Open a month if that, Thai Town's Auto Insurance (Hollywood at Western) is experiencing the same branding challenge faced former tenant Thai Town Express; namely, how to explain the gigantic, archaic, filthy hot dog parked on the roof's apex. In an unfortunate but altogether unsurprising move, Thai Town Express in turn left its own namesake attached to the façade upon departure, further thickening the soup of confusion. (Take that, new guy.)

And in other "sexually ambiguous pop geniuses who peaked in the 80s" news today, Prince sent C & D letters to three fansites— www.housequake.com, www.princefams.com and www.prince.org—ordering them to remove all lyrics and "anything linked to Prince's likeness" from their web pages. They vow to band together and fight back under the banner of internet freedom speech, decrying the action as "the equivalent of waking up Christmas morning to find Purple Santa has pooped on your cookie plate and filled his milk glass with urine." [Reuters]

Breaking! Horny TV doctors show support for striking writers! Says a tipster: "Cast of Grey's Anatomy outside protesting ABC Prospect Studios right now in their blue gowns. Heigl, Dempsey....they're all out there." Actually, we're told Dempsey isn't wearing his scrubs, a wardrobe failure that potentially could hamper a lovestruck picketer's ability to flesh out his or her fantasy of sneaking off with McDreamy for a quickie show of solidarity in the back of a temporarily unused production van.

Here's more from the new issue of Ebony featuring Teri Hatcher Michael Jackson on its cover: On his perceived freakishness: "In my opinion, it's ignorance. It's usually not based on fact. ... Every neighborhood has the guy who you don't see, so you gossip about him. You see those stories about him, there's the myth that he did this or he did that. People are crazy!" On what that oxygen chamber casket might be all about: "Let's face it, who wants mortality? You want what you create to live, and I give my all in my work because I want it to live." [AP]

[Note:an update/correction follows after the jump.] An operative on the Paramount lot describes an innovative protest technique being actively developed by the WGA's picketers, one sure to help break up the monotony of marching in circles while chanting:

Unseated from the highest position of the Top 200 album charts because of a lousy, 11th hour reversal of Billboard's "no retail-giant exclusives" policy that instead gave the spot to the Eagles' "Long Road Out of Wal-Mart," Britney Spears will have to settle with the knowledge that her new album came out a solid number two.

·The future of online entertainment is now, and Forest Whitaker is stepping boldly into the brave, new world of selling out interactively: the Oscar winner is teaming with Pepsi for a web-based fantasy game called Dewmocracy, in which players will ultimately help create a new, totally extreme flavor of The Dew . [Variety]
· In belt-tightening measures meant to help them survive the strike, agencies are cutting back on overtime, travel, expenses, and baby consumption. With the vast majority of their revenue tied to TV and film, a prolonged work stoppage could mean that chop-shops like CAA would no longer be able to afford the freshest, straight-from-the-nursery infants they're accustomed to gobbling, and may have to temporarily switch to cheaper, lower-quality frozen toddlers until business returns to normal levels. [Variety]

Another set-disrupting Writers Guild Strike Force has gone on the attack, descending upon a downtown location shoot for ABC's Big Shots in hopes of ruining some takes with the joyful noise of labor strife. A tipster reports from the scene, where it seems that star Christopher Titus has thus far avoided the fate of physically weaker Desperate Housewives hostage Eva Longoria: "I work on 5th and Spring Downtown and strikers were disrupting the filming of some Christopher Titus show. I know this because I walked into Titus' chest. He's tall and tan and seemed to be laughing about the antics. I think the crew was pissed. I overheard 'What benefits they get in the WGA?' Response: 'A lot.'"

Hulk-offspring Nick Hogan has been charged with drunk driving the night he crashed his Supra, severely injuring friend and recent Iraq War veteran John Graziano, while a rep for Hogan defends his client by pointing out that Graziano had no seatbelt on. This story is almost as much fun as the Lane Garrison one, just with 1980s wrestling stars instead of high school co-eds and blow! [TMZ, TMZ]

Operatives toiling on the Sunset Gower lot are expressing delight over the appearance of Reno 911's Lt. Jim Dangle and Deputy Travis Junior on the picket line, a welcome law-and-order influence sure to reduce the kinds of ugly incidents that marred the first day of striking at that violence-plagued location. Disappointingly absent from the scene at the moment is rollerskating hustler Terry, who presumably had wandered over to his Santa Monica Blvd.-patrolling colleagues in the sex trade to convince them that the picketing writers could use the morale boost that only some fun-loving, strong-lunged trannies can provide.

In an unlikely celestial confluence that saw the collision of the A-listiest of conscience-bearing Hollywood marquee idols with the synthetic-butter- substitute -hawking former star of Acapulco H.E.A.T., In Touch Weekly is reporting that a disagreement erupted between George Clooney and Fabio at Madeo Friday night, nearly bringing the two men to fisticuffs:

Shortly after being taken hostage by vigilante WGA picketers trying to disrupt a Desperate Housewives location shoot yesterday, distraught captive Eva Longoria attempted to purchase her freedom with some Domino's pizzas. After happily gobbling down the snack, her red-shirted tormentors laughed at her incredible naivety, reapplied her duct-tape gag, and rudely stuffed the actress back into her burlap sack, hinting that they might let her out for air again if anyone concerned about her continuing safety were to bring by some Starbucks. [wxyz.com/WENN Photo: AP]

• The Office is Closed [YouTube

As Day Three of the strike begins, writers dig in for another eight hours of waving picket signs, dodging scribe-seeking SUV missiles, and trying to induce passing motorists into a horn-honking din intended to drive executives on the other side of a struck lot's walls slowly insane. This is your morning round-up:

· Ssssssh, everybody! Those unsuspecting YouTubers have no idea that Oprah has stashed away Patrick Swayze backstage, who's ready to give the wife the Dirty Dancing thrill of a lifetime! ("You get a fading star, and you get a fading star, and you get a fading star!" etc etc.)
· When he's not busying preparing for his upcoming baptism, Russell Crowe loves to shop!
· Don't judge Paris Hilton: there are just as many people to help in a Tokyo beauty pageant as there are in, like, Rawandania or wherever.
· If you've been looking for a writers strike primer that's as easy to follow as an iPhone commercial, here you go.
· Funny or Die checks in with 826LA's all-star roster of tutors.

If you've filled out all the required paperwork, enclosed a stack of Polaroids featuring your naked self in a variety of seductive poses, and still not heard back from Heidi Fleiss's Stud Farm, don't fret—you still may be in the running towards becoming Nevada's next top male prostitute. The man-wrangling madame's business plan is simply stuck in a holding pattern until she manages to work out all the kinks, reports the NY Times:

A tip of the creepy top hat to photographer Matthew Rolston and his Ebony magazine covershoot team, who managed to give the ghoulishly pale Michael Jackson we know and fear the rich, healthy glow of a French aristocrat's wife rejuvenated from a weekend shopping excursion to St. Tropez. It's a transformation that rivals Sunset Tan's Ollie Girls' best post mortem spray-tanning work.

The WGA Strike: pitting writer vs. studio, picketer vs. picketed, and roomie vs. roomie: "Dear Roommate,
I don't give a f*ck if you're on strike or not, you're not bringing your "movement" into our apartment. Start cleaning this place up!! You should have plenty of time now." [My Roomate is Such a Dick]

· Music round-up: Architecture in Helsinki at the Troubadour; Jay Z at House of Blues; Stars of Track & Field at the Roxy; Parts & Labor at Spaceland.
· FOUND Magazine's Davy Rothbart and filmmaker Jessica Sanders join in conversation at the Hammer Museum.
· Dodger legend and pasta sauce magnate Tommy Lasorda will sign new book I Live for This: Baseball's Last True Believer at the Barnes & Noble at the Grove, answering all of your questions about the beginning of the Joe Torre era.

Just when strike-related news seems at its Longoria-kidnapping bleakest, a glimmer of hope arrives in the form of yet another talk show host bearing morale-boosting snacks for his picketing compatriots, as a tipster reports from the Olive/Barham gate of the Warner Bros. lot: "[Was] walking the line with dozens of other writers and several SAG members (most recognizably, a very friendly Jon Cryer from Two and a Half Men and Pretty in Pink fame, when suddenly a white van pulls up and Jimmy Kimmel and a few assistant-types jump out, set up a table and bring out A LOAD of food to feed the strikers. And not just any food, but tasty grub from a great Mexican place in the farmers market. Anyway, Kimmel was VERY friendly and seemed genuine in his support. Right on!"