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· Lachlan Murdoch resigns from daddy Rupert's News Corp., where he was expected to one day assume his father's multimedia conglomerate throne. Will Viacom's Sumner Redstone sense an opening an offer to adopt young Lachlan to secure a male heir? Eh, probably not, but how awesome would that be? [Variety]
· Bored with directing talented actors on to Oscar-winning performances, Clint Eastwood adds Paul "Hey, why would I WANT to act my way out of wet paper bag, smart guy?" Walker to his World War II epic Flags of our Fathers. [THR]
· Variety looks at the fading of the DreamWorks "dream," now that they might shift from being the "new," independent kind of studio to the "old" kind that's bought up by a company with a lot more money, like NBC Universal. [Variety]
· The WGA launches a Showrunner Trainer Program to help TV writers acquire the skills to run a successful TV show. By the third day of training, inexperienced writers will be able to smile sincerely through network notes like, "We love the Chinese grandfather character, love him, but couldn't he be a twentysomething ad executive living in a Tribeca loft?" [THR]
· The threat of Desperate Housewives has NBC and the Foreign Press Association scattering like roaches under a spotlight, as they mull moving the Golden Globes from Sunday to Monday night. [Variety]

A spy with an ear to the ground tips us off to a touching Friday event at The Digm, in which suits will be shed and meats grilled for an "Assistant Appreciation Day," a nice departure from the "What the Fuck is Wrong with You, Can't You Even Roll a Call Properly, You Little Bitch Phone Monkey? Days" that clog the rest of the calendar.

When we saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it didn't register that the movie's Golden Ticket-winning kids were a tad...monochromatic. While we can just shrug this off with a simple, "Isn't everybody white like us?" Newsweek, asks director Tim Burton why his child actors are pastier than a Kentucky high school basketball team from 1947:

Doesn't it seem like it's been far too long since Andy Dick, Hollywood's test case for post-sexuality-pigeonholing celebrity, had a good, old-fashioned, "I'm gonna get so fucked up that won't care who sees me hungrily tongue-bathing some dude while greedily cupping his package" club rampage? It has been too long, but Page Six breaks the streak, telling a Dick tale from NYC:

Not content to have his brain melted by Heather Graham's comments at ABC's pres tour event, LAT critic-blogger Paul Brownfield seeks out Graham at the network's "All Star" party, and in the process, seems to have discovered what blogging's really about: the stalking of hot actresses under the guise of "working":

· CA BOOM is not only the sounds produced when put too much whiskey in the morning coffee and our head crashes to the keyboard, it's also an arts festival with "3 1/2 days of cutting edge contemporary design & architecture." This year's event kicks off tonight with a party at the Santa Monica Civic.
· Thursday night concerts, in no particular order: Starflyer 59 at the Knitting Factory; The Oohlas at the Echo; and if you haven't heard them in a commercial in the last fifteen seconds and need your fix, the Black Eyed Peas play the Greek.
· Put aside your feelings about Fantastic Four and learn about the Marvel Universe at the feet of the master, Stan Lee, at the Learning Annex. Seriously, let the Fantastic Four go. They're gone now.

After perusing this morning's item about Steve Guttenberg's bravura performance at the TCAs, a couple of readers wrote in to question The Goot's knowledge of world history, spotlighting his claim that he doesn't work because of the "tough commute" from Czechoslovakia. One such e-mail went like this:

Your guesses are in! Wow, y'all are really worked up over this one today. Take another lap around One Confused Blind Vice before moving on:

We have no idea why Michael Bay has been bellyaching about the marketing of The Island (actually, that $12 million opening gives us a pretty good idea why, but whatever). Is there a better way to sell to Bay's target audience than covering the city with images of Scarlett Johansson's breasts so huge that the actress nearly fainted at the sight of her own ample anatomy?

Hollywood PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are sent in by our readers. Send yours to tips@defamer.com (putting “privacywatch” or “sighting” in the subject line helps make sure they don’t get lost in our inbox) and let the world know that Reese Witherspoon and the color orange don't get along.

Defamer is committed to connecting Hollywood directors who lack the funds to hire separate employees to handle driving, cooking, cleaning, pet-tending, and assistant tasks with ambitious job-hunters willing and able to do anything for a chance to get their hands dirty (an occupational hazard of doggy poop-scooping ) in the business. Offers Craigslist:

The Wedding Crashers press push ended weeks ago, but that can't stop Owen "The Butterscotch Stallion" Wilson from dropping some knowledge on delighted magazine writers. While Wilson got memorably Zen with Rolling Stone, he chose to flex his left-brain ability with Maxim:

· We are very, very afraid: Ron Howard and Brian Grazer's Imagine Entertainment is joining up with evil Fox reality TV presence Mike Darnell to produce X Quest, in which "ordinary folks" (i.e., struggling actors) are locked into incredibly expensive space simulators. The simulators will be so realistic (i.e. did we mention incredibly expensive?) that "every button, display and videoscreen actually serv[es] a purpose. Press the wrong button and bad things may happen." Example: 30-year old model/bartender Bryce mistakenly presses the "airlock release," and viewers in the 18-49 demo all over America immediately tune out. If the show doesn't debut to huge numbers, look for the network to cut costs by relocating the show to the Star Tours ride at Disneyland. [Variety]
·For Ridley Scott's next project, A Good Year, "Russell Crowe is going from the boxing ring to the vineyards of France," where he will proceed to hurl empty bottles at uppity wine-tasting stewards for their insolence. (Hey, when are we going to let that go? Answer: Not yet.) [THR]
· ABC commemorates the American lives lost in the World Trade Center attacks by shooting their 9/11 commission report miniseries in Toronto. [Variety]
· With audiences finally realizing that the bad dancers of So You Think You Can Dance weren't going to sing off-key. the show's ratings drop in its second week. [THR]
· Intensive focus-group testing discovers that 15-year-old boys love both comic books and vampires, prompting MTV Films to buy the film rights to the Dark Horse vampire comic Damn Nation. [Variety]

Wherein we invite our readers to get lost in the word-labyrinth patrolled by humpy E! gossip minotaur Ted Casablanca and guess the identity of his weekly blind item. Yet again (we've lost track, is this the third or fourth time?), Ted gives himself over to his obsession with Toothy Tile, the young actor who's silently struggling with his bisexuality and constantly threatening to go public. Tie the makeshift noose around the doorknob of One Confused Blind Vice:

From the calm of the TCA's rehearsed answers, publicist-penned soundbites, and bland programming executivespeak emerged a new, non-sequitur-spewing hero, one that seemed more interested in discussing bagging jailbait than yakking about his role on Veronica Mars or his NBC remake of The Poseidon Adventure. That hero's name?

We know that your mind immediately jumped to Bobby Brown, but as wife Whitney might say, "Hell to the no!" Not this time, anyway.

Heather Graham was on hand to face the critics at the TCAs (the Television Critics Association press orgy) yesterday, promoting her midseason ABC show Emily's Reason's Why Not (odds that this unwieldy title will be hacked down to the simple Emily before it reaches the air: 60/40). The LAT's Paul Brownfield fights off the little reporter in his pants ("I am immediately a 14-year-old boy. She is wearing a dark lavender dress, Lycra, scooped out teasingly in the back and strategically in front, and flip-flops") to blog some of the words coming out of Graham's mouth:

· Jessica Alba admits to a past eating disorder, then defiantly claims, "I never see myself as a beautiful woman and have never traded on that to get ahead in this business." Putting her money where her mouth is, Alba then announced her next project, The Virgin Who Wore An Old-Fashioned Diving Suit To Her Casting Sessions.
· Yes, we are aware that O.J. Simpson was ordered to pay $25K to DirectTV for stealing satellite service, and we find it utterly hilarious. But we're loathe to make too much of it and invite a retaliatory stabbing.
· A former Average Joe nerd sues NBC for stealing his ideas to improve the show, causing the network to immediately dispatch a team of male models to pelt the litigious alumnus with dodgeballs.
· This link has everything: intracompany linkwhoring, inside blog baseball (err, softball), and gambling on the odds that either the misfits at our beloved Gawker or the fake-news nerds of The Onion even know which end of the bat to hold. And, of course, very, very inappropriate images posted in poor taste, which we completely expect from our Oddjack colleague. Tsk.

· Want to chat about how Roe v. Wade affected crime rates? Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner discuss their hit book Freakonomics, the hippest economic scribblings since Wealth of Nations, at Vroman's’ in Pasadena.
· Craigslist is not only the go-to destination for finding ads for trading your body for affordable rent, it's also a great place to find free screening hook-ups for movies like The Edukators and Must Love Dogs.
· Mid-week Music-Type Situations: Team Sleep (with Rom Crow of the great Pinback) at the El Rey; Etta James and the Roots with blues guitar legend Buddy Guy at the Hollywood Bowl; Garbage and Hot Hot Heat do the Pacific Amphitheatre, if you're not afraid of the drive.