With every passing week, the developing relationship between John Mayer and Jennifer Aniston begins to feel like one of those soap operas we used to watch before vowing never to watch another soap opera again. In the pilot, we viewers were hooked and enticed by Aniston’s fembot nipples and Mayer’s tattooed tricep, the beachside love affair reeling us in just like the first episode of Paradise Island. The sophomore effort’s plot involved the first climactic turn of events: John was “bored”! Jen was “clingy!” In this week’s episode, the relationship has reached that rosy point in which the new-ish couple begins introducing each other to their Friends. Literally. As the Daily Mail reports, Mayer has become part of that fun little sixsome we’ve loved, hated and grown indifferent towards, inducted by Aniston into bosom buddy Courteney Cox’s strict evaluation system. See how John’s infamous O-face fared with Cox after the jump.

So, what does James Michael Tyler, the actor who played "Central Perk" manager Gunther on Friends, have to say about our Cash-Waving Craigslist Dater? "It's continually astounding how deep and wide the cultural divide can seem at a distance. It is equally affirming to recognize that the chasm may be breached by a few well placed words of wisdom." Possibly the most random quote ever to come into existence. [Animal NY]

And it's gone! It appears that the mysterious Facebook stalker feature—that allowed you to call up the names of five people who (we think) were searching for you most, just by pressing the down arrow in the search field—has been disabled. Our post on the feature went up shortly after 1:00; by 4:30 (or possibly earlier, based on our comments), it was no longer working. They're quick! We have an email in to Facebook to find out exactly what happened. How could they take it down without even explaining what it was? They mystery is eating us up inside. We will find the truth. [UPDATE: As noted in the comments, it looks like simply typing a period (".") in the search box will still bring up the same list of five people. Hope is not lost!]

Actor/Director David Schwimmer's significant other ran interference as he appeared to be in deep thought about his next career move. Yet she took job a bit too seriously when she snapped at a fan who approached them to talk about how much he had enjoyed Run Fatboy Run, as well as David's turn as Greenzo on 30 Rock. The girlfriend told the guy to back off and spew his negativity elsewhere. Schwimmer smiled to the fan, then quickly pulled his gal pal to the side and explain that people like that guy introduce positive vibes and not everyone is going to spew negative vibes.

Paris Hilton, heiress and sufferer of chronic droop-eye, would like to breed. She is currently dating one Benji Madden, who allegedly plays for some sort of musical group called "Good Charlotte," and would like to settle down and start a family. But! Trouble is brewing! Paris's on-again-off-again fake best friend, Nicole Richie (sort-of heiress, Peruvian shrunken head) thinks that Paris is just copying her! Nicole is married to fucking Benji's brother, Joel, who is also in this "Good Charlotte." And Nicole just had a baby, Harlow, and now Paris wants one too?? She's such a copycat! Plus, Nicole has to stay home with this stinky baby while Paris gets to bop around Europe with the brothers Madden? So unfair. Next thing you know Paris is going to grab Nicole's arm and say "stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself." [Showbiz Spy]

Maybe there's no need to feel sorry for Jennifer Aniston after all. Despite the tear-drenched interviews post-Brangelina, the constant inductions of Chosen Ones, and all the hits and misses when it comes to on-set dating, Jen may not have to spend her spare time on-set chatting up whoever happens to be standing next to her in line at the craft service table. Several reports claim that Orlando Bloom spent his Friday night flirting with Aniston at a party thrown by Hollywood hairdresser to the stars, Ken Paves. But as you might recall, this isn't the first time Orlandiston sparked rumors. Back in October, the pair were spotted in Mexico sharing the same veranda in skimpy swimwear (pictures after the jump)...

Much like Ryan Seacrest or Alec Baldwin before her, Paris Hilton is going on TV to find friends. MTV has finally green lit 10 episodes of Paris Hilton's My New BFF, a series that will feature Paris looking for a new bestie. She's unstoppable! Not even ridiculously awful movies can slow her down. The show will basically function like The Bachelor or Tila Tequila except the search is for an entourage member, not a crazed stalker or virulent strain of hepatitis. The heiress is looking for "Someone that I can just trust, someone who's not gonna stab me in the back like has happened a lot in this town, someone I can have fun with," she said at the unveiling party for the show's working title.

You don't even want to know the hit his "Compare People" rankings took. [Facebook]

Dirt star Courtney Cox leaves Nobu in a daze; either she's disappointed by the number of paparazzi covering her nearly frozen beat or she just endured an endless stream of terrible Chandler Bing impressions from hungry tourists with money to burn.

In what could accurately be described as a gross perversion of natural law, a PR firm is attempting to hold a cutesy karaoke mixer party entitled "Flacks, Hacks, and Friends." This phrase makes no sense. Hacks are certainly not friends with flacks, on general principle. Most hacks aren't popular or social enough to have friends at all, so I don't know what the extra "and Friends" is for. Also: karaoke, really? Red Branch PR wants to "put aside all the ruckus for an evening of harmony, or lack thereof." So feel free to go and start a bar fight. Full invitation—for YOU—below.

Shouty error-prone PR man and Internet domain name squatter Ronn [sic] Torossian is proud of his self-made empire of spelling mistakes, and he enjoys passing his wisdom on to you, the public, via his blog. "Competitiveness and the desire to win is something which I believe is engrained in people (especially entrepreneurs)," he wrote last night. "Not something to be taken lightly." We would never make that mistake! But what people want to know, Ronn, is: What does this desire to win have to do with the highly addictive game of brickbreaker [sic]?

Yesterday we noted the split in New York's gay community over the proper response to the Super Bowl; boycott it, or celebrate with sex? That's one for personal preference. But there's a far more insidious aspect to the whole Gay/ Football issue. Namely, the underlying homoeroticism of the whole enterprise. Some coarse fans like to exploit this for cheap jokes: "He patted that guy on the butt. He's gay. He grabbed that guy. He's gay." But in fact, football is a great tool for loosening up those prone to anti-gay sentiment, because the act of football fandom is just as rife with barely concealed homoerotic acts as the game itself. The same men that would scoff at anything less than macho on the field will wrap their arms around each other and cry while praying for a Giants win. That's why, out of all the Super Bowl celebration videos we've seen, we like this one best. Five young guys, Giants jerseys, hand-holding, girlish screaming, and lots and lots of hugging. [Honestly: It's just male bonding, OKAY?]

Guess what? Perpetual Craigslist-questers for a roommate, Emily and Michelle, are throwing another party in Astoria! Remember the last one? It kinda both worked and didn't work all at the same time. I loved the part when someone does an acoustic version of Wonderwall! Anyway, this party is a pajama one and it is at niner. This Sat. Update: After receiving this invitation, we got an email from Emily: "Wait!" it said, "wW just googled sic transit gloria, and we take the flyer back." Sad! Though I guess we've been uninvited, you should still go! It'll be fun!

Wil Schroter, CEO of Go Big Network, writes of the value of "friend"-making being equal to, if not greater, than fundraising or business planning. And it's true. In Silicon Valley, like it or not, the entrepreneur with the most "friends" wins. (Even when they lose.) Business plans rarely matter; truly compelling ideas get overlooked. There is plenty of funding to go around. But "friends"? They matter. Schroter's wrong, however, when he says there is no cost to making "friends."

After weathering a flatly written exchange in which Aniston's lesbian character tells Cox, "This is no way to live! You don't deserve to be alone," (oh, the bitter irony), then some innuendo about past dalliances between the characters (four implied times!), and one brushed off ass-grab (easy there, lesbian tiger), we finally get the kiss: A closed mouth cutaway unlikely to moisten the panties of even the show's most incontinent viewers. Have a look, trying not to sigh too loudly over this squandered opportunity to exploit ten seasons' worth of crackling, Sapphic sexual tension.

We'd like to take this opportunity to reaquaint you with the adorable, wet-nosed worst nightmares of any pirated entertainment smuggler: Lucky and Flo, two black Labradors whom we first met back in May of last year, who have been trained to sniff out polycarbonates used in the manufacturing of DVDs. They are on loan temporarily to Malaysia, just one of the Asia Pacific nations responsible for the estimated $1.2 billion the pirated DVD trade costs Hollywood annually, taking food off the plates of hard-working stuntmen and studio execs lunching at The Grill alike. Pictured, Lucky and Flo stand triumphantly next to their contraband quarry: A boxed-set featuring an entire season of Friends, just a small step towards ensuring its cast members—whose latest gigs are hardly insuring that food will continue to be put on their tables—are fairly remunerated for their hard work on the series.

A Hollywood conversation that has dominated much of this decade—regarding the sorry state of affairs for sitcom writers being edged out by more popular and cheaper-to-produce reality programming—continues with an LAT piece that revisits the familiar topic in light of NBC's recent towel-tossing concession of their 8 p.m. timeslot to an almost entirely briefcases-and-yelling-based programming schedule. The debate still falls mainly into two categories: the steadfastly optimistic camp that insists we are just in the midst of an extended audience taste cycle, and the somewhat more pragmatic, "OK, we're pretty much fucked" school of thought:

Matt LeBlanc, as we well know, is the National Enquirer's willing bitch, eager to clamp down on their shiny, red ball-gags of divorce exclusives and first-person "The Night My Lap Was Attacked By A Runaway Stripper's Ass" tell-alls, in exchange for what we can only assume is the assurance that a manila envelope marked "M.L.'s 4 a.m. Vaseline Alley Surveillance Pics" remains permanently sealed. The woman to whom the ass in question belongs is now suing LeBlanc for defamation of character, for the ridiculous-sounding claims the Friends star made about her in a fishy interview he granted the Enquirer last year:

Former Friends star/brave lil' Broadway sailor David Schwimmer has triumphed against a crooked celebrity fundraising event organizer, who claimed Schwimmer had been bribed with "two gold Rolex watches worth $26,413" in exchange for attending a charity event. Schwimmer categorically denied the accusation, and now has the full backing of the law to support that:

· Variety assumes Cars will be this weekend's top earner, but wonders if it will beat any box office records, particularly when parents start warning each other of the dark, autopian vision of its ending: [SPOILER!] That the reason it's devoid of any humans is because they're all being ground up for fuel in subterranean farms. [Variety]
· Steven Spielberg tells Sunday Morning Shootout that Paramount was his second choice for DreamWorks' buyout, and that he "would love to go off and make a picture like Capote or George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck,"stopping himself before saying, "You know, movies that earn their Oscars, rather than getting nominations because I'm, like, Steven Spielberg." [Variety]
· Former Friends writer and Will & Grace showrunner Greg Malins is joining How I Met Your Mother, where he will school the show's green creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays on the proper way to describe a blowjob to the writers' room. [Variety]
· Reese Witherspoon's husband is in negotiations to star as the lead in director Kimberly Peirce's first feature since Boys Don't Cry, the Iraq war drama, Stop-Loss. [THR]
· Ratings are up for the NBA finals over last year, with the boost's source suspected of coming from overcompensating, straight men feeling the urge to catch the nearest game after being subjected to an inescapable week of Brandon Routh's suberbulge. [THR]