Now that the cat has tumbled mewling out of the divorce bag and she's begun saying nasty things about her husband in public, pop icon (popcon?) Madonna is at a metaphorical crossroads. Where do you go once you've escaped suburban Detroit banality, conquered the grimy 1980's New York City club scene, become a music and fashion superstar, attempted acting in movies and Broadway plays, borne approximately 143 reinvention comebacks from your be-hot-panted loins, settled down with a film director husband and cobbled together a hodgepodge of children, become a fitness-obsessed British lady, written children's books, directed your own film, worked your arms into clobbering, veiny horror shows, and then suddenly the happy quiet marriage dissolves and you're free to be yourself again? What's a material girl to do? We'll offer some suggestions after the jump. Become a Worldly, Knowing Head of State She's not tearing up the charts like she used to, she's not setting hearts aflutter, she's not even shocking anyone anymore. It's time we all—bourgeoisie and rebel—face the Music: the Age of Madonna has ended. Hell, the Age of Britney has ended. The pop music world is now dominated by skinny, moaning white boys, fiercely syncopated black ladies, and throwbacky retro British chicks. There's no room, really, for a 50-year-old with a message. Which is why Madge ought to hang up the riding crop and rest comfortably on her throne as the lifetime achievement Queen of Pop. (There's a spot next to hers where Michael Jackson should be sitting, but that whole thing went off the rails somewhere a few years back). Let the young ones claw their way around the industry, hoping for some attention. They're all trying to be Madonna anyway. Why mess with a classic and release subpar albums and muddle through rickety tours? Take a break, babe. You deserve it. And hey, now that your husband's out of the picture, you can declare Prima Nocta and bed every Joe and Jim Jonas who comes sexually blossoming across your path. They're yours by right. By Godly cree. Pause For Some Introspection The great thing about being a fabulous, wealthy, creative superstar is that when you fuck up or are fucked over, you get to stern your face up, put on some amazingly big sunglasses and be strong about it. People will call you a hero simply for breathing in and out, putting one foot in front of the other. So maybe Madonna should emulate her adopted country's stiff upper lip, turn inwards, and then a year or so from now, release some quiet, heartfelt album about what it means to be 50-years-old and alone again (save for those kids, but whatevs). Pen some soaring tunes with lyrics that talk about change and rebirth and the mystical cycles of things—the moon spins and so do wheels and carousels and what's so amazing that keeps us stargazing and how are we moving forward if all we're doing is turning around and around. That kind of thing. People will call her brave and reinvigorated and the definitive voice of her generation. (The funny thing being that Madonna's fans have generally always been just slightly younger than her.) She'll play Carnegie Hall and maybe even chat with someone on NPR and she'll finally get that classiness she's so desperately craved ever since she had a fleeting taste of it back in the Bedtime Stories/Evita days. Go Crazy Yeah, maybe she should just go nuts. Turn into an eccentric woman-of-a-certain-age. Hole up in her London apartment and emerge only to yell at songbirds or snatch cats off the street or go floating down the street swathed in caftans and turbans. She could say big, sweeping, beautiful things like "What a world it used to be, the old world. It's dead now. Dead and gone. In the old world we had parties every day and nobody cried because they were sad. Even when we were sad, we were happy." And she could become a drunk and always have some glass of amber-colored something or other swirling around. And maybe she could grab beautiful young men by the ears and cock her head a little nuttily and say, almost to herself, "so pretty. Pretty pretty little pet. I wonder how much you are. Everything's so expensive these days. Everything costs so very much. Don't they, pretty pet? Don't they..." and then she'll glide off cackling. It could be pretty fucking awesome, and at the young age of 50, she'd be getting a good head start on it. It could grow and change and evolve over the next 30-plus years! By the time she's 85, she could be writing long, curious letters to the editors of various newspapers in South America, accusing lampposts of being Nazis and calling the neighbor's dog Mussolini. And it would be fabulous. Or, you know, she could just continue working out and raising her children and maybe spend a little more time in New York than she has been and that will be that. Maybe she'll move to Connecticut and buy a Volvo. The world will just have to wait and watch. And really, isn't that the wonderful thing about Madonna? You just never know what's coming next.

During the debate last night, Senator McCain repeatedly talked directly to some magical blue collar hero named Joe the Plumber. If this "Joe the Plumber" bullshit had any resonance (beyond with pundits who assume viewers and voters are so much dumber than them) it was probably tossed out the window once McCain said "hey Joe, you're rich. Congratulations." He said like at least twice, didn't he? (McCain always repeats his practiced zingers, which is a terrible habit.) Of course only in Matt Drudge's wet dreams did Joe the Plumber resonate with Ohio swing voters to begin with. He's a plumber, sure, respectable blue collar work. But honestly, right now, in this climate, how many voters exactly personally relate to a guy who's planning on buying a business? Oh no, Senator Obama might stop Pete the Locksmith from flipping his house and buying that Land Rover! And that was before it was revealed that Joe the Plumber might be a Republican plant! This Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher already talks like a GOP pundit (he's got the accidental casual racism down!), and his aw shucks willingness to repeat ancient class war talking points to every camera in sight is actually a bit suspicious for a random voter, but the most important thing about Joe Wurzelbacher is his last name: it's the same as the last name of Charles Keating's son-in-law! Keating's son-in-law, Robert Wurzelbacher, served a 40-month prison sentence in 1993 in connection with Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan collapse. Since then, who knows what he's been up to, but there is a Robert Wurzelbacher who lives just outside of Cincinnati, owns a wood company, and donates to Republicans. Meanwhile there is a Joseph Wurzelbacher who owns a painting company in Cincinnati! Along with a septic tank repair company! These dots were all connected by a DailyKos diarist, who has no proof that Joe and Robert Wurzelbacher are related, but, you know, it's suspicious. The Wurzelbvacher connection was also made, amusingly, by this right-wing satirical blogger. But regardless of whether Joe the Plumber is a Republican plant or not, one thing is for certain: he's not actually voting for McCain. Because the asshole isn't actually registered. Update: Joe the Plumber doesn't pay taxes. At all. He is registered to vote though! But if there's a typo in his registration, which seems possible, his provisional ballot will probably be thrown away. Hah.

It is already October 15th! How did that happen? I guess you could say that the Earth rotated around the sun a specific number of times and that days winnowed into nights which bled into days and so on and so on in the circle game. I think that's it. So, how have we been spending these ever-marching autumn hours? Watching TV, of course! Lots and lots of TV. Some has been good (Mad Men, The Daily Show), some has been bad (90210), and some has just been puzzling (Two and a Half Men?). So as we approach the ever-important November Sweeps Week—when networks set their ad rates based on inflated, extraordinary episodes that don't actually reflect typical week-in, week-out quality—let's take a second to give a quarter term report card. How has television been faring, you know, quality-wise (because we already know that ratings are in the toilet)? We'll analyze after the jump.

We come together today to eulogize the genius who created one of television's most brilliant series. No, not David Chase, creator of The Sopranos. Have no fear, Matt Groenig remains among the living. Instead, the madman that we are paying tribute to is James E. Reilly, who created perhaps the most demented show that has ever existed, the NBC soap Passions. According to Soap Opera Digest, the 60-year-old Reilly passed away over the weekend while recovering from cardiac surgery. He leaves behind a sister, Cathy Robinson, as well as many of the most insane things that have ever happened on television. We're talking child witches with thought bubbles, armies made exclusively of fighting lesbians, insanely convoluted incest storylines — and that's just for starters! We've got a more in-depth sampling, after the jump.A mere perusal of Passions-related entries on Wikipedia unearths these amazing sentences, which make no more sense out of context than they were intended to on the show:

Happy Wednesday, the world is over. Someone, a "major character," will soon be kicking the bucket on be-Missoni'd teen soap Gossip Girl. So says the internet, at least! But who will it be, and how, and why? I guess we'll have to worry ourselves into anxious little balls of cigarette smoke and sadness until the funeral episode drops during November sweeps. In the meantime, though, we can speculate. Take a stupid hump-day poll after the jump and tell us who you think is going to that big, sprawling, but cheap! for poor people! DUMBO loft in the sky.

So the Sun, England's most tasteful, reputable daily tabloid, sent word around late Tuesday that Madonna and Guy Ritchie will officially divorce by the end of the year. ("They can't bear the pretence!") We unpacked our grain of salt while sorting through the months of rumors preceding this one, but with everyone from the AP to Time hitching on and the singer's exasperated rep admitting, "We're not going to know anything until the US wakes up," all public signs indicate this is finally it. After the jump, a quick recap of how we got here, and what's likely next.While split talk had jammed the tabloids essentially since the day they were married in 2000, with Madonna publicly grumbling for years now about her unfulfilled sex needs, the gossip was all so much noise until the fantastic Madgerod Cynthavitz controversy that exploded over the summer. The scandal placed Madonna in Yankees slugger/"fucking soulmate, dude" Alex Rodriguez's comforting, Kabbalah-friendly arms, while A-Rod's wife Cynthia retreated to Paris for an extended stay in an apartment owned by Lenny Kravitz. "Nothing to see here," said Kravitz, who urged calm while Madonna's flack denied that A-Rod had ever charged her client's mound. Fine, then. Except the Rodriguezes divorced soon after, and as recently as two weeks ago Madonna and A-Rod were reportedly spotted dining together again in New York. This while Ritchie fled the spotlight, tapering off press for his new film RockNRolla and jetting back to England to commence shooting Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr.. So last night's announcement seems ideally timed for both him and Madge, who is five shows into her Sticky & Sweet world tour, where nearly half of her 25 American dates have yet to sell out. Oh — and her new own directorial debut, Filth and Wisdom, opens in New York and LA this Friday. Convenient! Not so convenient: The economy of Splitsville. The London Times reports today that the couple didn't have a pre-nup, thus encouraging Madonna to file for divorce in the States, where she'd likely earn a more favorable take from her and Ritchie's $600 million fortune. If Ritchie fights for a London divorce, the legal saga could play out for upward of a year. We don't buy for a second that these details aren't already arranged between the two, but the Times adds that still doesn't guarantee an official split by Christmas, as Madge reportedly hopes for. Certainly there's more to follow, which we'll report as it happens. In the meantime, don't look so down! We'll always have Swept Away.

"PHOTOS: Madonna's Movie Premiere With Friends, Facial Hair," promised the headline today on the Huffington Post today, and we dutifully clicked, wondering who would be the latest star to don Hollywood's hottest new accessory: the moustache! Previously an outdated cultural relic, the moustache has undergone a renaissance thanks to actors like George Clooney and Robert Downey, Jr.; would a star of similar stature attending the premiere of Madonna's Filth and Wisdom be the newest member of the facial hair club? Then, we came to the last sentence of the article: "Here are photos of some of the celebrities who came out to support [Madonna] Monday night and, perhaps more surprising for such a perfectionist, a close-up of Madonna's upper lip hair."

Kim Brittingham is New York writer who is fat. (Self-described. She once, as a stunt, made a fake book cover titled "Fat is Contagious: How Sitting Next To a Fat Person Can Make YOU Fat," and rode around on buses reading it. Heh). Anyhow, she reports that she had a meeting set up with a PR firm (5WPR, natch) to discuss her being a spokesperson for Avenue , a "plus-size" women's clothing retailer. But, at the last minute, she couldn't get her foot in the door, so to speak. Take it away, Kim:

The Gossip girls are off to college! Well, for the weekend at least. Yes, last night's episode of the one and only New York City teen soap bitchery carnival brought the floppy youngsters to storied Yale University, a role poorly played by Columbia. And what did they find in this little Amazon excerpt preview of the next chapter of their lives? Serena and Blair found their inner Alexis and Krystles, Chace found a lady to make out with, Chuck found some new boy friends who like it rough, and ol' Gabbo there Dan Humphrey found that he wasn't always comfortable with his choice of underpants. Take the full campus tour after the jump. Twas young Blair's dream to attend Yale, because it is the most prestigious and be-named-after-a-lock-company'd of all the Ivies (well, not all. Blair contends that there are only three: Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. I hate the Ivy system so I don't really know or care. I do know that Cornell totes doesn't count though.) She had her whole plan in order to nail the interview then to get invited to the dean's secret teenage fuckfest sex party cocktail reception, during which he'd ask the students to take the ball gag gently in their mouths and think warm thoughts name who they'd most want to have dinner with, dead or alive. Blair picked George Sand, a fuckin' French feminazi who used to bone that fruit Chopin. Typical uptown elite choice. But Sand was the foppish dean's favorite author, so it was, in fact, perfect. Everything was going according to plan! Until... Until the wicked Serena, reeling from a Blair attack in which she (rightly, sorry Dad) called S's first choice school Brown a filthy haven for even filthier rich wannabe hippies who don't want grades (srsly, they don't give out grades.) Serena naturally flipped on the competitive switch and decided to haul ass up to New Haven instead. She nailed her interview, making Blair feel sad and insecure, causing her to bomb her own tête-à-tête with Dean Sexdungeon. Oohhh that rascally Serena! To add insult to (impending) injury, Serena got a little tip from Chuckles about the George Sand thing, and stole that answer. At the the little ultra-selective potential students party (to which Blair weaseled her way an invitation, using ceramic kitty kats as bribery), the wax was slowly dripped on the students' tight, tawny flesh Ultimate Dinner Choice names were read, and wouldn't you know it? Blair pulled a fast one on Serena, switching out Sand for that dude what Serena done moidered. Or left for dead or whatever. So they raced out to the porch, yelled a lot, then actually fought. Like physically. That "sproingggg" you heard at about 8:40 PM EST last night was the sound of a thousand 14-year-old boys becoming men. Meanwhile! Chuck and Nate lay on the grass, two young demigods, languid in their Waughness and comfortable in the delicate yet sure way in which they planned to take over the world. Rich boys on holiday! Chuck was waiting for the Skull & Bones society (which is maybe just nerds) to whisk him away into the shadowy depths of lifelong entitlement, while Nate was unconvincingly cruising... for chicks. He found one! But before he could work his buttery way into her pantaloons, she participated in a little Nate Archibald bashing. You see, the Captain had ruined a bunch of people's trust funds, so they were totes hoping to snow Nate once he got to campus. Simple solution, Nate pretended to be Dan, leading to some dormroom nookie. Though, Gabbo was busy being shot the eff down by Dean Putyourhandsoveryourhead,doit!, and told to get another recommendation. So for some reason he sought out the same exact pixie haired dink that Nate was sucking mug with. Hilarity and mistaken identity ensues! And it doesn't stop thereeee. Chuck was abducted by his new intensely homosexual lovers Skull & Bones friends. He was made to take a party test, which Chuck passed with flying colors by bringing some non-English-speaking hookers to the creepy lair in which the the cult members live, like common vampires. Well done, Bass. But there's one more tasssss...k. Bring us the throbbing, purple head of Nate Archibald! Ruh roh, Changes for Chuckles. What to do? Well, tell Gary, Lance, Gideon and the rest of the fellas that Dan is Nate. So they abducted Gabbo, tying him to a column in his underwear, eventually getting worked over pretty hard by Dean You'regettingitalloveryourface,ladyboy rescued by Nate. Penn Badgley doing comedy and embarrassment is epically squirmy to watch, I must say. Anyway, the two boys became the best of friends and Nate got mad at Chuck for what he'd done to Dan who, as it turns out, is "pretty cool." Sweet! Let's go to the arcade, my mom can pick us up afterward! Do you like pizza? Like an embittered, scorned husband, Chuck said tersely and desperately to Nate "let's talk about this in the car," which made me laugh very very loud. So yeah. At least Chuck got some satisfaction (heh) with the S&B boys in the end, by saying "fuck off, Yale" and showing the lads the incriminating hooker photos taken by lipstick cameras. "I own you now," he said as he sauntered off. "Daaammnnn," said the S&B boys as they hated to see him go but loved to watch him leave, like in Martin except they didn't say "Gina," they said "Chuck." Blair and Serena decided to make up (not make out, sorry boys!), though Blair totes had her pinned with that chicken wing and would have won the fight. In the end, Serena got the call and not Blair, though they only wanted S for her increasing Page Six status. Right, because Yale has a PR problem. Feh. So everyone left Yale, while the Dean went to let the Laotian boy out of the crawlspace to teach him his "lessons" penned some acceptance letters and went home. Back in Nueva, Jennifer was trying to convince Pa Humphrey that a fashion career was the way to go, instead of traditional schooling. She brought him along for a day at the atelier, but he was not convinced. Until they went to Bass Manor and—sproingggg!—he ran into Lily slinking around the apartment in Serena's little black dress. She told him that he should let his daughter pursue her dreams of fashions, like he pursued his dream of muziks. Frankly terrible advice, in my estimation. Oh! And it was funny because she was like Oh yeah, I'm totes Kevin McAllister tonight. S and Chuckles are at Yale, and "Erik has a new friend, I'm told," which means he was probably sexing with a dude right at that moment. Hah! What a meager plot bone to throw at Erik fans. So that's the way I seen it. Dorota being proud of Blair in the beginning was weird and wistful, as was the fact that Chace Crawford continues to insist that he's more than a devastatingly handsome face. I loved the porch fight and continue to firmly attest that this show sings only as comedy. As drama it's usually muddled and mawkish, but o' Josh Schwartz! As comedy! Such beauty. The My Fair Lady dream sequence opening? No words. Simply none. What'd you like?

Here's a bright ray of sunshine piercing through the dark skies of the newspaper industry: Bingo Gossip. It's thriving! Could Missy Mouser, the 26-year-old founder of this free bimonthly tabloid chronicling the lighter side of the Texas bingo world hold the answers for what ails the publishing business? YES, if the predilections of elderly Texas bingo fans are any indication!:

In honor of Saturday Night Live alum Molly Shannon, whose poorly-received sitcom Kath & Kim premieres tonight on NBC, we thought it was time to pay tribute to the women who've made the biggest mark on SNL over the years. Whether it's Tina Fey, whose profile has surged since her Sarah Palin guest appearances, or an underrated player like Jan Hooks who shines in late-night SNL reruns, we have a soft spot for the women who've succeeded despite being greatly outnumbered in SNL's heavily male cast and writing room.Sadly, our list cut off at eight, so the valuable, deadpan Jane Curtain and the acidic Nora Dunn were among the SNL casualties. Other alumnae — like Sarah Silverman and Janeane Garofalo — have had career success despite their ignoble stints on the variety show, and were therefore left out. Enjoy the clip above, then make a passionate case for the ignored Julia Sweeney down below. [SNL]

Earlier today, following the news that Vogue editrix Anna Wintour has a little crush on actor Gerard Butler, Radar compiled a list of some of Anna's known paramours. It's a strange mix of gents. B-baller LeBron James, country club hero Roger Federer, Monty Python's Eric Idle, Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse (oohhh..), and, um, Bob Marley. Yes! Bob Marley. Heh heh. Well, because it's such a varied group of dudes, we got to wondering... who exactly would be Anna Wintour's perfect man? We tapped our Photoshop whiz Steve Dressler and employed some of our own inductive reasoning and have come up with a fellow called Archie Bronson, a writer and public speaker. Read a little about Archie and see a photo after the jump.

Ooh ooh! Check it out y'all! A sponsor, uh, sponsored contest! This one comes from the new USA series The Starter Wife. A starter marriage is defined as a first marriage that lasts less than 5 years and is over before the couple has children. After the jump are the names of 5 former celebrity couples...to win you have to identify if they qualify as "starter marriages" according to this definition. So if the couple broke up in under five years, had no kids, and it was both parties' first marriage, the answer is Yes. If they lasted longer than five years, had kids (adoption counts!), or at least one party was previously married, then the answer is No. If you get them all right and then we select your name, you get this fabulous gift bag! 1. Tom Cruise & Nicole Kidman 2. Tom Green & Drew Barrymore 3. Halle Barry & David Justice 4. Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson 6. Angelina Jolie & Jonny Lee Mille Send responses to contests@gawker.com and enter for a chance to win the Starter Wife Gift Bag (pictured below). Don't forget to check out The Starter Wife, premiering Friday night on the USA Network. Standard contest rules apply.

Belgian sex-related advertising is an absolute phenomenon. The horny little country already gave us ass-vertising and disturbing prophylactic Photoshops and the best sex-ed commercial ever. And now the weird Europeans are back with an ad campaign (for condoms) starring that underrated icon: the penis. All of it. Dressed up as various celebrities. After the jump, a somewhat nightmarish (and NSFW) version of Arnold Schwarzenegger—I don't encourage you to look:

Both candidates went into the debates with the goal of looking Already President. Because many Americans simply wanted to believe they could trust the new guy, Obama won the first debate on those terms. Last night, it became clear that Obama's strategy was to spend the first debate as a calm, respectful presence and to open up more distinctions between the two candidates in the second. It also became clear that McCain's strategy was to assume he just couldn't possibly be losing to that punk kid. Conservatives are miserable that McCain lost last night. He pissed away the election! It was his last shot at winning! He never delivered the knock-out blow! He'd lost it already. Seriously. What could he have done, last night, that would've been a game-changer? Anything? He tried a stunt—"the Treasury Department will buy all the mortgages!"—but it just sounded like a stunt (also that is a great way to remind Republicans that they never liked you to begin with, by proposing a plan to the left of Obama). He was a little bit nicer, a bit jokier, but also much more critical of Obama in ways that made more sense than last time. What else could he have done? Magically appear 20 years younger? The only way to win this year on policy is to run to the left of the Democrats and the only way to win on character is to be more youthful and serious and new and comfortably familiar than Obama. McCain lost before he showed up. Once he showed up he looked old and tired. It'd be cruel to hand that man the presidency in a time like this. Tina Brown: "During the campaign McCain has aged dramatically. Like Dorian Gray, the bargains he has made with his conscience are reflected in the mirror. He has developed a strange Jimmy Cagney rasp and new verbal eccentricities that seem to have fused the speaking styles of Bob Dole and Ross Perot." John Heilemann: "He rattled around onstage looking slightly lost, making hokey jokes that fell flat in the hall, offering edgy barbs at Obama (and even Tom Brokaw!), and telling hoary stories that referenced Ronald Reagan, Teddy Roosevelt, Tip O'Neill, and Herbert Hoover - historically significant figures who reinforced the image of the Arizona senator as yesterday's man." Rich Lowry: "I thought McCain was good. It's as passionate and well-informed as he's ever been on domestic policy. His debate briefers did their job well. I think he repeatedly scored points in the first hour, but they were jabs rather then crosses-blows that Obama could absorb." And it should be noted that at The Corner they are convinced the only way McCain could've won this was to bring up William Ayers over and over and over again, to paint Obama as a radical leftist and to somehow get Real Americans to Wake Up and realize that this guy isn't who he says he is. Fittingly, their dissatisfaction with their mediocre candidate totally mirrors McCain's obvious shock that people are taking this Obama guy seriously. And now that Obama's favorables are so high, now that everyone is pretty sure they do know this guy (the time to paint him as something foreign and secretly scary came months ago, and Obama passed that test just fine), trying to scare voters away from him just demonstrates your contempt for their judgment. You know, the sort of contempt liberals were all accused of feeling because we couldn't believe anyone would've voted for Bush. Everyone hates the voters! We're pretty sure there isn't a "game-changer" of any kind available to the McCain campaign, and the best they can hope for is some sort of catastrophic meltdown by Obama. We're also pretty sure our debate preview was totally right!

Depression sex! No, not because you're depressed—because the economy is! As in, "the world is falling apart around us, let's cling together because we could all die and/or lose our jobs tomorrow." Remember the spate of hookups and reunited lovers post-9/11? This is a little like that. When the going gets desperate... the desperate turn to the Craigslist casual encounters.1.) Standard layoffs. Finance and Wall Street types, bored and sad in their apartments.

Last week I was killing time—which means I was reading Elle by myself at the Holiday Cocktail Lounge while waiting for a phone call—when I became completely captivated by their Candace Bushnell profile. I forgot about this until I saw this Q&A with the Sex and the City author in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "What do you think about the commentary about you on Gawker [and other snark-sites]?" it asks. To be sure, Bushnell has a young blogger in her latest book, which she derides as a "striking out at the world instead from behind the safety of his computer." But we have actually, seriously, learned from Bushnell—not the TV show[s], and definitely not the movie, but as a self-made woman obsessed not with status, but with class.Americans don't like to talk about class, or at least not about how it plays into sexual relationships. Instead, people use euphemisms like, "He went to Yale Law" when you yourself are a twenty-year-old East Villager who would quite honestly like to be taken care of. But! Let's put aside for a moment giving Bushnell the responsibility for "thousands of gallons of vomited Cosmos" and shoe fetishism and even the tired "Can women have sex like men?" question. (Answer: yes, no, and sometimes.) Sunday eve, I was remarking on how I loved the Real Estate section of the Sunday Times because it was "like porn" as it showed things "I'll never have." To which someone joked, "You never know, you might meet a really rich guy," and I replied, "the better idea is the one where I make a shitload of money myself." Which, let's be honest, I probably won't. But I could. Whenever gender or class is brought up, I'm almost always brought back to the period of time I spent, OK, stripping. It's like the extreme sport where gender and class intersect—not that you're supposed to talk about that! Via Elle:

Remember when John Edwards got a couple of $400 haircuts and everyone made fun of him and called him a spendthrift pretty boy? Rush Limbaugh said he might be the "first woman president"! Har har! (And, remember, when Edwards slept with that lady and maybe had a love child and how the hair didn't seem like such a big deal after all?) Well, Edwards, in truth, isn't the only of the recent candidates to undergo special, fancy, or expensive cosmetic treatment. Sarah Palin maybe has lip tattoos! John McCain has the same makeup artist as Clay Aiken! Joe Biden maybe gets Botox! And Barack Obama... um... covers up his gray hair? Indeed. If you're curious to know more, we've put together a little compendium of these bits of cosmetic detritus for you, after the jump.

The Downsized Employee woke up the first business day after the downsizing somewhat disappointed to be angry at no one. The Downsized Employee stayed in bed a full fourteen minutes longer than she really wanted to while considering the emotional fuel that might sustain a final task. On Sunday the Downsized Employee had woken up angry at the middle manager whose idea of a heads-up was not replying to two email requests she'd sent a couple weeks earlier asking for a key fob to the office. On Saturday the Downsized Employee had risen at 7 a.m. with a hangover and an uncharacteristic cache of fury directed at her ex-boyfriend, who had been a shithead, but really, had he ever once humored any of her long-repressed desires for stability or security, no, and that brings us to the underlying slight. The Downsized Employee could summon no rage toward the boss who canned her, because her boss had never given her any reason to believe he would treat her anything other than as a disposable commodity.For this reason the Downsized Employee felt somewhat foolish considering the many hours her mind had spent re-enacting the flashpoints and foreshadowings in what had been, really, an utterly unremarkably bad relationship with her boss. The Downsized Employee's Boss was not reconsidering his decision to Downsize the Downsized Employee. The Downsized Employee's Boss had downsized some 18 employees along with her, some of whom had been re-hired in different capacities. Did the fact that Downsized Employee received no such opportunity have to do with the fact that "The" Downsized Employee had been an unusually vociferous voice of dissent? It was possible. When the Downsized Employee had started at the company to co-launch a new website her boss decreed should position itself to compete with a supremely inane website for celebrity photos and gossip overseen by a dogmatically shallow celebrity tabloid reporter, the Downsized Employee filled with righteous indignation and said she would rather quit or hell, die than do any such thing. The Downsized Employee proceeded to co-produce a website she saw as being the precise opposite of that and co-usher said new website to prominence and widespread popularity by offering to the public what she saw as an antidote to the easy, sloppy superficial bullshit. Oh sure, it was easy for the Downsized Employee's Boss to say, "Come on, it is not like you are offering the Paris Review," but it was far harder, she felt, to actually show up every day and bother trying to reconcile the dumbed-down, image-based internet habits of the American public with what she knew - okay, she did not know, but for sanity's sake she had to believe - to be a deeper, harder-to-satisfy longer-term hunger for content that would be more challenging, more nourishing, more unique or in any case actually funny. The Downsized Employee's Boss generally only ever exhibited contempt for employees who made concerted attempts to reconcile those things. But the Downsized Employee understood this. She had watched previously Downsized Employees stubbornly cling to some rituals and pieties and time-consuming traditions that she personally appreciated but knew had sadly prevented their intellectual gifts from reaching their well-deserved wider audience. The Downsized Employee's Boss had taught her a few things in that regard: don't get clever with a headline, numbers and photos are more important than words, etc. etc. the important thing was always to strive for balance. But there remained a fundamental difference of opinion as to where that balance was. The Downsized Employee felt that the Downsized Employee's Boss's customers craved - and deserved - a slightly smarter, more skeptical product than her boss desired to give them. The Downsized Employee felt silly bringing it up again, but the Downsized Employee had been notably instructed by her boss to write a post about an "exclusive" on the Drudge Report claiming that the staff of the Oprah Winfrey show was "bitterly divided" over whether to have Sarah Palin on her show, even as Winfrey had a year earlier publicly decided to host no political candidates on her show until the election as a consequence of her endorsement of Barack Obama. The Downsized Employee had felt this "exclusive" to be a fabrication concocted by cynical Republican operatives eager to paint all liberal females as craven elitist hypocrites whose intolerant sorority of Accepted Feminists coldly dismiss any woman who tries to embrace True Christian American Values. The Downsized Employee's Boss felt that the Downsized Employee was wrong, that the takeaway of the story ought to be that "Sarah Palin Sells," period, and the Downsized Employee felt that sure, of course, she sells, but could "She Sells" be the end of the story?

"We all know insurance is dull," announces this ad for Trident, which is apparently an actual insurance company in the UK that sells legitimate insurance, and not just some viral front company. To offset said dullness, Trident's new commercial is nothing but 85 seconds of bikini-clad models bouncing up and down on pogo sticks, filmed from the most porny angles possible. Also, a few slogans are thrown in! Honestly, it's left me too dazed to really be able to sort out whether it's despicable or...brave? It's certainly not clever, per se. Perhaps one more ad with male pogo models would head off the impending backlash. Watch it below and consider its sociosexual implications: