It's beginning to feel a lot like the holiday season, and that makes us think of Christmas lists and elves, and that in turn makes us think of lists and gays, bringing us, finally, to this AfterElton list of The Top 25 Gay TV Characters, as chosen by their readers. We assume all the entries had to be out—explaining the absence of such light-footed small screen luminaries as Bewitched's Uncle Arthur and Knight Rider's KITT—and for highlighting we choose #23, Soap's Jodie Dallas.

Unlike pal George Clooney, who steps out onto his front porch each morning and sings a love song to Hollywood with the chorus of bluebirds who've alighted upon his outstretched arms, a gloomy, world-weary Brad Pitt seems to be waiting around for someone to tell him his time is up: "I figure I've got very few films left. Who knows how many I'll get to do now, so I want to do something I'm interested in. Otherwise, I don't want to bother. I think it's a younger person's game." And oh yeah: no more nude scenes, because he doesn't want to be sitting on the couch with Maddox and Pax years from now, having to sheepishly explain why daddy thought that having his ass exposed or wang hanging out was "essential to the character" when one of his movies turns up on HBO. [People]

Putting his finger on a vague something that's been missing from this holiday season, a San Francisco Chronicle writer realizes that it's a lack of rumors about the imminent release of Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy that's bugging him, then provides a timeline of all the times that Axl Rose, like a creatively blocked Grinch in a kilt and catcher's chest protector, has let the world down since 1999:
"May 11, 2001: The New York Daily News quotes an "insider," who says the album is basically done. "The album has been finished to everybody else's satisfaction for over a year now," the source says. "But Axl keeps going back to remix it and add vocals." [SFGate.com]

Carrot Top, the real-world Batman villain created when a mild-mannered comic fell into a vat of radioactive toxic sewage at the Acme Oversized Props factory, was captured coming out of Fred Segal yesterday by TMZ cameras. They caught him again later that night with a massively bemeloned woman on his arm, providing onlookers a bounty of huge produce the likes of which one can typically only find at a Blue Ribbon presentation ceremony of the County Fair.

· Music round-up: Tom "The Nightwatchman" Morello at Hotel Cafe; The Hedrons at Spaceland; The Rolling Blackouts at Silverlake Lounge.
· Sarah Silverman and the cast of her Comedy Central show (Brian Posehn, Steve Agee, Jay Johnston, and sister Laura) are doing an uncensored comedy benefit for the Arava Institute of Environmental Studies at the USC Bovard Auditorium. And just to sweeten the pot (theoretically), Roseanne Barr is scheduled to make a guest appearance.
· At Book Soup, fllmmaker/photographer Sam Jones signs The Here and Now, a collection of his award-winning photography.

As Sex and Breakfast star Eliza Dushku is now discovering, the problem with taking a role in a movie about group sex is that you then must spend all of your time explaining to reporters that you are just playing a horny character who's exploring the multiway-fucking boundaries of her sexuality, and not necessarily an orgy enthusiast yourself. [LAT]

Increasingly emboldened lovebirds Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon have reportedly taken to their skies with their primal lovemaking, occupying a first class Lufthansa bathroom for 11 minutes, according to Star magazine, before emerging separately, their skin luminescent with just the slightest coating of moist, mile-high afterglow. [showbizspy.com]

In a possible sign that onetime international superstar Tom Cruise's unnervingly sunny smile might finally be thawing the frosty hearts of a Scientology-suspicious German society that has callously refused his generous offer to build a 50-foot-tall statue of L. Ron Hubbard in the center of Berlin, the actor was today presented with a prestigious Bambi "Courage" award, a recognition our cursory internet research reveals may be one the highest honors handed out by Teutonic publishing concern Hubert Burda Media.

As part of our ongoing commitment at Defamer to bring our readers as many balls as possible, we follow up Tuesday's offering of Project Runway contestant Jack Mackenroth's Bobbsey Twins with a link to this handsome photo-suite of Jackass star Steve O getting into the Family Jewels premiere spirit by baring his own on the red carpet.

Last night's first-of-its-kind Project Runway challenge required the remaining contestants to design a menswear outfit for Atiim Kiambu Hakeem-ah "Tiki" Barber, former Giants running back and now a Today Show co-anchor. It posed several logistical problems: For one, most of the designers had no experience making clothes for men, resulting in some of the most ill-fitting runway atrocities in the show's history, and prompting judge Michael Kors to liken at least one outfit to "something the Elephant Man might have worn to the 1963 Kentucky Derby as Truman Capote's date!"

• The Hills with James Franco and Mila Kunis [Funny or Die]

· Sports-specialist writer/director Ron "Bull Durham/Tin Cup/Cobb" Shelton will helm a movie about steroid-enhanced home run king Barry Bonds based on the book Game of Shadows for HBO Films, a cinematic journey through Bond's clear-and-cream-lubricated pursuit of Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron that Shelton and his writing partner plan to undertake after the conclusion of the writers strike. [Variety]
· The heads of some media conglomerates are trying not to ruin their relationships with the writers they'll one day have to collaborate with by biting their tongues during the strike, resisting the tantalizing impulse to publicly brand them as "greedy residual monkeys" whenever contacted for comment about the ongoing labor dispute. [THR]

Most of us don't have the financial backing of a network for our reality TV ventures, who can lavish millions upon a production in order to realize a dream that begins with the singular, inspired vision of a 400-lb. women demanding to know of a contestant hooked up to a lie-detector if fat people disgust them. Still, a strong enough project can sell itself on its premise alone, which is clearly what Morusa Media, producers of the "independently distributed" reality show dating sensation Who Wants to Marry a U.S. Citizen?, are counting upon in order to take their (not particularly original) concept to the next level.

Breaking! 1991 L.A. riot inspiration and everyone-getting-along icon Rodney King has been shot! Well, if you consider being strafed with pellet-gun fire while riding a bike "being shot": "King was riding his back home to Rialto late Wednesday when someone fired on him with a pellet gun. King made it home and called police, said Rialto police Sgt. Don Lewis. King suffered minor injuries to his face, back and upper torso, according to police description." [LAT]

Music producer/aspiring Britney Spears babydaddy J.R. Rotem is learning an important lesson about how technology is changing the world of tabloid gossip, courtesy of his once-close friends at InTouch.

The receptionists at Century Spa in Koreatown are still giddy over a recent visit paid by John Travolta, whose presence can be verified by fellow shvitzing patrons, the guys from L.A. Rag Mag. What to make of this beyond the fact that Century offers some of the best spa services in the city at the most reasonable prices? Why, we're certain we have no idea! [laragmag.com]

Even though Tara Reid's once-promising acting career has stalled of late (sadly, her critically embraced turn as a brainy anthropologist in Alone in the Dark was so long ago that she's starting to slide off every low-budget casting director's short list for busty-genius roles), her savvy decision to fully exploit her world-famous Taradise brand keeps her working, especially during the end-of-year party season, when her mistress-of-tequila-soaked-ceremonies services are in heavy demand.

Just a day after Star magazine exposed the chilling truth about the sex-dungeon in Britney Spears's Mulholland Dr. mansion, based off of blueprints the singer scribbled on a McDonald's placemat painstakingly plotting the placement of every pommel horse and industrial-sized lube-dispenser, Us Weekly now reports that the singer invaded the Hustler store for a lacy-underthings spree that resulted in a possibly criminal act of petty, mannequin-de-wigging larceny:

Enlisting Christina Applegate to fill the role of the wife he said didn't want any part of his boredom-induced video project, Samantha Who? writer Bob Kushell tries to provide a handy survival guide for couples whom the strike has forced to spend way too much quality time together. We imagine there are many such spouses pining for the days when their partners were locked in the writers room for 15 hours a day, way too busy to stick camcorders in their faces. [YouTube]

We've made no secret of our love for Hollywood power lists, as hierarchical inventories of which players are currently swinging the biggest dicks (and that doesn't exclude the ladies who occasionally creep into the rankings!) in the entertainment industry briefly bring order to an otherwise confusing show-business world. In a twist that threatens to redefine everything we thought we knew about putting numbers next to famous names, the iconoclasts at EW have decided to substitute "smart" for the vanilla, outdated notion of "power," a decision that has catapulted burgeoning comedy monopolist Judd Apatow from an already-impressive #13 on Premiere's old-timey 2007 index to the top spot in Hollywood's New Smart Order.