A recent eBay auction reminds us that it wasn't so long ago that there were no internets with which to conveniently disseminate unsubstantiated rumor and heresay. In this 1989 fax fished out of a dumpster outside David Hockney's Santa Monica studio, a "DIRT ALERT" reports that:

• New York's Homeland Security budget may have been tightened, but that's no problem for the Hampton Jitney — they've been given $83K to keep the summer share crew safe, protected in their alcoholic bubble. Honestly, in a time of terror, aren't these the fools we'd want to go first? [Room Eight]
• According to the octagenarians at Reader's Digest, New York is the most courteous city in the world. Except for when it's raining and you need a cab. [RD via Bent Post]
• Jodie Foster will tow your car. Or maybe her girlfriend will. Either way. [The Reeler]
• Blogs aren't catching on in Britain, proving that the English are just as smart as they sound. [Guardian]
• Beware the dangers of sunbathing on Murray Hill rooftops: the area is a hotbed of Syracuse alums looking to show you their mansticks. [The Daily Sally]
• David Cross reads blogs, accepts and ratifies David's Law. [Lindsayism]
• We may not be able to give the troops armor, but if we could just send a few Kenneth Cole boots, Iraq would be a safer place. [Copyranter]

Jodie Foster took some time off from her busy schedule of shooting whatever claustrophobic action/suspense thriller she happens to be working on at the moment to deliver the commencement address to the graduating class of University of Pennsylvania. Reviews have been good, with Foster reportedly having struck the perfect balance of irreverence and gravitas. For the requisite final note of productive optimism, however, Foster turned to the unlikely inspiration of an Eminem lyric. It was a bold move to choose the controversial rapper's song "Lose Yourself" from which to quote, though perhaps not as incendiary as it would have been had she chosen one of his less "up with people" sentiments, such as "Kill You"'s "Slut, you think I won't choke no whore/'till the vocal cords don't work in her throat no more?!"

Hollywood PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers. Send yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put sighting or PrivacyWatch in the subject line) and let everyone know that Jodie Foster has a Starbucks problem.

· Steven Spielberg makes a deal with gaming juggernaut Electronic Arts to develop three original video game franchises. EA will own the rights to games, and Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment first-look development rights for TV and Film. The first game is already in the works, and will revolve around a hugely successful director's attempts to keep his out-of-control star from terrorizing depressed new mothers and ruining the opening of their summer blockbuster. [Variety]
· True of False: The Hollywood Reporter really, really likes Jodie Foster. Have you ever seen a salad tossed in true-false form? You have now. [THR]
· Steve Carell sets up two projects with Universal, ensuring that he will have steady work well into the next decade. One is from Carell's original pitch, the other, according to one of its writers, "[I]s for Steve to play the most Caucasian man in America, who's sent to juvenile prison for a petty crime he committed as a kid. Suddenly this suburban drip is surrounded by 11-year-old bad-asses." Ooh, watch the uptight cracker get menaced by 11-year-old bad-asses of color! [Variety]
· Jerry Bruckheimer buys the rights to the sports comedy Ballers, assigns his staff to determine a plausible way that pro footballers might explode spectacularly. [THR]
· What's left of Miramax buys the North American rights to The Queen, a film about the royal family after Princess Diana's death, based on a scene from a particularly moving commemorative dinner plate. [Variety]

Flightplan's Jodie Foster took some time off from dodging angry flight attendant picketers trying to douse her in flat soda and salted peanuts to sit down with Entertainment Weekly, to whom she revealed an unexpected perk of being an actress of a certain age in Hollywood:

· Unlike the Hollywood whorefests at Sundance and Toronto, the four-day Telluride Film Festival is still about the "love of cinema" and its lineup is shrouded in secrecy. Boo! We think a frustrated acquisitions exec just crapped his pants. [Variety]
· Meanwhile, the completely unsecretive Toronto fest announces its lineup. [Variety]
· FX picks up third season of Rescue Me, allowing us still more time to put off finally checking out one of the episodes piling up in the TiVo. [THR]
· Var uses the phrase "urban suspense thriller" twice in four sentences to describe potential Jodie Foster vehicle The Brave One. In addition to its apparent suspenseful, urban qualities, vigilantism is involved. [Variety]
· National Lampoon taps Diedrich Bader and Nicole Eggert, the spiritual heirs of John Belushi and the vintage Chevy Chase, for National Lampoon's Cattle Call. [THR]