WNBC

• Behold Philippe Starck's Downtown Chandelier of Insanity, to be housed in his Broad Street condos. Luxury units still available, if the lighting fixture doesn't scare the shit out of you. [Curbed]
• After five cold, long years, Fabio is back and still completely in awe of that margarine. [AdAge (reg. req'd)]
• The perfect singles mixer: Girls meet, get wasted, bitch about dating and men. Men show up 2 hours later and are promptly torn to shreds. [LWE]
• If you're anything like us, you saw Brokeback Mountain and immediately wanted to be a Gay cowboy. Now a ranch in Montana is offering a vacation that will allow you to be exactly that. [Mirror UK]
• There was once a time when it was OK to say "Ayds helps you lose weight." [YouTube]
• A little too Donnie Darko for comfort. [CNN]
• First Grilled Cheese NYC closes its doors, and now 71 Clinton is nearing the end. A moment of silence, please, for the death of the Lower East Side's original gentrifier. [The Strong Buzz]
• A numerical study of the popularity of the phrase "more cowbell." Fittingly, it comes out on top of Clay Aiken — but who doesn't? [Parenthetical Remarks]

Looking to Eat Pussy in This Blizzard

CNN headline, right now:

As if you wanted to know, Star Jones Reynolds divulges her thoughts on the most romantic Broadway song ever:

If you're like us, you every now and then wonder what your favorite Times critics do when they're not busy criticizing for the Times. A.O. Scott, we imagine, stays up late critiquing the cinematography of Time-Life book-series informercials; Frank Bruni, we suspect, indulges a secret fondess for bologna and Velveeta on white; and Michiko Kakutani must sit around limning everything in sight while Alessandra Stanley, over at her own place, consistently dials wrong numbers. And what about second-string theater critic Charles Isherwood? What does he do in his spare time? An intrepid reader recently discovered:

We're quite fond of our broker at Stribling. We really are. But after flipping past page A15 of today's Times, we can't help thinking that we would have quite enjoyed looking at the things Corcoran had to show us.

A reader writes:

You know what's fun? Conspiracy theories involving the Catholic Church. You know what's even more fun? Conspiracy theories involving the Catholic Church and secret homosexuality. You know what's even more fun than that? When the conspiracy theories involving the Catholic Church and secret homosexuality start showing up in official, public court documents. All this means that this week's Village Voice will be lots of fun, as it includes Kristen Lombardi's report on a New Jersey priest who's suing 10 Catholic institutions and individuals, including New York's Cardinal Edward Egan, over, to quote Lombardi, "a pattern of 'retaliation and harassment' that began after Hoatson alleged a cover-up of clergy abuse in New York and started helping victims."

• Things we never thought we'd say: Iranians have a delightfully level-headed reaction to the Mohammed-cartoons brouhaha; the country's biggest paper will run a contest for best Holocaust cartoon, which is an entirely reasonable response. [Reuters via WP]
• We're not quite sure how we forget this yesterday, but sullen Simon Dumenco is even madder than usual, this time at Bonnie Fuller. Which seems sort of a waste of energy. [Ad Age]
• AOL gossips say Meredith Viera is now the top choice to replace Katie Couric on Today, should Katie take her clickety stilettos to CBS. They also say Today might go to four hours, with Campbell Brown anchoring parts, and that there's a 70 percent chance of a Katie-to-CBS switch. Which seems an really oddly specific. [TMZ]
• Out magazine is so desperate for a new EIC five months after allegedly pro-baseball-player-dating Brandon Lemon left that now it's even considering straight candidates. You should know better, Out: Sure the straight guys will have the drink, and be a little flirty, but it's just too much work to get them to finally put out. [WWD]
• 90.7 million watched the Super Bowl, making it the most watched TV show in ten years. [THR]
• The increasingly touchy-feely WSJ is like "your boss at work — smart, well-connected, highly respected, passing judgment from afar — who suddenly asks you to hang out on the weekend," says Hamilton Nolan. [PR Week]
• AMI adopted new ABC circ rules early, and realized it would miss rate base on half its titles. The other publishers ain't taking the risk. [Ad Age]

You know, as opposed to regular Bravo.

• Bad news: this year's Fashion Week must go on sans fancy Kohler toilets. The usual crappers have been replaced with mere Porta Potties, which flooded at Kimora Lee Simmons and John Varvatos' shows. Presumably the plastic crappers couldn't withstand the force of mass purging. [Gatecrasher]
• What did Aniston know and when did she know it? The debate rages on as to when Jennifer Aniston was informed of her ex-husband Brad Pitt's procreation with Angelina Jolie; the latest rumor is that she got just one day's notice, via Pitt's publicist. You didn't expect him to tell her without his mouthpiece, did you? [Page Six]
• Of course Catherine Zeta-Jones' gay rugby movie has Alan Cumming attached. It can't exist any other way! [R&M (last item)]
• Good Morning America executive producer Ben Sherwood is rumored to be facing a forced exit, presumably because he couldn't handle being less pretty than Diane Sawyer. [Lowdown]
• Life after losing on the Apprentice involves little more than returning dirty clothes to angry saleswomen. [Page Six]

• Thanks to her lost diary, we all get a glimpse into the frighteningly intellectual world of Lindsay Lohan.
• A Times sports reporter gets unacceptably frisky with a Rangers cheerleader; coincidentally, Times reporter Jason Diamos just happened to be covering the Rangers that night.
• Time Inc. brings the bloodshed, forthcoming layoffs can be considerably less painful thanks to union rules.
• Fake Writer James Frey adds a relatively un-fake author's note to existing and forthcoming editions of A Million Little Pieces.
• Let Fashion Week begin! Just don't feed the models, obviously.
• It was a week of sad farewells: Wendy Wasserstein, Coretta Scott King, and CNN film critic Paul Clinton.
• The New York Sun an innovative new circulation plan, whether you like it or not.
• Go ahead, call Nicky Hilton. She'll be happy to hear from you.
• Wonkette gets itself two new cocks and Gawker Media launches tech geek gossip rag Valleywag.
• Ryan Seacrest is no more or less Gay than last week.
• Anderson Cooper, however, is a little more Gay when he wears his gimp mask.
• Thought Alessandra Stanley's correction rate couldn't get any worse? Think again. And again. And again, if you can bear.

Also, we hear there's a whole bunch of fags skiing.

Watch it with the twink you love.

You know how it didn't really make sense that Ryan Seacrest would be doing a live, in-studio radio interview in New Jersey? And how it didn't really make sense why, after the first time he walked out of the studio because the DJ asked about his sexuality, he would have agreed to continue the interview? Yeah, well, it now makes sense that it didn't make sense. Because it turns out it didn't actually happen.

Interesting news in — of all places — The Trentonian today:

This morning Punxsutawney Phil, the ugly groundhog upon which a nation of idiots places its springtime hopes and fears, saw his shadow. Six more weeks of unseasonably warm winter, goshdarnit. Whatever. We can't wait for the Doppler 17 Robot Edition to crush that fucking rodent, really.

Don't worry, Matt. If we find out where they moved them, you'll be the first one we let know.

So Charles Barkley was on The Daily Show last night to push his book Who's Afraid of a Large Black Man? After Stewart complimented him on the fairly sultry post Barkley strikes on the book's cover, the two men had the following exchange: