Aside from winning the award for Our Favoritest Graphic Ever, TheStreet.com does some solid analysis on the career of Donald Trump's newly-captured bride, Melania Knauss and the "title inflation" effect:

Hurlyburly, Scott Elliott, director!

Thanks to the support of this week's sponsors, we're all experiencing the joys of open-mouth kissing. Interested in joining our make-out party? Info here.

Now that we've cleared up who's in the running for the 2004 Academy Awards, let's turn our attention to a clear contender for 2005, Alone in the Dark, starring Tara Reid and Christian Slater. The reviews are stunning!

· Poor Rick Salomon: you'd think after his stunning directorial debut starring Paris Hilton, he'd get more respect at Sundance. Alas, the man with the nightvision cam couldn't score some freebies. [Lowdown]
· Is there any image more heartwarming than that of Liza Minnelli singing cabaret tunes for other patients during her recent stay at a psych ward? [Page Six]
· Angelina Jolie gave Brad Pitt a vial of dried bat. Love is intense, people, so don't judge. [R&M (3rd item)]
· Portia de Rossi buys a Tiffany's platinum engagement band for her lover, Ellen DeGeneres. This follows her last gift, a vintage Porsche. Good to know that lesbian love can be bought. [Page Six]

Do they give Oscars for videos of women getting bikini waxes?

Yesterday's Post explored the influx of high heels and weekend bridge-and-tunnelers to the Lower East Side social scene, a patronage shift signaling the sort of gentrification that would send the cool kids running to Astoria. But hipsters need not fear for the fate of their beloved neighborhood, as it sadly still has plenty of street cred to spare. Last night, after an evening of revelry at hipster ground zero Max Fish, 28 year-old Nicole duFresne, of Greenpoint, was shot to death in a botched robbery attempt, near the intersection of Clinton and Rivington. Now, we know the Post implied that this neighborhood was "already over," but, last time we checked, armed robbery and murder kept things "edgy."

Like moths to the flame, it's that time of the year when The Gays flock to Rio de Janeiro for Carnivale. But Rio isn't just about ass-fucking! There are, of course, plenty of potential underwear models to be found, which we're sure is why designer Calvin Klein was spotted scouting the local talent at the Cabo Folia party.
Calvin On The Hunt [Made In Brazil]
Related: Not-So-Blind Blind Item Fun

· HotelChatter interviews the doormen at Schrager's trendier-than-thou Hudson Hotel and, while they're happy to help you find porn and cigarettes, they draw the line at fetching your nose candy. [HotelChatter]
· Because there's no way you're getting your sweetheart a Valentine's Day table at Masa this late in the game, you might as well get her a teddy bear that says, "Shit Bitch You Is Fine." [ShitBitchBear]
· We're hearing that Tara Reid's premiere party for Alone In The Dark, held at Quo, had a media blackout. Hmm, wonder why?
· All of you ambitious design kids looking to get a foot in the door should be flocking to this unnamed Brooklyn boutique, where interns are "unpaid, but sometimes we will buy you coffee." [Craigslist]
· Houston mayor Bill White keeps the censorship torch alive, ordering that Jenna Jameson's autobiography, How To Make Love Like A Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale, be removed from public library shelves. [Houston Chronicle]
· San Francisco and Los Angeles restaurant Luna Park announces its impending presence on the Lower East Side; rumors swirl of rail-blowing at the West Coast locations. [ToTC]

· A good movie about a guy who made movies so fucking bad they were downright amazing: The Onion presents Tim Burton's "Ed Wood" tonight at Anthology Film Archives. [AFA]
· Travis Sullivan's Bjorkestra (get it?) performs 18-piece big band renditions of the songs of everyone's favorite Icelandic nutjob. The Knitting Factory's blurb also notes that memebers of Bjorkestra have performed with the likes of Jessica Simpson, though we're not exactly sure how this is a selling point. [flavorpill]
· Today's public service announcement: did you have tickets for tonight's sold-out Death From Above 1979 show at Mercury Lounge? Too bad—they cancelled. You can still go check out the three opening acts, though we can't claim to have heard of 'em. [Mercury Lounge]

The LAW's James Verini gets to the bottom of the now-notorious e-mail (which you can read after the jump) that circulated a couple of weeks ago about a birthday party at Cynthia's on Third St. which was marred by the eponymous proprietor's expletive-filled response to a request for a new lamb dish. (The phrases "asshole," "fucking cow" and "tyrannical cunt" figured prominently.) And what's the lesson we can all take from this incident? Treating your customers like shit (you know, allegedly) is good for business:

American Apparel founder and chronic masturbator Dov Charney does his best to disgust you by appearing in the latest American Apparel ad, featured on the inside cover of girly-porn magazine Sweet Action. Because, you know, scarring the customer for life is a solid marketing technique.

We know your collective memory doesn't last longer than about 9 days, but it's been over a month since beloved hawk Pale Male was ousted from his roost at 924 Fifth Avenue by a co-op board that didn't like dealing with his birdie poo-poo. Since then, the co-op board has begrudgingly agreed to reconstruct some version the overhang where Pale Male once lived and local activists are celebrating justice. Unsolicited Gawker Correspondent Amanda Tree writes us with the latest:

Sightings are sent in by readers; send yours to tips@gawker.com.

We recently checked out our old pal Awful Plastic Surgery and noticed that she's had some work done. Nothing drastic, just a little augmentation:

Now that Jonathan Cheban—the man who does, um, we dunno what—has been banned from VH1 for disrespecting talking-heads standards, we're a little worried. Sure, we like to poke fun at Jonny, but maybe it's gone too far? A sensitive soul points out the serious side of things:

· Paparazzi, beware: Paris Hilton has adopted a rottweiler. We can't wait to see what sort of purse she shoves this one into. [R&M (2nd item)]
· With hours of time on her hands, Martha Stewart has taken up country line-dancing lessons during her prison stint. Is Martha a closeted cowgirl, or can we expect a Boot Scoot Boogie guide in Martha Stewart Living? [Page Six]
· Anna Benson, the horny wife of Mets pitcher Kris Benson, pitches a fit at a Sundance party when she's denied a VIP table. For some odd reason, the woman has an agent, who happened to be on hand for this instance of crisis management. [Lowdown (2nd item)]
· In perhaps the most ill-fated romantic pairing of the week, rehabbed supermodel Kate Moss is reportedly seeing Pete Doherty, the ex-Libertine rocker with a $1500-a-day crack and heroin habit. [Page Six]

In an unabashed ploy for pity, Tara Reid bares the sober side of her soul to the Post:

We mentioned yesterday that Star Jones went on a one-day strike to protest ABC's careful editing of her appearance on tonight's InStyle Celebrity Weddings special, in which she attempted to promote the names of all the people who worked on her wedding. Not being too keen on the fine American art of payback plugs, ABC removed all of Star's shameless shilling from the show's final cut. The special airs tonight and, as Star and her newly-captured husband Al Reynolds are still featured, we expect some new developments in our Race From The Altar. Judging from the ABC image gallery of stills from tonight's show, it seems that someone is eager to do some damage control: in five pages of images, Star and Al appear...not once. Uh-huh.
Photo Search: InStyle Celebrity Weddings [ABC MediaNet]

A cryptic event from today's AP day schedule: