In January, the New York Times' standards editor issued guidelines about how editorial staffers are allowed to use Facebook and other scary online tools. Is reporter Twittering making a mockery of those guidelines? Let's explore!

This is the media life on Twitter: Readers daring to call on the phone, bloggers taking each other out to lunch, and blowhard predictions made about blowhard predictions! Today's Twitterati:

After Facebook's redesign, when is Twitter's coming? We want a feature that filters for vapidity. We'd hate that, too, because we'd never see tweets like these from Jenny 8. Lee, Sarah Lacy, and Randi Zuckerberg:

Jamie Dimon (left) is the CEO of JPMorgan. Byrdie Bell (right) goes to a lot of parties. What do the two have in common? Absolutely nothing, except they're both celebrating birthdays today: Dimon is 53; Bell is turning 24. William H. Macy turns 59 today. Kathy Hilton, the woman who brought Paris Hilton into this world, is 50. Emile Hirsch is 24. Mets pitcher Johan Santana is turning 30. Political commentator Charles Krauthammer is 59. Mediabistro founder Laurel Touby is turning 46. Common is 37. Danny Masterson is 33. Dana Delany is 53. And Neil Sedaka is turning 70. Weekend birthdays after the jump!

What's Twitter good for? Knowing that your life of quiet desperation is shared by the rich, powerful, or merely well-read, for starters. Steve Case, Sasha Frere-Jones, and Rob Corddry deserve twitty pity:

Who's dating Chinese-food obsessive New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee? We hear the eclectic reporter has gotten herself a Googler boyfriend.

What did the media overshare today? Jennifer 8. Lee thought about high school reunions instead of Snapple, Today's Ann Curry toured refugee camps, and Fast Company's Ellen McGirt got down with a lot of leather.

Jennifer 8. Lee saw Cameron Diaz. Ashton Kutcher missed Demi Moore. Choire Sicha dreamed about his therapist. On Twitter, we are all the stars of our own movies. Today's narcissist watch:

In your overstuffed Thursday media column: Obama cartoons have big lips, rumored (update: confirmed) layoffs at Incisive Media, John Dickerson's dramatic novel, and more!

Are you sick of your friends who can't stop talking about the inauguration? Then you're really going to hate Twitter today. A special edition of the Twitterati to catch up with this morning's chattiness:

Jennifer 8. Lee of the New York Times spent 1,523 words debating whether her paper used the very first emoticon in 1862 when it printed the text of an Abraham Lincoln speech.

We gratuitously mocked Times columnist Nick Kristof's Twitter feed last week. But the truth is that he's in good company. Lots of big-shot media people—including many Gawker "favorites"!—have Twitters, despite the fact that Twitter is proven to destroy journalism. We haven't been paying enough attention to their various tweets about this and that. After the jump, we condense the offering of five famous media twits into bite-sized packages:

If you see the Times' Jennifer 8. Lee today, ask her for a special blessing, or just to touch you, because this is probably her luckiest day since, like, August 8, 1988. But get in line, because everyone wants a piece of her! "Supposedly, I will be part of a segment that will air on 08/08/08 @ 8:08 a.m. as part of the Today show. (Guess why)." Also, Lee has three radio segments. Don't be L8! [Jennifer 8. Lee] (Photo by Jennifer 8. Lee via New York)

The Olympic Games in Beijing start on 8/8/08. That's no coincidence—8 is a lucky number to the Chinese. Numbers-obsessed NYT reporter Jennifer 8. Lee must be so excited! She wrote yesterday's Times article about Chinese couples getting married on dates and times that include the number 8. And she adjusted the number of chapters in her book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, to have 18 chapters instead of 19. (But that was to appeal to the Jews, who love Chinese food.)

You might have already known that Jews love Chinese food, especially on Christmas. But did you know that "Jews as a group buy 23 percent of all hardcover books printed"? That's according to according to Stuart M. Matlins, EIC and publisher at Jewish Lights and Skylight Paths books. Jennifer 8. Lee, NYT reporter and author of Chinese food book The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, subjected herself to an "audition" to have her book included in the Jewish Book Network. In fact, she changed the number of chapters in her book from 19 to 18 (a significant number meaning "life") simply to appeal to the chosen tribe! So a Chinese-American author walks into a room of 200 Jews at the Book Expo...

New York Times city reporter and author of new book The Fortune Cookie Chronicles Jennifer 8. Lee is sad. As she notes in her blog, "Someone added my Chinese name to my Wikipedia entry in simplified :( form." Oh, the perils of fame! "I have never in my life used the simplified character," Lee adds, "even when I was in Mainland China, I always wrote my name out with the traditional character... In case you are wonderig, my Chinese name means competitive. It's an unusual name for girls, and very striking. In traditional character it looks like two men running side by side (competition, get it?). You lose that in the simplified, sadly." Sad! (Click for offending entry.)

Book-pimping Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee is confused about why her book is being so steeply discounted, even though it's, like, the number one Chinese food book on Amazon. "Not sure why, but Amazon just upped the discount on The Fortune Cookie Chronicles from 34% to 40%." [Fortune Cookie Chronicles]

When Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee worked out of the Washington, DC bureau, she became famous for hosting a blizzard of parties that upended the beltway social scene and no doubt required a tremendous supply of energy on Lee's part. The writer put no less work into her appearance on Comedy Central's Colbert Report to promote her book on Chinese food. To prepare for the five-minute appearance with tricky, tongue-in-cheek host Stephen Colbert, Lee consulted with at least four buddies — Daily Show writer Rachel Axler, Lee friend "Dana," an unnamed Random House editor and Lee friend "Alexis." Their overwhelming advice? Don't try to be funny, and for the most part Lee didn't. But she did study some talking points, presented along with video of her on the show after the jump.

Jenny 8. Lee's forthcoming food-porny book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: now with excerpts!

The acknowledgments section of your book is not really the place to get all flowery and "express yourself." You thank your agent, the publisher you probably haven't met, your 'rents, and the friends who put up with your bitching over the last two years. If you're Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee, however, and you've just written a book about the Chinese food diaspora called The Fortune Cookie Chronicles—well, the acknowledgments section might take on an overlong, strange life of its own. (Remember her totally adorable blog overshares?) In four pages of hugs and kisses, she probably thanks you! Excerpts, plus shots of the whole damn thing, follow.