· Despite being led to believe that Megatron was the gay one, something about hearing the plea from the reassuring-yet-authoritative lips of Optimus Prime really made us reconsider our callous response to the singer's disastrous VMA performance:

As is our custom, we now take a moment to adulate Defamer's rock star sponsors, whose products and services offer that elusive, "all in one package" everyone is looking for when shopping for anything from premium drinking water to European engineered automobiles. They don't just know the consumer—they are the consumer. Know what we mean?

· Not to be outdone by Oprah Winfrey's lavish Barack Obama fundraiser—attended by the likes of Will Smith, Jamie Foxx and Chris Rock—lesser community-outreach deity Magic Johnson hosts one for Hillary Clinton at his Beverly Hills home. [Variety]
· Finally convinced it won't lead to an assist-tent-city for Valkyrie crew members to work out their shoulder knots and lingering Hitler-thetans, Germany reverses its decision not to let the Tom Cruise movie shoot at a historical execution site. [Variety]
· Al Gore's presence at this year's Emmy awards has been confirmed, where he'll be called upon to solicit an apology from Britney Spears for "squandering her one comeback chance and rendering polar bears extinct." [Variety]
· Alyssa Milano will star in Wisegal, a Lifetime movie about a female mobster that will require her to tap into the brash street-smarts of a Samantha Micelli, and the steely business sense of an Angela Bauer. [THR]
· New Line hires the Ghost World screenwriting team of Terry Zwigoff and Dan Clowes to rewrite (and Zwigoff to direct) The $40,000 Man, about an injured astronaut rebuilt as a bionic man on "a measly budget of only $40,000." We're seeing Will Arnett trying to catch up to a moving bicycle, accompanied by the familiar sound effect. [THR]

When last we checked in with party-positive NBC co-chairman-cum-rock-star Ben Silverman, he was at the Chateau Marmont, about to sate his munchies with a piece of a delicious cake depicting the newly installed programming chief as an avenging peacock whose talons would soon eviscerate his better-rated network competition. Today, a preview of a piece in the new issue of W continues to fill in the Silverman backstory (fun fact: at the age of 22, he was promoted three times—assistant to manager of development to director of development—on his very first day at the fledgling production company of a former CBS executive) while advancing the narrative of Silverman's inevitable march to TV domination, and we now join their story in progress (unfortunately, it's not online) at an NBC photo shoot a few days into his tenure:

As father Larry reportedly enters final negotiations with the E! network to co-star in a reality show with daughter Dannielynn Hope Marshall Colby Dexter Fortensky Birkhead, sources close to the events continue to cast the Genetic Sweepstakes winner in a sinister light. Beyond the strenuously denied blow-job bombshells, we now have the testimony of former Birkhead bodyguard Mark Speer, who tells the NY Daily News of the time Larry arranged with paparazzi to be photographed grieving at the grave of Anna Nicole's son:

We'd always assumed that freshly voted-off American Idol also-rans were mercifully slaughtered backstage and later ground into the Simon's Sloppy Joe filling served at each Friday's Idol-themed lunch at the Fox News Cafe, but according to TMZ TV, the losers suffer a far more degrading fate: immediate assignment to the county fair circuit. We bet that after a week or so of warbling bittersweet renditions of "This Is My Now" to a warm up a dozen or so people for the hot-dog-devouring and pig-measuring thrills that await them, most of the fallen Idols find themselves praying for the sweet release of the Fox meat-grinder.

We're here, somewhere, typing our little hearts out, but server issues might be (read: are) hampering their publication to our internets blogsite. Thank you for your continuing patience etcetc.

Some measure of redemption for Britney Spears, whose disastrous VMAs performance was so universally derided that the one person on Earth willing to leap to her defense has become an international media superstar, may be just an uncomfortable, one-armed hug from Ryan Seacrest away. Us Weekly's website is reporting that Spears is "in negotiations" to put in an appearance at the Emmys on Sunday night, where she can apologize to millions of TV fans for her nationally televised attempted euthanasia of her enfeebled music career:

· Music round-up: Wolf Parade with Holy Fuck! at the El Rey; Built to Spill at the Henry Fonda; Jason Falkner at the Roxy.
· Vox Lumiere puts on a live theatrical performance to the classic film Metropolis at the Santa Monica Pier.
· Turntable enthusiasts should RSVP for Urb and M-Audio's Torq event at the Scratch DJ Academy, where DJ equipment can be fondled, prizes won, and free vodka and Red Bull consumed.

In what we will admit is a shameless attempt at pandering to the sizable Kiefer Sutherland-worshipping segment of our readership, we spotlight the following item from this week's Popbitch newsletter, in which the 24 star and beloved drinking buddy of countless eastside drinking establishment patrons threatens to singlehandedly take down a mob of Romanians who showed a heretical disregard for his sacred movie set:

In a MySpaceTV! Exclusive!, Leave Britney Alone Guy (and yes, we know his name, he's only like the most famous person on the planet at the moment) offers to join his embattled hero in a suicide pact should she be driven to self-annhilation by the cruel words of insensitive bloggers. [MySpaceTV]

Publicity averse hip-hop artists Kanye West and 50 Cent, as you may have heard, have mutually agreed to participate in a "feud" over the sales of their just-released albums, wherein 50 has promised to retire if West's CD outsells his, and West has pledged to suffer a marginally more intense conniption of wounded self-regard at the next awards show that fails to recognize his greatness if outdone by his rival. As we're deeply invested in the outcome of this competition, we dispatched Defamer videographer Molly McAleer to Hollywood's Amoeba Records for an update on the early results of the local sales race and some incisive analysis of the rapping frenemies.

Momentarily overwhelmed by the pressure of simultaneously producing television and web-based products on this utterly news-deficient high holiday, TMZ briefly collapsed from exhaustion, posting a video of the Beckhams caught in the act of climbing into their vehicle without even so much as offering a nonsensical comment about Posh first checking the passenger seat to make sure it wasn't already occupied by Britney Spears' vagina.

Despite extensive naked-fighting practice on the set of Eastern Promises, a humble Viggo Mortensen doesn't think he could defeat Borat in a clothes-free fight—if the wiry Kazakh could survive the anal-suffocation attacks of frightently hirsute grappling partner Ken Davitian, what hope does Mortensen have of victory against an obviously invincible opponent? [MTV.com]

• Director of Development - GSN, The Network for Games, Los Angeles, CA

Admit it: You're dying to see "Gossip Girl" (premiering September 19th at 9 p.m.!), the new CW show that pulls back the curtain on the lives of spoiled rich kids on the Upper East Side. It's not just aimed at the youngsters. It's also brilliantly engineered, we think, to be enjoyed by those over 16 as a guilty pleasure—though we know there's no such thing. Now we've obtained this one minute clip, which demonstrates exactly why "Gossip Girl" is the show that will define a generation of New Yorkers. Culturally, this just might be bigger than... gosh, we'd say 9/11, but Chris Crocker already used that one about Britney today.

· NBC might be aborting the only new comedy it was planning to launch this year, its midseason adaptation of the British sitcom The IT Crowd—a potentially surprising development given that newly installed programming rock-star Ben Silverman's entire development philosophy involves the recycling of foreign hits for American eyeballs. [THR]
· At first, we misread the headline "Emmys party circuit heats up" as "Emmys circuit party heats up," a mistake that left us momentarily impressed by Variety's willingness to explore the awards season sexual subculture. Unfortunately, once we figured out our error, the actual story about the battle between ET/People and TV Guide to throw the best, thoroughly vanilla Emmy bash lost much of its sizzle. [Variety]
· Ricky Gervais plots his post-Extras career, taking the starring role in This Side of Truth, a comedy about the first liar in an all-truth world he co-wrote and will co-direct with partner Matt Robinson. [Variety]
· My So-Called Life and thirtysomething creators Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick are resurrecting Quarterlife, a pilot once killed by ABC, on MySpace, where it will hopefully be watched by millions of "creative twentysomethings" similar to its "constantly blogging" main character. We further expect some Flickring and Twittering to be integrated into its cutting-edge cyberplot. [THR]
· Lavishly golden-parachuted former Viacom execs Tom Freston and Jonathan Dolgen are pouring some of their severance cash into Michael Eisner's Veoh YouTube clone, having been told by hip financial advisors that "the kids love them some virals." [Variety]

Pervy High School Musical fans beware: the alleged "lesbian kissing" follow-up to Vanessa Hudgens' scandal-inciting nudie pics are probably not sufficiently graphic (indeed, there's so much space between their tongues that a Catholic school dance chaperone wouldn't even pull the two girls apart) to provide you with the level of jollies you're expecting. Yeah, we know you're still gonna look, but don't say you weren't warned. [Egotastic]

The new e-mail newsletter from Esterman Entertainment—the go-to personal appearance agency for when you absolutely, positively have to a former Real World cast member pouring tequila shots at your nightclub's next Wild Wednesday promotion—features the impressive "get" of current Best Supporting Actor Emmy nominee Kevin Dillon, a striking upgrade from the Sunset Tan-quality celebrities usually on offer.