Leaving yet another of those custody hearings in which Commissioner Scott Gordon places life-sized cardboard cut-outs of Britney and K-Fed on either sides of the room, plops both children dead center, and renders his verdict based on which lesser-of- two-evil- parent-standees the boys end up crawling to, the singer once again rolled over a bystander's foot with her car as she peeled away from the proceedings. Only this time, that foot belonged to a cop:

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are the greatest single contribution you will make in this lifetime, so send them in often! Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line so we don't lose them) and tell everyone about the time you spotted Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green not engaging in any manual foreplay in public.

Join us for what is always the most enjoyable part of our week: thanking our incredibly generous sponsors for placing ads in this exciting medium, which, incidentally, is totally strike-proof. Just saying! If you'd like to advertise on Defamer and redirect an ad-buying budget that would just be going to waste purchasing spots on reruns of Cold Case, see this page.

· In a badly timed announcement of blockbuster-derived profits, Viacom crows about the "phenomenal success" of "new global brand Transformers" that helped lift their net income by 80 percent, forgetting to transfer the revenues to a balance-sheet loss column and publicly lament that "there's no money to be made in this dying business of ours." [Variety]
· Knowing that TV is, like film, a financial dead end (see bullet point above), Oprah is launching her own channel on the YouTubes. If that venture proves as successful as the media mogul hopes, the purchase of the entire internet could quickly follow. [THR]

As nearly every article we've read to date on the possible impact of the writers strike has pointed out, the first victims of the walkout will be late-night talk shows; without the script lead-times enjoyed by sitcom and drama productions, their hosts will immediately be pushed in front of the cameras without material produced by their absentee writing staffs, forced to read from cue cards offering no more detailed commentary on the day's events than [NEXT THREE MINUTES: RIFF UNCOMFORTABLY ON HOW YOU HAVE NO ONE TO WRITE JOKES ABOUT WHATEVER IT WAS THAT BRITNEY SPEARS/GEORGE BUSH/HILLARY CLINTON DID TODAY.]

We trust by now you've fully recovered from your Wednesday night Halloween activities—or, in certain cases, have yet to come down from what has quickly evolved into a three-day bender, your keys, wallet, and memory long gone and the last remaining threads of your Zombie Britney costume the only things covering your essential regions as you pound the hard streets in search of another hit of stale candy corn. Whatever the case, we think you'll thoroughly enjoy this music video of the WeHo Carnaval, compiled by crack Defamer videologist Molly McAleer.

Rather than take matters into his own omnipotent hands by calling down a bolt of righteous lightning from the Southern California skies to smite the man who recently plundered his treasure trove of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull secrets and tried to sell them on the internet black market, Hollywood deity Steven Spielberg allowed the local justice system to punish the thief, who pleaded guilty yesterday to his crimes against cinematic archaeology:

In noting yesterday that Geisha House and Ketchup mastermind Mike "Boogie" Malin had spent 15 hours in a Denver jail cell after allegedly assaulting a waitress while catching the fourth game of the World Series at a local sports bar, we realize we had nothing by way of hard evidence—no stained foam fingers, no eyewitness accounts of viciously administered wet-willies, not even a booking photo—by which to back up our claims. Fortunately, the mugshot-procuring-professionals at The Smoking Gun quickly came through with this handsome addition to the walls National Celebrity Mugshot Gallery, with its signature feature—an enigmatic, demi-smile—suggesting unfettered glee over the Red Sox's recent win tempered by a healthy dose of sheepish, waitress-groping regret.

During one of the surprise quality-control checks Paris Hilton conducts at all retail outlets stocking highly successful adult-video brand-extension One Night in Paris, the heiress became enraged when she discovered that a Toronto porn emporium had completely ignored her meticulously crafted guidelines for the proper promotion and display of her blockbuster product.

In the event that you had your television turned up too loud to hear the city-wide array of air-raid sirens sounded at the conclusion of last night's WGA meeting, the union's negotiating committee recommended that the Guild go on strike, a mass walkout that could begin on Monday. (Stayed tuned for the timing announcement that's sure to ruin your weekend—if not the next several months of your life—later today!) We begin our day, as we must, with a rundown of strike-related news:

There were no effigy burnings, nor pinata-beatings, but there will be a strike: "A few minutes into the gathering, there is no more uncertainty: There will be a strike, leaders tell the thousands of WGA members in attendance. Leaders will send out a press release tomorrow afternoon, telling members precisely when the strike will begin. The Screen Actors Guild president says the actors guild is in full support of the strike and will stand by the writers for as long as it takes." [LAT]

· On second thought, maybe a strike won't be that bad. Who wouldn't like to see the cast of Cavemen singing "Wooly Booly"?
· And speaking of cavemen, here are instructions on how to make your own insurance-hawking Neanderthal costume, just in time for the day after Halloween.
· Get ready for a world-rocking nerdgasm: The original cast of MST3K is reuniting for Cinematic Titanic, a new project that will involve the creative savaging of bad movies.
·RIP, NBC's DotComedy.
· Owen Wilson can't even pee with the stall door open anymore without his publicist having to make a statement.

We're only about 90 minutes from the beginning of tonight's big WGA General Assembly at the L.A. Convention Center (note to entrepreneurs: you'd better hurry up and get down there with your "I Walked Off The Job Today and All I Got Was This Lousy Red T-shirt" novelty garments), where, according to a story just posted to the LAT's website, the very thing that we'd hoped to distract ourselves from by briefly taking up the cause of the Zombie Guild is expected to occur: a strike recommendation by the writers' negotiating committee.

We'll admit to having been completely stumped by what it was Britney Spears had dressed up as for Halloween, but our musical cousins at Idolator appear to have nailed it: Mid 80s-era Lee Roth. It's Diamond Dave, Bitch! [Idolator]

In the eerie quiet before the impending writer (and potential zombie) strike storm, few of us have truly allowed the implications of such a story-breaking and brain-eating stoppage to fully sink in. The Gays, however, have long been anticipating this day. Like stalwart, Cold War-era survivalists, they've lined the walls of their flawlessly appointed fallout shelters with enough canned Dean & DeLuca delicacies to sustain them through the long, Ugly Betty-free winter ahead. AfterElton.com sugarcoats nothing in detailing what they can expect:

Every now and again, new cultural correspondent (his title for at least the duration of this item) Ryan will be dropping by to toss some posts into our blog-mix. Today, he shares the photo-assisted recollections of a Halloween evening in which he learned why you never challenge a guy in an ape costume to a Wild Turkey-drinking contest.

· Music round-up: The Pogues at the Wiltern; The VLA at the Troubadour; No Mind at Spaceland; and it's only for UCLA students, but we thought we'd mention it anyway: Metalocalypse's Deathklok will be visiting campus.
· Lance Bass, the second- or third-most recognizable member of 'N Sync (depending on whether The Singing Bee was on the preceding night), signs new memoir Out of Sync at the Barnes and Noble at the Grove.
· Listen to a panel of USC authors and professors discuss the smudgy border between fact and fiction in the post-James Frey world at "Truth, Lies, or Scam: Can You Believe Anything You Read?" at the University Club.

Somewhat less clever than the costume devised by our new ZGA hero was the one worn by a certain recent Century Correctional Facility inmate, who went with a suggestion given to her months ago by one of her prison Bible-study partners. Look at how she can laugh at herself, unless someone's selling her sex tape nearby! [Usmagazine.com]

Our panic-stricken city, already reeling from the possibility of a potentially disastrous writers strike that could arrive at virtually any moment, seems to be in even greater peril than we'd previously imagined: At a gathering in Silver Lake last night, a representative of the Zombies Guild threatened a parallel walkout that would surely finish off any sector of the local economy that managed to survive the entertainment industry's labor strife, accusing humans of not taking seriously their reasonable demands on issues crucial to the survival of undead workers trying to make an honest, brain-devouring living in a rapidly changing world. A flyer describing the ZGA's frustrations with a human negotiating team that refuses to bargain in good faith follows after the jump:

It seems The Dolce Group restaurant impresario and Big Brother All-Stars $1 million-winner Mike Malin, whom last we checked in with for his weekly penile-wart singeing, wound up in a Denver jail cell after allegedly demonstrating a little too much enthusiasm over the Boston Red Sox's recent World Series victory. Eater LA has the scoop: