Uma Thurman and Arki Busson kissing on a park bench ... Vera Wang standing outside Harry Cipriani on Fifth Avenue and 59th Street ... Whitney Port walking downtown ... Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez having dinner at Nobu 57 ... Sarah Jessica Parker walking son James to school ... Ashley Judd getting out of an SUV in Midtown ... Ashlee Simpson getting out of a cab ... Kristen Bell arriving at Good Morning America in Times Square ... Blake Lively and Penn Badgley standing on the set of Gossip Girl ... singer Charlotte Gainsbourg shopping in SoHo ... and the kids from Jersey Shore partying at Greenhouse.

• The Fairchild at 55 Vestry Street, the newly-opened Tribeca building where James Gandolfini has purchased an apartment (and which Jessica Alba and Adriana Lima have toured recently) has a notable real estate exec to add to its list of new buyers. CB Richard Ellis chairman Stephen Siegel is reportedly buying a two-bedroom in the building for for $1.75 million. [NYO]
• Sanjay Swani, a partner at the private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, and his wife Preeti, have sold their five-bedroom apartment at 33 East End Avenue for $3.2 million. [Cityfile]

Goldman Sachs, the investment bank that you helped rescue back in the fall of 2008, is getting ready to hand out billions in bonuses. But it's a little concerned that you might be annoyed when you hear how much money the firm is shelling out:

• The first photos of Tiger Woods at Mississippi sex rehab facility he's been staying at have arrived. He's wearing a hoodie, baseball cap, and pair of shorts in the pics. And he has a not-so-happy expression on his face, which is probably how you'd respond, too, if you were in sex rehab and you walked out of your front door to find a National Enquirer photographer lying in wait. [NE]
• Will today be the day Conan finally settles with NBC? Quite possibly. [NYDN]
• Several of Lindsay Lohan's friends think she may be cutting herself (again) after she showed up at a pre-Golden Globes party with a fresh scar on her arm. In other LiLo news, she was spotted making out with a random French actor the other night, in case that news is of any interest you. [NYDN, TMZ]
• Are you ready to bid adieu to the charming cast of cable TV's classiest new reality show? Yes, the finale of Jersey Shore airs on MTV tomorrow night. But it will be followed by a one-hour reunion special and producers are already hard at work on prequel called "Before the Shore," so rest assured you'll be seeing plenty of the Shore crew in the months ahead. [NYP]
• Just in time for the new season of Real Housewives of New York City, Kelly Killoren Bensimon has agreed to appear in the March issue of Playboy. The 41-year-old mother of two will appear on the cover. But there will also be six-page "nude pictorial"—shot by Kelly's ex-husband Gilles Bensimon—inside the magazine as well, you'll undoubtedly be thrilled to hear. [Us, P6]

Director David Lynch turns 64 today. Rainn Wilson of The Office is turning 44. Comedian Bill Maher turns 54. Editor and TV pundit Fareed Zakaria is 46. Georgina Bloomberg, the younger of Mayor Bloomberg's two daughters, is turning 27. Embattled real estate developer Kent Swig is 49. Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin turns 80. Melissa Rivers, the daughter of Joan Rivers, is 42. Actor Skeet Ulrich is 40. James Denton of Desperate Housewives is turning 47. And Lorenzo Lamas celebrates his 52nd birthday today.

• How did the Tavern on the Green auction turn out last week? It could have gone better. The sale brought in a total of $3.5 million, which is considerably less than the $8 million the restaurant owes its creditors. [NYO, GS]
• Tom Colicchio's Craftsteak replacement, Colicchio & Sons, opened its doors last night. And here are a few other openings planned for this week and next.
• More on the plan to open a Shake Shack on E. 86th St. later this year. [NYT]
• Starbucks has raised its prices, just so you're aware. [NYP, BC]
• You may not want to read this if you're a fan of NYC tap water. [Gothamist]
• Waverly Inn diners "sat in awe" when Oprah stopped by on Sunday. [P6]

[January 18. Photo via Flickr]

• Negotiations between Conan O'Brien and NBC didn't wrap up today, as expected. Conan is holding out for more severance for the employees who will lose their jobs. Or "posturing" as part of a "PR ploy," to use NBC's words. [NYT]
• Related: Conan has a big lineup planned for the rest of the week, which will be his last. And NBC's Jeff Zucker played defense with Charlie Rose last night.
• Larry King's celebrity telethon for Haiti last night raised $9 million. [Us]
• Speaking of Haiti, do there really need to be hundreds upon hundreds of reporters on the ground covering the disaster from every angle and also gobbling up very precious resources in the process? Good question. [TNR]
• Rumor has it the Times is going to begin charging for online content soon. The plan comes with some pros and cons, as you might expect. [AdAge, PC]
• Apple will probably unveil its tablet computer on Jan. 27. [WP, ZDNet]
• Related: HarperCollins is in talks to put its books on the tablet. [WSJ]
• It's been a full year since Glenn Beck started spewing on Fox News. [HP]
• Obits: Mystery writer Robert Parker died yesterday. Kate McGarrigle, the Canadian folk singer and mother of Rufus Wainwright, has died, too.

Bill Gates joined Twitter today and is now conversing back and forth with Ryan Seacrest, you'll be very happy to hear. [Twitter]

Drugmakers are busy looking for a cure for female sexual dysfunction. Where will this "quest for a female Viagra" eventually lead? A few of the exciting options that may (or may not) be available to you in a few years:

If you're looking to get caught up on the late-night chaos at NBC and you're fluent in Chinese, the Taiwanese production company that produced that very amusing Tiger Woods animation a few weeks ago has a new masterpiece. Conan and Jay morph into superheros about halfway through, which is sort of weird. And Jeff Zucker's animated likeness is about forty pounds lighter. But that's probably because the video shows the NBC CEO personally dragging Conan's set off The Tonight Show stage and replacing it with Jay Leno's set-up. The video is below.

Students at NYU Law couldn't come up with the cash to have Snooki from MTV's Jersey Shore make an appearance last week. But either undergrads at Yale have more of their parents' money to blow or they're simply more determined because they have two Jersey Shore cast members booked between now and the weekend. (Vinny will be there on Thursday; Snooki is scheduled to make an appearance this weekend.) "Will Snooki find love and existential fulfillment at Yale? Will she find a New Poughkeepsie in New Haven?" Maybe not, but the $10K she'll walk away with should be reward enough. [IvyGate, previously]

Joe Halderman, the man accused of attempting to blackmail David Letterman, won't be getting off thanks to Tiger Woods. A judge put the kibosh on a motion by Halderman's lawyer, Gerald Shargel, who'd argued that if Woods' mistresses had sought a payoff to keep quiet and they hadn't been prosecuted, Halderman should be free to do so, too. [NYDN]

The problems appear to be piling up for John Utendahl, the banker best known for being the longtime boyfriend of Tyra Banks. Last Monday, the Post reported that the financial firm he founded, Utendahl Capital Management, had been forced to lay off staff, possibly because of the downturn in the economy. An exec at the firm denied the report, characterizing it as "malicious claims made by a former disgruntled employee." But new problems for Utendahl surfaced just a few days later.

New York Times chairman and publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. doing a little shopping at the Duane Reade on West 72nd Street on Saturday afternoon ... Rachel Weisz walking to a yoga class in SoHo ... Scarlett Johansson leaving her apartment ... Agyness Deyn talking on her cell phone ... Whitney Port arriving at JFK with a friend ... Taylor Momsen shooting scenes for Gossip Girl with Connor Paolo on the Upper East Side ... Denzel Washington arriving at the Late Show with David Letterman ... Mischa Barton on the set of Law & Order: SVU ... Catherine Zeta-Jones leaving her apartment to go shopping ... Ashlee Simpson leaving her apartment ... and Pete Wentz carrying coffee in the East Village.

Potential Senate candidate Harold Ford looked a little out of touch last week when he recounted his typical mode of transporation (a chauffered Town Car), usual breakfast spot (the Regency), favorite "hangout" (Graydon Carter's Waverly Inn), and namedropped some of the people he considers his close friends (like billionaire Ron Perelman).

• Guy Wildenstein has finally unloaded his fourth-floor apartment at the Plaza, albeit for a quite a bit less than the $21.5 million he paid for it in 2008. The art mogul first put the "Frank Lloyd Wright suite" on the market in November 2008 for $25.7 million and gradually dropped the price to $18 million in June 2009. Now comes word that the apartment has sold for $13 million to an entity identified in property records as Hudson-Plaza Realty LLC. [Curbed]
• Dorris Carr Bonfigli, the uptown hostess and Bernie Madoff victim, has dropped the price of her penthouse at 930 Fifth Avenue once again. The elaborate two-bedroom, three-bath co-op, which Bonfigli first listed in December 2008 for $11.3 million, has gone down in price five times since then, and is now listed for $8.75 million. [Cityfile, Corcoran]
• John Geary III, the son of socialite Hilary Geary Ross and stepson of billionaire Wilbur Ross, and his wife Medora have paid $2.7 million for a three-bedroom co-op at 520 East 86th Street. [Cityfile]

Citigroup reported a $7.6 billion fourth-quarter loss this morning, much of it related to the bank's decision last month to exit the government bailout program and repay the $20 billion it still owed Washington. But don't think of it as bad news. Things are actually looking up! Not only is a big improvement from 2008 when the bank racked up $27.7 billion in losses, but Citi CEO chief Vikram Pandit said in a statement that "he believed the house of Citigroup was finally in order." Count on "sustainable profitability," continued "growth," and—if he's lucky—and fancy office redecoration for Pandit the year ahead! [NYT]

Country music legend/plastic doll Dolly Parton turns 64 today. Chef and TV personality Paula Deen is turning 63. Drea de Matteo (The Sopranos) is 38. Katey Sagal (Married with Children) is 56. Investigative TV journalist Martin Bashir is turning 47. Investing legend Peter Lynch turns 66. Photographer Cindy Sherman is turning 56. Eric Mangini, the former coach of the Jets, is 39. Former Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy is 48. Comedian Shawn Wayans turns 39. Former Full House cast member Jodie Sweetin is turning 28. And Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson celebrates her 18th birthday today.

[January 14. Photo via Flickr]