While most of America has shown only a passing interest in Semi-Celebrity Apprentice (an interest that continues to fade each week), we have found it to be one of the few great small-screen joys of this strike-ravaged season. Not because the challenges are particularly interesting, mind you; our interest lies mainly in observing this pack of Type-A C-Listers trade on their varying levels of "fame" and hubris like social currency (see: Stephen Baldwin in the clip above). Rarely are the challenges on Donald Trump's resurrected show about who has a better grasp on the four Ps; rather, it's more about watching these fame-hungry jackals tear down their competitors' self-worth while attempting to build theirs up. As close-to-brilliant as the show is in its current incarnation, we can only imagine how subversively stupendous it could be if Cris Abrego and Mark Cronin were steering the ship instead of Mark Burnett. [NBC.com]

[Donald Trump and wife Melania Knauss at New York Fashion Week yesterday; image via Splash]

· As we have detailed on these pages before, our hearts haven't really been with the Semi-Celebrity Apprentice since The Donald gave Gene Simmons the boot. However, because we are far too lazy to delete the Season Pass from our TiVos, we still find ourselves compelled to watch the show. Thank goodness, otherwise we would have missed the hilariously dated manner in which (spoiler alert!) Big Pussy found himself ejected from last week's show.
· Vulture presents their Top 10 list of inside jokes they'd like to see included in the potential Arrested Development movie.
· Hmmm. Robert Zemeckis' decision to insert Santa Claus into his adaptation of A Christmas Carol is makin' us thirsty. Even more than these pretzels.
· Slashfilm got not one, not two, not three but FOUR separate phone calls from Paramount lawyers today regarding the leakage of Crystal Skull pics.
· And finally, if you find yourself with a spare four minutes and twenty-four seconds, might we suggest spending it on Golden Fiddle? His tribute to the impossibly shiny-haired goddess Olivia Munn is, in a word, best.

The megalomaniacal, self-effacing real estate developer is also a TV personality, bestselling author, casino/resort/golf course developer, university founder, public speaker, magazine publisher, and potential political candidate. You'll also find his name attached to brands of clothing, bottled water, fragrance, vodka, and steak.

After literally decades of insisting to Forbes and everyone else that he's worth about 10 times more than his confidantes estimate, real estate loudmouth Donald Trump is finally being made to sweat for his hot air, because he's just been sued in federal court for about a billion more than even Forbes thinks he's worth. Of course the case is ridiculous, since the plaintiff doesn't have a prayer of getting $4 billion just because Trump tried to block use of his name to lease condos in a Vegas Trump Tower. But equally ridiculous is watching Trump fight to defend the oh-so-sterling reputation of his brand after all the bankruptcies and pointless and nasty media feuds he's dragged it through.

We're still having a hard time coming to grips with (spoiler alert!) the abrupt dismissal of Gene Simmons from NBC's Used-To-Be-Marginally-Famous Apprentice last week. While we concede that Gene got himself tossed because of his stubbon refusal to abide by the golden rule of new business pitches (that being, "the client is ALWAYS right"), we can't help but feel like the flaxen-haired Donald Trump made a grave mistake by ditching one of the few contestants on the show with any semblance of personality. From his shaky grasp of Greek mythology to his repeated attempts at fondling the long stemmed Ivanka Trump, Mean Gene provided this slumping nation of ours with at least 94 seconds of truly inspired reality television moments. Which, coincidentally, is the exact length of the moving video tribute that Intrepid Defamer Videographer™ Molly McAleer composed to honor the recently fired general of the KISS Army. Watch and enjoy, it's bound to be more fun than the now Simmons-less series.

· Did you miss last night's premiere of Semi-celebrity Apprentice, Donald Trump and NBC's attempt to breathe new life into a moribund reality franchise by asking Gene Simmons, Big Pussy, a professional naked person, and a lesser Baldwin (there are other cast members, probably, but we can't think of them off the top of our head—oh, Omarosa's on it too!) to sell hot dogs? We did. But after watching this three-minute recap, we feel like we're all caught up and ready for next week's episode. (Spoilers ahead if you click the thumbnail to watch the vdieo.)
· Clearly, changing the title of Welcome to Valkenvania to Nothing But Trouble doomed the Chase/Aykroyd/Candy/Moore classic to failure.
· "I always wanted to be No. 1 at something, but I didn't think it would be something like this."
· Depending on the type of person you are, what you see at this site is either going to make or ruin your weekend.

· The Return of Late Night (*Doc Severinson trumpet flourish*) brings a veritable who-cares of stars to their chilled couches. Leno has Jamie Lynn Spears'-pregnancy-endorsing candidate Mike Huckabee, and Letterman has Donald Trump, on hand to find out which of his Celebrity Apprentice candidates float. [THR]
· More on the Worldwide Pants/WGA deal: Writers got what the Guild is demanding for internet across the board: "3% based on the applicable minimum payment per 100,000 hits." [THR]
· Netscape Navigator, who for some of us was our first portal into the many splendors of the bold new fetish-catering technology of the World Wide Web, is to be buried beneath a heavy pillow in its sleep by corporate parent AOL. [THR]
· Chinese actor and director Sun Daolin died at age 86, his illustrious cinematic legacy in many ways paving the way for Chris Tucker shouting about the words coming out of his mouth at a nonplussed Jackie Chan. [Variety]
· Overseas audiences still can't get enough of I Am Legend, which foreign film snoots are calling the greatest exploration of the existentialist dilemma since 1948's La Terra trema. [Variety]

· Hold on a second...did Martha Stewart just say that it's "too bad" that Trump Steaks aren't actually made from her old Apprentice boss's freshly slaughtered flesh? We think she did! She'll be dead by morning.
· Jamie Lynn Spears probably made herself pregnant by laughing at Knocked Up.
· "Occasionally cradling the doll-baby Jesus, Lohan was asked to compare holding the savior of Christianity with cradling Lindsay when she was born 21 years ago."
· Hey, Christmas unicorn.

After suggesting that Donald Trump might be more famous for his reality TV endeavors than for the untold billions he's made in real estate (not to mention his premium-meats-derived riches) , LAT business columnist David Lazarus feels The Donald's epistulary wrath, an honor usually reserved for his higher-profile enemies: "I am worth many billions of dollars, am building large scale developments all over the world, am considered by many to be, by far, the hottest name in real estate, and I have to read an article by a third-rate reporter in your newspaper that my "primary claim to fame" is hosting The Apprentice. Unlike many other people that make their money giving seminars, I made my money in real estate and, as your reporter should have known, I never filed for bankruptcy. [...] P.S. The picture, however, was great!" [LAT, LAT]

Yesterday, the Los Angeles restaurant world—nay, the entire world—was stunned by Derober.com's report that billionaire real estate developer/reality TV personality/premium-steak magnate Donald Trump, looking to reward the attentive service of a couple of pasta dishes and eclipse the onetime largesse of comparatively stingy superproducer Jerry Bruckheimer, left a $10,000 gratuity for a lucky Buffalo Club waiter, a move that briefly established the mogul as The Greatest and Most Generous Tipper in the World. Today, Trump went into full denial mode, telling Page Six that he's wasn't even in California on the day of the alleged tipping, and that he's the victim of a vicious hoax he believes was perpetrated by the attention-craving Santa Monica eatery:

• Donald Trump claims that he didn't leave a $10,000 tip at a Santa Monica restaurant—he says his signature was faked by the "stupid restaurant to get publicity." Trying to get publicity is so crass. [Page Six]
  

In his tireless quest to be regarded as the Greatest And Most Generous Tipper In The World, billionaire reality TV host Donald Trump bestowed a $10,000 gratuity upon a lucky server at Santa Monica's Buffalo Club on Monday night (for a bill of a mere $82—a markup our quick mental calculations put at 4 million percent), shattering the waiter's personal record once established by Hollywood's best-remunerated producer of blowing-shit-up fare. Derober.com has the receipt (click the photo for the larger version) from the transaction and the server's appreciative blow-by-blow of how The Donald came to make his year:

As promised, Miss Puerto Rico Universe winner Ingrid Marie Rivera appeared on The Today Show show to answer whether the much-talked-about pepper-spray sabotaging incident was in fact nothing more than a beauty queen flimflam, with host Meredith Vieira going so far as to suggest the hives outbreak Rivera claims was caused by high-grade hot sauce was instead the result of a nervous reaction.

The world of professional pageanteering is not for the faint-hearted, where fierce competition for a coveted crown has led many an unsuspecting beauty queen to fall victim to cyanide-laced Vaseline poisonings and slipped-mickey stupid pills that cause them to blabber incoherently about the sorry state of U.S. American education. Thankfully, Ingrid Marie Rivera managed to survive her sabotage attempts and go on to take the Miss Puerto Rico Universe 2008 title, but not before succumbing to a severe allergic reaction after her gowns were doused backstage in pepper spray:

From the moment an all-celebrity version of Donald Trump's ongoing, competitive reality TV work-placement extravaganza The Apprentice was announced, the world eagerly awaited word on which A-list talent the Manhattan land baron would select to fill the seats in his Board Room of the Damned. After winnowing down a list of 125 celebrity applicants ("They were all begging to be on the show..."), 14 were chosen:

Waverly Inn chef John DeLucie, who just got back from explaining magabrands at the American Magazine Conference in Boca, has sold a memoir called The Hunger. As per Publishers Marketplace, Endeavor sold it to Ecco, and it'll be "a la Anthony Bourdain's 'Kitchen Confidential.'" We're sure it will be! We can't wait for the part where his boss Graydon Carter pees in the $55 mac and cheese of nemesis Donald Trump. (We hope DeLucie didn't pee in Ivanka Trump's, when she ate at Waverly on Monday with boyfriend Jared Kushner and publicist Steven Rubenstein!) [NYM]

I was a bit surprised when Surya Yalamanchili, the former reality-TV star fired by Donald Trump from The Apprentice, told me he'd landed at LinkedIn. One would think his broadcast-TV star turn would afford him more than enough introductions in the Valley. Perhaps he likes a challenge. Yalamanchili, who previously worked for Procter & Gamble and started this week as LinkedIn's director of marketing, has traded packaged goods for social networks. His first task: Figuring out how to brand LinkedIn as new and improved. Despite the differences between the two sites, people won't stop talking about how Facebook will soon move in on LinkedIn's turf.

· Recoil in horror as Ivanka Trump reveals to Oprah how her father refused to spoil her to the extent enjoyed by her cavalierly private-jet-appropriating peers. No credit cards? It's like she spent her childhood chained to a diamond-encrusted radiator with a pair of 24-karat gold handcuffs.
· NBC is boldly taking us into the future of intrusive, in-programming advertising.
· Take a guided, photographic tour of Hollywood's most fondly remembered strikes.
· Click here to find out what Rosie O'Donnell's watching on TV, right now!

We thought we'd pay a visit to MTV's Pageant Place, which, for the uninitiated, is something like a Meerkat Manor for the Trump pageant queen set. And like their adorable Kalaharian counterparts, this quarrelsome matriarchy also employs complex and highly sectarian sociodynamics: Take Tara Conner, for example, the disgraced Miss USA famously forgiven for her blow-doing indiscretions by Trump the Merciful (and who indirectly caused a small amount of friction between her combforwarded boss and Rosie O'Donnell): Since being welcomed back into the clan and made Mr. Trump's favorite posable Barbie, she continues to be ostracized by her sash-wearing peers, whose fake smiles belie their not-so-secret desire that she too might meet an untimely, Flower-esque fate at the fangs of Trump's own cobra strike.