Someone claiming to be "Zack" Braff offers an explanation for the behavior that offended the disgruntled Craigslist poster who penned an open letter to the Scrubs star last week. Perhaps this writer doesn't mean to mislead us and has just spent so much time "medicating his glaucoma" that he actually believes he's Zach Braff? We'd buy that. We once did so much coke in a 24-hour period that we thought we were both Olsen Twins running a three-legged race. But that's a story for another time.

A reader finally breaks the deafening silence on the rumor that Britney Spears is rush-marrying Kevin "Ten More Babies You Don't Know About" Federline today, claiming that Britney's just getting pretend married for a video.

A Defamer operative slips us this report from last night's NBC-Universal launch party for their scintillating (read: Joey and then everything else) fall schedule. Would it really kill a movie star (not so fast, Zach Braff!) to slum it at a TV event? Sure, you'd run the risk of mini NBC-Uni chief Jeff Zucker trying to crawl into your ear or bite your ankle, but come on, there's free coconut shrimp!

· Samantha Morton is in negotiations to play photographer Diane Arbus in the biopic Fur. The film will be directed by Secretary's Steven Shainberg, with a screenplay by Secretary's Erin Cressida Wilson. Naturally, all the S&M and photography angles are feverishly working themselves out in our heads. [THR]
· Fossilized producer Saul Zaentz wants his "precious," a $20 million stack of LOTR royalties, and so takes New Line Cinema to court. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· An LA judge decided not to issue an emergency order halting Fox's plans to air their reality boxing show The Next Great Champ. The judge cited the compelling justification that helping out Mark Burnett is not technically a fucking emergency. [THR]
· CBS promotes Chris Sloan to be its new head of reality programming. Qualifications: He can count on his fingers and toes and then scribble a number into the title of the latest Big Brother installment, but is expected get help with whatever goes after the colon for each subsequent Survivor. [THR]

We usually look forward to Thursday mornings, when we hop out of our bunk beds at 6 a.m., slide across the hardwood floors on the pads of our footie pajamas, and fire up the browser to see what blind item goody humpy E! Gossip Claus Ted Casablanca has left for us. Sweaty three ways featuring a couple of starlets and a Hollywood hunk? Salacious insinuations that Mr. Super Straight Action Star is an ass-play-craving power bottom? Casual drug abuse by a fifteen year old? But this is August and the Mighty Ted C has been momentarily felled; there is no Blind Item Santa, Victoria, in the dog days of summer. Today's "One Neurotic Blind Vice" features a Hollywood husband mildly bitching about his wife. Please, Ted, tell us (in confidence, of course) that he did his complaining while blowing lines off the back of a 17-year-old he met on DiscreetInches.com. Please?

Rumors are circulating that Nip/Tuck's Julian McMahon's name is being tossed around as a candidate for the next James Bond.. (Hey, he's Australian, and we can't tell the difference in those silly accents, right?) A tip from one of our readers makes us think that McMahon needs a crash course in that trademark superspy suavity. Failing a stint in charm school, the producers should at least cast a brunette as Snatchy Goodlay if they want McMahon in the Bond tuxedo.

Disney CEO Michael Eisner was in Florida yesterday, surveying the impact of Hurrican Charley on his company's theme parks, his "cast members," and Disneyworld's guests. But he was doing more than that. He was preparing to seize his moment as a strong and compassionate leader in a troubling, difficult time. Eisner, ready for anything in a "yellow polo shirt, white pants, black sneakers," would have dragged a waterlogged Donald Duck out of the overflowing waters of Splash Mountain, sandbagged the entrance to It's a Small World, or manned the funnel cake cart himself. Alas, Charley blustered harmlessly through his Magic Kingdom, and a leader's potential was left untapped beneath a Mickey Mouse baseball cap:

It might seem a little risky to dub this the "Unverifiable Rumor of the Day," since it's not even 9 a.m., but this is probably the most suspect thing we've ever floated: We've heard that Britney Spears and Not-So-Sparkle Motion dancer fiancé Kevin Federline might have pushed up their wedding plans to, um today in Santa Barbara. We have no idea when or where it would go down, but they'll probably wind up in the courthouse if it actually happens, even though that venue's been tainted by Mira Sorvino and her boy-husband. The crazy romantic in us suggests that they keep it in Santa Monica and exchange their matrimonial goodies in that balcony of theirs, where so many memories were made.

—Please, Jesus, can you make sure that Britney and Kevin get chosen for Newlyweds? Also, feed the hungry children in Somalia, etc etc, but only after you do the Britney thing. Amen.
—Oh yeah, Jesus? We're pretty certain that Britney is sorry about that dildo remark, just in case you're holding grudges.
—What's next for the Hilton sisters? The first idea on the list would probably set a video sales record, so we're pulling for that one. Those girls could really use the mad money.
—Tom Cruise finally (finally!) clams up about something deeply personal—his political leanings. Are the Scientologists running anybody this year?

In our single-minded effort to bring you absolutely nothing of any socially-redeeming value today, please enjoy the possible visual accompaniment to our earlier report on Lindsay Lohan's trip to Vegas last weekend. We can't speak with any certainty about Lindsay's blood-alcohol content in the photographs (we haven't yet downloaded that browser plug-in), but when our female friends make similar faces while dancing, it's time to hold their hair as they hover over the toilet or ensure their breath doesn't make contact with an open flame.

Yet another lesson about the godlike power (assuming that your version of God controls a media conglomerate like ours does) yielded by editors on reality TV: They can even make it look like a bunch of bored, entertainment-starved Big Brother 5 contestants enjoyed Without a Paddle. The Fans of Reality TV website recaps a live BB5 internet feed that tells a different story about the houseguests' reactions to their "special screening" of the latest Matthew Lillard cinematic vehicle:

A reader claiming to be a guest at last weekend's Stuff magazine bacchanalia at the Palms in Vegas sends in this account of the party where underaged, professed teetotaler Lindsay Lohan was spotted with a drink in her hand. Should you ever encounter Lohan in your favorite watering hole and want to chat her up, watch out for that Fez character she's dating—he seems fiercely protective of his gal now that she's over the age of consent. You know, assuming any of this actually happened and isn't someone's horny, boozy dream.

Comedian Sharon Houston was a little put off by her experience on Last Comic Standing 2, so she put together a video presentation about the show called Fahrenheit LCS 2 and presented it at a comedy showcase at M Bar. Now it's found a home on the internet, where it's sure to roil any reality TV fan that's unaware that television producers often employ misleading editing tactics to arrive at a greater—or more narratively compelling— truth. (Gasp! Fake laughter on TV!) Still, there are some interesting tidbits about the show, such as how comic Tammy Pescatelli cultivated her "Brooklyn" accent on the mean streets of Cleveland, or how Jay Mohr ceased being funny after Action was canceled. OK, that's some more unfair editing. Mohr was never funny.

The Hiltons can call off the fleet of search helicopters, the milk carton campaign, and the storming of local animal shelters. According to a press release from Extra (we'll spare you the reprint), missing celebutante lapdog Tinkerbell Hilton has been found. Now the bad news: If you want to know the details of the dog's recovery, you're going to have to watch Extra tonight. Hold on...MORE BREAKING NEWS!! BREAKING FAKE NEWS!* We hear that Entertainment Tonight has their own Tinkerbell story, and that the chihuahua was found sleeping in one of her owner's Ugg boots. We'd love to say that we made that up, but we probably would've have gone with something involving a SWAT team and Hilton's infamous genitalia. (We still can't guarantee it's not a joke.*) Now there's just the small matter of the agonizing hours between now and the dueling Extra/ET coverage. We will pull through, dammit!

· Fox's bad karma might keep their stolen boxing reality series The Next Great Champ from broadcast. In rushing the show to beat NBC's The Contender to air, producers may have violated California boxing regulations. And who was so kind as to deliver this legal rabbit punch (shit, we promised no boxing metaphors!)? None other than The Contender's Mark Burnett and miniature pugilism booster Jeffrey Katzenberg. [THR]
· Jack Black and School of Rock writer Mike White demonstrate that they aren't going to waste their creative powers thinking up a name for their new production company at Universal. Yes, it's called Black and White Productions. Can't wait to see that script for Orange County 2! [Variety, sub. req'd.]

A reader alerts us to a collection of pictures of Paris Hilton hanging the posters (all by herself— did she give the staff a day off?) urging the return of beloved chihuahua/"daughter" Tinkerbell. Please note that the poster features a picture of Paris with Tink, conveniently letting any potential dog-nappers know exactly to whom they should address the ransom notes.

In the interest of clearing up some of the rumors regarding the supposed acquisition of APA by just about every second-tier agency in town, we grant equal time to a high-level representative of the firm, who wrote in to clear things up for Defamer's readers (for real).

Bitchtastic sister site Gawker gets its meticulously manicured hands on an e-mail exchange between LA Weekly "Deadline Hollywood" columnist Nikki Finke and an editor at GQ. We fear that Finke might be suffering the early signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from her time reporting from the trenches of the bloody NYT-LAT Newspaper War of 2004, because she really goes off on the glossy, ad-riddled mag. (Note to LA Weekly staffers: Don't mention Manohla Dargis or you risk setting off a flashback episode involving your throat and one of those gigantic "Rambo" knives with the compass on the bottom.) An excerpt from the exchange follows:

Paris Hilton is escalating her efforts to ensure the safe return of Tinkerbell, her beloved chihuahua. According to Rush & Molly, she's upped the reward money from $1,000 to $5,000 and has plastered her neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills with posters urging the dog's safe return (it goes without saying we'd print any picture of these signs). While it's fun to dream up schemes to claim the 5K with minimal capital expenditures for a rat, a can of spray paint, and a tiny, pink velour Juicy sweatsuit, it would be far more spiritually rewarding to find the dog and hold it for ransom. We'd say that she wipes her bony ass with that chump change, but that would assume she's eaten enough to actually move her bowels since the trust fund kicked in.

The You Can't Make It Up blog calls our attention to a particularly suspect instance of shitergy: Paramount uses CBS's Big Brother 5 (both Viacom companies, if you're keeping score in your cubicles) as a captive test audience for their upcoming movie Without A Paddle. Predictably, the BB5 houseguests rave about the flick—they've been deprived of contact with the outside world and are starved for any kind of entertainment that doesn't involve sitting around on Ikea furniture, eating PBJ sandwiches, and marinating in homoerotic tension. If Paramount really wants to generate some buzz, maybe Viacom should buy a maximum-security prison and screen Without A Paddle for the prisoners in solitary, then transcribe the glowing reviews the inmates scrawl on the cold, steel walls with their own feces.