Earlier: Oprah's Favorite Things 2007: The Audience Freaks Out!

• So, what does Lindsay Lohan have to say about her disastrous Ungaro show in Paris? She just didn't have time to make a collection that didn't totally suck. And those pasties? She didn't even know about them! "I wasn't aware of the nipple tassels on the girls until they were walking out..." Don't worry, though, because the actress says she's "still learning," which gives us an iota of hope her next effort won't fall so flat. [People]
  
  
• A crazed "in love" fan waited in line five hours so that he could punch singer Leona Lewis at a book signing. She cried a bit, but has made a full recovery. [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Neither side will admit it, but Fox Business and MSNBC are both working double time to make sure their respective morning hosts — rivals Don Imus and Joe Scarborough — beat one another at the ratings game. Scarborough's winning, but newcomer Imus could still come up from behind. [Page Six]
  
  
• Here's something none of us could have ever predicted. Britney Spears, who once lost custody of her two tots, has been named "best celebrity mom" in a completely scientific poll put out by a Christmas savings company, the most important source on Earth. [Mirror]
  
  
• Hillary Swank will stop at nothing to have children — someday. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• We're really sorry to be the ones to tell you this, but we're sure you've predicted it, so here it goes: Jon Gosselin vowed to continue a career in television. [NYDN]
  
  
• All wait staff should be on high alert: Miley Cyrus does not tip well. You've been warned. [Splash News]
  
  
• A former bodyguard claimed Howard K. Stern helped Anna Nicole Smith shoot valium. Because, at that point, why not? [NYDN]
  
  
• The late Stephen Gately's Boyzone bandmates will sleep in the chapel with his body the night before his funeral because he wasn't fond of being alone. [Mirror]
  
  
• Eminem must be quite the diva: he refused to work with Madonna. Chump. [NYDN]
  
  
• Because domestic life no longer appeals to viewers, the fifth season of Tori Spelling and family's reality show will be a cross-country trip. Next season? Ultimate fighting. [ET]
  
  
• Rather than simply pleading insanity, one of the men accused of extorting John Travolta after the actor's son's death claims that Travolta's lawyer offered him the $15 million as "hush money." [NYDN]
  
  
• Former Seventeen editor Atoosa Rubenstein will appear at Baruch Barnard College today to discuss the trials and tribulations of Iranian... hair. [Page Six]
  
  
• It's officially official: Avril Lavigne has filed for divorce from Sum 41 singer Deryck Jason Whibley. Now perhaps we'll never have to hear those names again. [AP]
  
  
• Joe Francis recently boasted that if he saw rival Brody Jenner, Jenner was "dead." Then he ran into Brody and his friends and did nothing. What a cock. And a tease. [Page Six]

• Megan Fox says she has supernatural sexual powers. I say it comes from her freaky thumbs. Those freaky, beautiful thumbs. They resemble the thumbs of other superpowered individuals. But she's using her powers for the best of bests: doing it. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• John Travolta's going to testify in the extortion case regarding the paramedics who tried to roll Travolta during his son's death. [TMZ]
  
  
• Oh, man. How does it feel to be Deryck Whibley, the Sum 41 lead singer now getting divorced from and by Avril Lavigne, after she spent the summer partying on a yacht with greaseball oil heir Brandon Davis? Well, probably shitty. They've been together since she was 17, got married when they were 21, and now at 24, Lavigne's saying L8R to the original SK8R BOI. Which is the kind of thing he should be reassured by, though: she went from a Canadian punk rocker to Brandon Davis, which is the celebrity romance equivalent of going from drinking lots of Schlitz with the occasional hit of weed, to smoking meth and getting all scratchy and jaw-clenchy. Brandon Davis, Avril? Really? Say L8R to your dignity. Whibley need not worry about karmic retribution. [Page Six]
  
  
• Taylor Swift may write a song about being Kanye'd by Kanye West at the VMAs, thus resulting a hip hop beef on par with LL Cool J and Canibus, but not on par with, say, Jay-Z and Nas. Because this one's a no-brainer: Swift will slay West with her sick rhymes about destroying him up the ass with a fist and a jammy, or whatever rappers scream at each other about when they beef these days. [US]
  
  
• Yoko Ono calls Britney Spears a survivor. Meanwhile, remember that time Yoko Ono broke up the Beatles? [US]
  
  
• Michael Jackson's brothers are filming a reality show. This is why I'm glad I only have one brother and zero reality shows. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• Jay-Z called Kanye West "super passionate," which puts him in the same category of bark-happy rapper DMX, and where's DMX now? In the kennel, or wherever rappers go to have their careers put down or at least go away for a few years. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• Jon Gosselin won't charge for his signature. Good thing, because anyone willing to pay for his signature should probably be jailed or sentenced to a particularly intense colonic to get whatever bad chemicals are inside of them that's forcing them to do that extracted in the most visceral way possible. [TMZ]
  
  
• Rebecca Gayheart—yes, Eric Dane's wife, she of The McSteamy Affair—is preggers. She's said to be having quite a bit of trouble with morning sickness. Doctors attributed it to reading too much Gawker in the morning. Apparently, the rage-induced anonymous binge-commenting provoked by typos were making her queasy. [Page Six]
  
  
• Stone Temple Pilot Scott Weiland had a seizure on an airplane, which had to be piloted to the ground in order for him to recieve appropriate medical care. Hopefully, he's okay. [TMZ]
  
  
• Justin Timberlake's "What Goes Around, Comes Around" philosophy has been transcended...by Justin Timberlake. The other night at Avenue, Timberlake skipped the line. Some girl gets faux-pissy and jokes to Timberlake that he can't skip the line, to which he replies "Oh, I absolutely can," in all sincerity. She then asked for an autograph (clearly a tourist), to which he replied that he would, but he's too wasted (the best excuse in New York). Every now and then, Timberlake should be allowed to—or even, be encouraged—to be a dick. I mean, jesus, this is guy that brought sexy back. He has a quota to fill, assholes. [Page Six]
  
  
• Is it a good sign or a bad sign when a director misses a press junket for her first movie? Take, for example, the hot mess that's going to be Drew Barrymore's Whip It, starring Ellen Page as a rising roller derby-ette. She missed the press for the Toronto Film Festival because she was out getting tanked with Amanda Seyfried a couple of nights before. [Page Six]
  
  
• Some guy tried to violate the magical ecosystem of Hollywood by assulting blessed Hollywood munchkin Ryan Seacrest. He tried to get into Seacrest's clown car, Seacrest did what anybody else would do—pulled away—and now he's going to face 15 days in jail and is ordered to stay away from Seacrest. If the man is secretly an aspiring unicorn, this is essentially equivalent to a particularly heinous, roundabout instance of self-immolation. [NYDN]
  
  
• Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelly have a new Babsian in their lives, the 10 month-old Naleigh, adopted from South Korea. It's really pretty cute, and there's a picture. You thought I was going to go somewhere else with that, didn't you? Fuckoff. I like babies. [Page Six]

Finally, Shana Tova, Jews! It's the first day of the Jewish New Year, and if you're not at synagogue for the high holidays, feel free to email Rabbi Foster (I was bar-mitzvah'd: that certifies me, no?) at Foster [at] Gawker [Dot] Com with all of your resolutions for the Jewish New Year. Rising ponzi schemers: I'm listening, and have a solid client base. Now: bump this shit.

• The nuns at Lady Gaga's Catholic high school saw her VMA performance and, according to a source, "were not amused." [Page Six]
  
  
• Jessica Simpson has called off the futile search party for her dog, who was eaten by a coyote. [TMZ]
  
  
• Meanwhile, Martha Stewart isn't offering Simpson a sympathetic shoulder. The kitchen queen says the pop star should have been more careful. But those coyotes are wiley! [Page Six]
  
  
• Annoying singer Avril Levigne and her husband, Deryck Whibley are separating. You know what that means? Divorce. [Us]
  
  
• What? We're confused. Amy Winehouse, who once had an appetite only for powder and booze, ate three times in one night. [The Sun]
  
  
• Madonna's pants are invisible! [3am]
  
  
• So is Mena Suvari: door men are having a hard time recognizing the once-ubiquitous actress. [Page Six]
  
  
• Katherine Heigl's adopted baby is Asian, cute and in for one hell of a ride. [Us]
  
  
• Michelle Williams went to a Brooklyn coffee shop and some nosy kid asked her daughter about having daddy Heath Ledger die: "Are you so sad that your daddy died like Michael Jackson?" [Page Six]
  
  
• Sorry, Gawkers: Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner won't sell their wedding pictures. But we're sure some will leak anyway. [Page Six]
  
  
• Robbie Williams fears for Susan Boyle's sanity: "It will not take much to push her over the edge. Her head seems like a strange place to be." We can only imagine. [The Sun]

• Because we don't see enough of her, Lindsay Lohan's reportedly shopping a reality show. Said a source, "Her manager is helping Lohan with a potential reality show that will encapsulate her trials and tribulations as she gets back on her feet and actually becomes a working actress again." [Mirror]
  
  
• Redmond O'Neal, son of Ryan O'Neal and Farrah Fawcett, wants to star in a reality show. That is, after he gets out of a detention center, where he's trying to kick his raging drug problem. [NYDN]
  
  
• Chris Brown's post-Rihanna beating rehabilitation will include a year of domestic violence counseling at Virginia's Commonwealth Catholic Charities. If anyone can set him straight, its the nuns. [AP]
  
  
• Michael Jackson's family intended on burying him over the weekend, but have now decided to do the deed on a Thursday. And that decision will triple their costs, bringing the grand total to something around $150,000. [TMZ]
  
  
• Some insane fans of Robert Pattinson, the hunky Twilight star, put his face on a shower curtain. Now they can say, "I shower with Robert Pattison" and almost be telling the truth. [3am]
  
  
• Anne Heche railed against the institution of marriage on The Late Show. She's crazy, but we like her. [YouTube]
  
  
• Her rep insists it's hog wash, but an "insider" insists that actress Minka Kelly and baseball playing man Derek Jeter are engaged. [Page Six]
  
  
• Avril Lavigne and her husband Deryck Whibley are headed down the road to divorce, say sources. She apparently wanted time alone, but spent her time hanging out with "male admirers." [Gatecrasher]
  
  
• Deformed music producer Scott Storch was kicked out of his Miami home when a bank took it back last week. Now he's living in Fort Lauderdale's W hotel. [Page Six]
  
  
• Jason Mewes, the actor better known as Jay from Kevin Smith's movies, attended the Degrassi Goes to Hollywood premire and revealed that he wants to touch Seth Rogan. [Zack Taylor]
  
  
• Dumb model Paulina Porizkova doesn't want people to think she's a dumb model, so she took to the web to name some of her favorite literary works. And they're all over 500 pages! [Page Six]
  
  
• Paul McCartney, we know you're a legend and all, but do we really need to see you getting fresh with your girlfriend at a baseball game. Really? [Daily Mail]

• Katie Holmes thinks that she can dance (and sing!) so she appeared on So You Think You Can Dance last night to do a Judy Garland number, one that some think was choreographed by Tom Cruise. Her dancing was meh, her lip-syncing was God-awful, but it's probably the only way she can possibly make her husband's cock hard, sadly. Here's the video of the splendid event! [Mirror]
  
  
• Gerard Butler is worried that he's become a fat ass because he's lost his six-pack abs and has joined a private gym in Chelsea to work some of his hideous blubber off. [Page Six]
  
  
• People who know Kate Major, the former Star reporter now boning Jon Gosselin, say that she's a fame-whore who has been desperately seeking a meal ticket to stardom. Really? You don't say! [Gatecrasher]
  
  
• Nas did not let the fact that Kelis was giving birth to his child get in the way of his hard partying. Nas reportedly cavorted with young babes and swigged champagne while Kelis was in labor. [Gatecrasher]
  
  
• When she wasn't performing on SYTYCD, Katie Holmes stayed home with the kids while Tom Cruise went out and had a threesome with David and Victoria Beckham. A dancing and partying threesome, not that kind of threesome, as far as we know anyway. [Page Six]
  
  
• The plane crash that nearly killed Travis Barker last year has brought he and Shanna Moakler back together again. [Page Six]
  
  
• In the event you've ever wondered what it would be like to watch Gwyneth Paltrow prepare and cook a chicken, now you know with this amazing video. [Guest of a Guest]
  
  
• We always had a feeling that Avril Lavigne was the type of girl who has booze poured down her gullet straight from the bottle, and now our suspicions have been confirmed. [Sun]
  
  
• For a woman of almost 40, hell a woman of any age, Gwen Stefani looks ridiculously good these days. Just look at these damn abs—Gerard Butler wishes he had these! [Daily Mail]

Because while Avril Lavigne's manager Terry McBride believes the company owes him $2 million, even he admits that the calculations which produced that number are largely theoretical. The $15 CPM McBride estimates YouTube commands seems optimistic based on previously reported numbers.

It also makes me wonder about YouTube's notoriously unreliable metrics — if YouTube can't figure out how many advertising impressions it sold in order to remunerate content creators, advertisers should be skeptical of any data the company provides on inventory available, impressions delivered and demographics reached.

If anyone did the math — let's be generous and give her 150 million total views (neglecting the fact that her most popular video is actually hosted on RCA's channel which she almost certainly won't be paid for) — to have a $2 million dollar check that would mean she earned a $13 CPM with 100 percent inventory fill. From my personal experience, YouTube fills just a tiny tiny part of the potential views and can tell you for a fact that this is a total lie or idiot math from an idiot manager. I disagree with you guys that YouTube was bad and unmonetizable move by Google but if this were remotely true they would be making an astounding amount of money. One of my clients who has done about 30 million total views has made about $15k tops.

Chalk it up to McBride wanting to make good on the role of new media genius he's being made out to be in the press. With a 50 percent revenue split, the total take would have to mean YouTube's selling out its pageviews at a $25 CPM — and Avril Lavigne would be responsible for one percent of YouTube's estimated revenue for 2008.

In yesterday's quarterly earnings conference call, Google's Eric Schmidt said that they'd had most of their success in new ad formats with widget ads, not online video. We doubt Lavigne's fan base is spending all day customizing their iGoogle homepages. The only logical conclusion is that if any $2 million checks are being written, it's by Google to pay for the bandwidth that RCA and McBride are getting for free in order to market Lavigne.

Surprisingly, the Beatles are the most often deleted artist (after "unknown," for obvious reasons). Maybe there's an error, but maybe they're so often played but so little identified with modern cool. Couldn't imagine why, really, other than "Birthday" inexplicably popping up in everyone's Party Playlist. Second place goes to Radiohead, then more predictably Britney Spears and Avril Lavigne.

Spears also tops the single tracks list, with her song "Piece of Me" winning the spot of Most Regrettable Song. She shares the rest of the list with Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" and Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend," definitely guilty pleasures for the sort of hipster who would try to clean up their own listening history.

An auto-refresh page which loads the video over and over.

Every 15 seconds this page will automatically refresh adding 1 view to Girlfriend's YouTube total each time it does. Keep this page open while you browse the internet, study for exams, or even sleep. For extra viewing power, open up two or more browser windows at this page!

It's the kind of view-gaming that advertisers would normally consider fraud — that is, if what fans were doing wasn't better the best advertising Lavigne and her label RCA could buy.

Of course, it was mere allegations of view-gaming that eventually caused YouTube to pull the previous pretender to the "Most viewed" throne, Clarus Bartel's Cansei der Sexy (Music is my hot, hot sex). But I have a feeling YouTube won't be pulling Lavigne's video any time soon. Once at the top, the views will simply snowball from there. And YouTube will be in the happy position of selling advertising against a pop star's music video that is, itself, advertising.

While the view gaming of the Girlfriend video might have juiced the stats, what's amazing is that it achieved its place with off-site embedding turned off. YouTube, a cross-site video pioneer that has now become a black hole where embeds go to die thanks to the DMCA and copy-protection filters, can't mind — because rather than running against ads on a third-party site, every Lavigne view is in on the company's site and in the company's salable partner program inventory.

Lavigne is still officially in second place, less than a million views off the leader's pace. In Laipply's video, the use of licensed music falls under fair use territory, but it's enough of a gray area that he isn't even in the partner program, and therefore can't generate a single advertising impression. Still, considering the controversy over retaking the top spot stirred by a lone Italian with video editing software and possibly some scripting tricks, I wouldn't be surprised if the situation wasn't being monitored manually with YouTube admins freezing view counts until the company can come to some agreement with RCA. It's the music business, after all, where a little extortion between friends is standard operating procedure.

• Nick and Vanessa believe the camera will steal their soul. [Page Six]
  
• OJ to write book about killing Nicole, hypothetically of course, because he totally didn't do it. [MSNBC]
  
• Sofia Coppola expecting, childbirth video to be scored by Air. [People]
  
• Jamie Pressly engaged, Crab Man not happy. [Us]
  
• Avril gets nose job, maybe. Would Sk8r boi approve? [Life & Style]
  
• JT invites press, then turns his sexyback on them. [Star]