bumping with Morgan Pillsbury, the daughter of one of his previous erotic conquests, back in 1999. Since then it's been one long safari through Fund and Pillsbury's dirty laundry. Pillsbury accuses Fund of "physical and emotional abuse" and "blamed him for a traumatic abortion." Fund mildly retorts with charges of "stealing checks and making credit-card purchases in his name," and also "witness tampering" (do tell). Pillsbury fires right back, seeking a half-mil in damages — notably, she wants the "larvae" out of her freezer. That must have been a pretty traumatic gagortion indeed.

• Is Britney Spears' baby-daddy Kevin Federline putting the moves on Jessica Simpson? If so, good for him — a man has to move up the totem pole to survive. [Scoop]
• Lindsay Lohan and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. Yep, exactly what it says it is. Honestly, there's no end to this girl and who she'll take down with her. [Page Six]
• A federal court judge has ruled in favor of Kid Rock — and humanity — by blocking the sale of his sex tape with Scott Stapp. [R&M]
• Love in crisis: Rufus and Sally Albemarle reportedly split, Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston still in question. And this concludes the only thing these two couples will ever have in common. [Lowdown]
• Riverhead axes its two-book deal with Fake Writer James Frey. Yeah, ya think? [Page Six]

• It was an emotional week for all of us: Life & Style declared the death of TomKat. As we try to wrap our heads around the implications of such heartbreak, it's important to keep some historical perspective.
• Meanwhile, we were faced with Us Weekly's gut-wrenching claim that Jessica Simpson is a ho, having cheated on Nick Lachey with Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine. Star calls bullshit on the scoop, because it's only true if your magazine breaks it first.
• The evils of pop culture know no limit: Meet the sex tape from Kid Rock and Scott Stapp.
• Budget Living is going, going, and, sadly, gone.
• But, as there's no justice in this world, Shop, Etc. continues to thrive.
• We fall in love with faggy Olympic figure skater Johnny Weir, only to have him break our hearts.
• Time Inc. finally ends the bloodshed, but we've yet to get the names of layoff victims.
• The people have spoken: the Funny Pages are not funny, nor have they ever been.
• First JT Leroy; now, possibly, Pete Doherty. Are all our antiheroes just a skeezy mirage?

If it's true that Tom and Katie have in fact split — or that they're imminently set to do so, with plans to drag it out over a period for both PR reasons and gestation reasons — the question that remains for the a country of brokenhearted fans is, Who can we blame? One Gawker reader writes in with an excellent suggestion:

Now, we don't ever take Life & Style as gospel, but their just-posted story that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are splitting strikes us as a hell of a lot more likely than the usual celebrity weekly tripe. According to the latest issue, TomKat will keep up the charade through spring, living at Cruise's Beverly Hills compound until the baby is born, at which point they'll split. Cruise, always the gentleman, will buy Holmes a house nearby so that he can spend plenty of time with his little spawn and teach the baby all about Thetans and spaceshops. Or, of course, Katie could just have a miscarriage before the snow melts. That seems a bit more likely.

• Britney Spears might be a repeat offender when it comes to child neglect. Spears' other repeated offenses include releasing albums, wearing scrunchies, and humping K-Fed. [TMZ]
• Courtney Love reportedly has her shit together and was acting, yes, like a lady at the Chateau Marmont. Unfortunately, she's so reformed that we're not sure New York will ever get her back. Time to start auditioning replacements. [Page Six]
• Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban give one another cold, Aussie glares. [IOL]
• Jay-Z is reportedly at work at another album. No surprise there — everyone knows that when speaking Hova, "retirement" means "new record." [Page Six]
• Mario Batali's landlord thinks he's a orange-clogged pirate. [Lowdown]
• Ralph Fiennes ends his 11-year romance with Francesca Annis. 'Tis the season, after all. [R&M]

Friday's breakup of Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crow didn't just emotionally destroy Allure (Crow appeared on the February cover) — it seems to have resulted in bitter heartbreak for Redbook as well. Crow is the queen of their March issue, in which she proclaims, "Lance and I were and are just happy to be together."
Oh, sweet pea. No "are." You were happy to be together. Or maybe you weren't, all things considered.