It's been a excellent three days guest-blogging for the absent Seth, peeking into the heretofore mysterious Defamerverse. The tone for the week was pretty much set by my first morning flogging with some of Mark's sharper and longer hair extensions; after that, it was a nonstop carnival of changing his WhiteStrips every 30 minutes, being choked out every time we disagreed on whether David Banda or Sean P. Federline would win in an arm-wrestling match, and having to bow to him thrice daily wearing what I was told is the legally mandated guest-blogger uniform: leggings, a potato sack, four belts, and Ugg boots. So it's with great regret that I leave this marvelous, life-affirming experience and return to the welt-free world of shredding celebrity style. Hopefully every once in a while, Jessica will give me a loving, nostalgic throttle. Thanks for the memories!

In the interest of paying some attention, warranted or not, to various rumors about NBC layoffs both "massive" and very targeted circulating on these internets, we present this very special round-up for discussion on your afternoon commute:

· Too lazy to even separate out your recycling from you regular trash but want to feel like you're environmentally responsible for a few hours? Go see the double feature of An Inconvenient Truth and Who Killed The Electric Car? at the New Beverly.
· Music round-up: Badly Drawn Boy at the Troubadour (cross your fingers for an entertaining meltdown!); The Pogues at the Wiltern; Rancid begin their four night stand at the Henry Fonda.
· White Oleander author Janet Fitch joins in conversation with writer Rachel Resnick to discuss Fitch's second novel, Paint It Black, at the Mark Taper Auditorium at Central Library.

With so many different creatures from the mothership from which to choose, it could take forever for little Suri Cruise's Church-sanctioned OT-IV to select a Halloween costume that befits the blossoming seed of Scientology's future. So the folks at Heavy.com — who so recently helped us piss away a work day turning Mel Gibson into a Pope-hatted leather daddy — have provided us all a way to warm the cockles of our sooty hearts by playing Xenu with her wardrobe. Personally [Ed.note—Personally!], we enjoyed decking Suri out in Alf's full-body fur, Marvin the Martian's tutu, ET's finger, and a conehead — our tone scale shot clear up to the 35-and-over levels thinking about how adorable she's going to look when Katie Holmes and twenty-five handlers (opting not to change out of their usual sailor costumes—such killjoys) take her door-to-door at the Celebrity Centre to collect delicious, Hubbard-approved treats.

Toiling over in the new Fortress of Humpitude his E!nslavers have constructed for him on their redesigned website, disgruntled gossipist Ted Casablanca coyly blinded this item about a Paramount star (not pictured, probably) who rather rudely called attention to studio boss Brad Grey's well-documented, three-apples-tall stature:

We originally ran a large version of the image at right, but it caused a cascade of burst blood vessels in our frontal lobe. Witness the power of formerly blonde moppet socialite model critter Lydia Hearst, freshly redheaded because she's all about change. Hearst tells the New York Post, "There is no other standout redhead on the runway." She actually was kinda cute and doll-like with the blondeness, but when she does that skull-splitting grin thing with the red hair and shellacked complexion ... well, the brain-damaging giant-size pic is after the jump. Steel yourself, then judge.

The current viewing stats available on Yahoo's Warner Bros. Online Channel vividly demonstrate why studios are so eager to partner with internet companies; without the immediate numbers provided by Yahoo, it might take months of traditional, offline market research to discover that Smallville viewers feel that what the series has really been lacking is graphic scenes of a young, sexually experimenting Clark Kent digitally penetrating Lana Lang.

It's the oldest story in the art-dealing book, really: millionaire owns Picasso's "La Reve"; millionaire sells "La Reve" for record-breaking $139 million; millionaire invites friends for one last private viewing and, in his orgasmic enthusiasm over the subject's secret cranial phallus, rapes it with his wildly excited elbow. Author, screenwriter, and Huffington Post blogger Nora Ephron witnessed casino owner Steve Wynn's very surprising, and unfortunately somewhat hilarious, penetration of his favorite — and indeed, no longer completely his — painting, yet tragically resisted her baser instincts to document it.

America's profligate makers of undead cinematic fare may soon find their jobs outsourced to Pakistan's more efficient, burgeoning zombie-film industry, which recently produced Zibahkhana (Hell's Ground) quickly and cheaply with a 30-day, hi-def shoot. [Variety]
Universal picks up the dramedy Counter Clockwise, about a Harvard professor who attempts to reverse the aging process by making her subjects believe they're young, for Jennifer Aniston to produce and possibly star in. It's too soon to know who will eventually play the role of Aniston's love interest, with whom she will unexpectedly fall into a suspicious, real-life romance during shooting. [THR]
Sweeney Todd casting shocker! Tim Burton signs up muse/snuggle-buddy Helena Bonham Carter for the role of the musical's "diabolical meat pie-maker." [Variety]
· Dancing with the Stars continues to grow in popularity, getting its highest ratings of the season in the wake of contestant Sara Evans' abrupt, adultery-tinged exit from the show. [THR]
· Braveheart's Randall Wallace takes on the suicidal task of condensing Atlas Shrugged's 1,100 pages into a coherent screenplay. [Variety]

With awards season looming, Hollywood, it seems, is teetering on the brink of an unfathomable parking tragedy. The Los Angeles valet population's inability to keep pace with a booming VIP overclass unable to open or close car doors without professional assistance threatens to grind entertainment industry celebrations to a chilling halt, where frustrated guests languish in their vehicular purgatories while event starting times are senselessly delayed and food service schedules are plunged into chaos. Today's Variety hopes to bring awareness to the seemingly insoluble traffic problem before it worsens by looking at What Went Wrong at Friday night's American Cinematheque tribute to George Clooney, taking care to note the psychological toll such snafus take on their emotionally fragile victims:

Fresh off her defensive insistence that adopting David Banda was perfectly legal and had nothing whatsoever to do with any large, money-crammed envelopes she shoved under the door of a government office's men's room, the New York Post reports that Madonna already has her eye on a matching accessory.

Amazingly, this Reuters story neglects to mention how the Kazakh currency snafu might impact Sacha Baron Cohen's publicity-attracting cultural offensive against Borat's country of origin, but we're confident that the comedian will quickly seize on this latest opportunity by releasing an in-character statement declaring that the defective notes are "not legal tender for make-sex payments to our glorious nation's sister-prostitutes."

Cementing its status as the world's foremost authority on womb fruit, People magazine — through its extensive network of vagina cams and dogs trained to follow the smell of placenta — nabbed the celebrity birth-canal coup of the century. In an exclusive report on People.com, the magazine beat back the competition by reporting FIRST and FASTEST that actress Kelly Rutherford — who was in some other stuff since Melrose Place, but obviously none of it matters — has pushed out a baby boy. And, illustrating the continued need to treat the childbearing beat as more of a police blotter, the birth was not without a crime against nomenclature.

With a background in advertising and roughly sixty-eight versions of his Law & Order franchise currently on the air, cops-and-lawyers-procedural brandmaster Dick Wolf is uniquely qualified to declare that anyone who thinks they know how commerce, emerging platforms, and traditional programming will intersect in the future is quite obviously hitting the pipe. Reports the WSJ:

Just what is it about CNN anchor Anderson Cooper? Is it the steely gaze? The mysterious CIA connection? The penchant for hot young Latinos? No, Anderson Cooper cannot be contained merely by a rote taxonomy of his many virtues, but nevertheless, we've never met a man you couldn't properly encapsulate in a good, solid pie chart. Plus, it ties in quite neatly to the whole "360 degrees" concept, don't you agree? After the jump, Intern Mary plows through just this past year's worth of Anderson Cooper media mentions, classifying each attempt to distill and articulate the fundamental Cooperian appeal.

Hoping to stretch its scoop on last week's on-set choke-down between Grey's Anatomy's Patrick "Dr. McDreamy" Dempsey and Isaiah "Hopes For A Cute Nickname All But Dashed By Roughing Up A More Popular Co-Star" Washington across two issues, the National Enquirer has sent out an e-mail blast update about the melee this morning, spotlighting Washington's attempt to remove all ambiguity from what he meant when he called Dempsey a "bitch":

Yesterday, we offered you some helpful Halloween costume ideas based on your favorite mother/daughter celebrity tag-teams, but we recognize that many revelers prefer to express their sartorial creativity in a more individual way. So allow us to direct you to this eBay auction offering a recreation of the jaw-droppingly sexy, neon, over-the-shoulder nutsling so ably modeled by Borat in his upcoming feature film, sure to be the hottest costume for this year's rapidly approaching holiday. The item's rather modest use of material might seem ill-suited to colder climates, but we believe that only adds to its appeal—the stunned looks you'll receive after unveiling your Kazakh-fabulous look will only be intensified when fellow party guests realize that your shivering is causing the genitals gently supported swimsuit's central sling to quiver like a scared, unwanted kitten clawing at a burlap sack before a drowning. And that unadvertised, bonus feature alone is easily worth many times the item's $19.99 Buy It Now price.

· Want to see some old video of Quentin Tarantino hocking a loogey on MTV's Chris Connelly? Yeah, of course you do. Stupid question.
30 Rock's Tina Fey wonders if NBC parent company G.E. is eventually going to get upset about her working their products into her show. Yeah, we're guessing they're O.K. with it.
Lindsay Lohan learns an important lesson on why she should never have any interaction with her fans.
Unfortunately, our gearheaded brother site Jalopnik is unable to answer your questions about Jay Leno's car collection at this time.
· We're not exactly sure why, but we feel like ending today with Dogs in Jail is the right thing to do.

Despite some inside information on the exact spot where Jim Carrey likes his ego stroked, Endeavor recently lost out on luring the disillusioned star away from UTA to hated agenting monolith CAA. But according to the LA Weekly's Nikki Finke, Ari's Kids have struck back by prying loose a CAA partner's daughter: