From TMZ:

It's a big birthday for Jennifer Lopez. She's celebrating the big 4-0 today. Other people who will be blowing out candles this fine Friday: Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth is turning 41. Anna Paquin is 27. Director Doug Liman turns 44. Director Gus Van Sant is turning 57. Billionaire investor Nelson Peltz is 67. Artist Alex Katz is turning 82. Senator Claire McCaskill is 56. Governor Charlie Crist of Florida is 53. Barry Bonds turns 45. Retired basketball stars Rick Fox and Karl Malone are turning 40 and 46, respectively. Michael Richards of Seinfeld fame is turning 60. Actor Dan Hedaya is 69. And Wonder Woman—actress Lynda Carter—celebrates her 58th birthday today. Weekend birthdays after the jump.

This is the one day when Jennifer Lopez has the right to act like a diva: The new mom turns 39 today. Also celebrating: Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth turns 40 today (although she looks like she's 12). Anna Paquin is 26. Michael Richards of Seinfeld fame turns 59. Billionaire investor Nelson Peltz is 66. Artist Alex Katz is 81. Director Gus Van Sant turns 52. And scandal-plagued baseball star Barry Bonds is 44.

· Sports-specialist writer/director Ron "Bull Durham/Tin Cup/Cobb" Shelton will helm a movie about steroid-enhanced home run king Barry Bonds based on the book Game of Shadows for HBO Films, a cinematic journey through Bond's clear-and-cream-lubricated pursuit of Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron that Shelton and his writing partner plan to undertake after the conclusion of the writers strike. [Variety]
· The heads of some media conglomerates are trying not to ruin their relationships with the writers they'll one day have to collaborate with by biting their tongues during the strike, resisting the tantalizing impulse to publicly brand them as "greedy residual monkeys" whenever contacted for comment about the ongoing labor dispute. [THR]

Face it: The man can hit. Home run king Barry Bonds couples an uncanny ability to see the ball's incoming trajectory — before it leaves the pitcher's hand — with nearly superhuman slugging power. I've never been a sports nut, but watching Bonds knock the ball into the bay is a million times better than reading "Inside Baseball" articles about what goes on between games. Now, San Francisco's sports superstar appears headed for jail. His mistake wasn't taking steroids, it was falling for the same trick prosecutors used on Valley execs with backdated stock options.

Remember Jonathan Lee Riches, the guy suing Michael Vick for $63,000,000,000 billion? He's got an even better lawsuit! This one's against Barry Bonds, baseball commissioner Bud Selig, and "Hank Aaron's bat." But there's more!

From time to time the news cycle offers up an event of such import and complexity that it can only be comprehended through the medium of musical theater. This week resident composer Ben Greenman takes a look at Barry Bonds, who hit a record 756th home run last night.

For a few seconds, the questions stopped and the doubts quieted. As Alex Balk's 756,000th post went live on Gawker last night, there were no thoughts of controversy or chemicals.