Last night's episode of Entourage portrayed an apocalyptic scenario for our fine city, a Los Angeles suffering simultaneous marijuana and Ugg boot shortages. Horror: The only weed to be found in the show's Bizarro Town was being grown by Val Kilmer, and the only Uggs available to Vince's Hollywood posse were a hideous powder-blue pair obtained by their publicist. Apparently there's no Melrose Avenue in Entourage's creepy, sober world, where we're fairly certain that every pair of Uggs comes stuffed with a dime bag. It's really a sorry state of affairs when we prefer our own reality (where we share a Hollywood studio apartment with our posse and the fashionistas have unfettered access to retarded fads) because the guy on the corner selling bagged oranges can get us drugs.

It's easy to write off Nicky as the Boring/Sedated/Semi-sane Hilton Sister, but we've developed a theory that her yawn-inducing, relatively tabloid-free existence has just been a string of bad luck. We're becoming more and more certain that a coin flip determines which sister takes the Greyhound to Skanktown while the other stays home at the mansion to abuse the servants in obscurity. Nicky's been on a prolonged unlucky streak and had to dye her hair brunette, lost a spot on The Simple Life, and missed out on amateur porn stardom. We're unsure of the result of this weekend's Vegas coin toss, where Nicky inexplicably married her 33-year-old money manager boyfriend at the 'Lil White Chapel O' Drunken Regrets, while Paris and Tara Reid pounded tequila shots and danced like white girls with their hair on fire at Ghost Bar. We think she lost, but that's pending a review of Paris and Tara's next gyno exam or the release of a "honeymoon" sex tape.

Remember all of that stuff about Alien Vs. Predator bombing? Let's revisit next week.

Defamer continues its mission to bring together Hollywood's hottest stars and their most ardent Craigslist-posting fans. Today, we spotlight a Missed Connection authored by a former booster of goofy TV doctor/budding indie auteur Zach Braff in hopes that a reconciliation can be worked out. Allow Zach to play you "The New Slang" on some big headphones, Anonymous, and let the healing begin.

—"Julia Child died in her sleep just a few days before her 92nd birthday, proving once again that eating well & drinking buckets of wine will give you a long, happy life."
—The Good/ Awful Plastic Surgery blogs go on a binge of rhinoplasty accusations. Good: Katie Holmes and Elisha Cuthbert. Bad: Billy Bob Thornton and Paris Hilton.
—A Napoleon Dynamite ad tries to out-spook The Village.
—Andy Dick didn't make it to the Rick James funeral, but a big bunch of flowers in the shape of a joint did. (Third row down, first position.)
—Apropos of nothing, other than its near-crippling awesomeness: Top 10 Most Ridiculous Black Metal Pics Of All Time.

Let us extend a brief thank you to this week's sponsors, without whom we'd be damned to a life of cheap Olsen Twins and Tom Cruise jokes. Hey, wait a minute! If you're interested in advertising on Defamer and reaching the hungry eyeballs of at least five agents' assistants on Wilshire Boulevard, see this page.

Friday
1. Filter Magazine hosts a listening party for the hot-as-really-hot-shit-on-a-farm-during-a-drought soundtrack for Garden State (so hip it includes songs from The Shins' first record, before they totally sold out) at Nacional. Zach Braff/Natalie Portman sightings/PDA not guaranteed.
Saturday
2. The Don't Knock the Rock festival continues with Built to Spill at the El Rey and a full day of films at the ArcLight.
3. Or, if your folks are in town and don't feel like seeing J Mascis and Doug Martsch melt each other's faces off with dueling guitar solos, the mild saxophone stylings of David Sanborn are on display at the Long Beach Jazz Festival.
Sunday
4 and 5. Undo a morning of brunch n' brainwashing at the Scientology Celebrity Centre at "Vermin on the Mount," a night of "irreverent readings" "not directly affiliated" with McSweeney's, at The Mountain in Chinatown.

Because it's Friday and a liquid lunch tends to loosen the sediment around our black heart, we feel it would be nice to do a little public service work and print a reader's letter to a well-known eating establishment complaining about the preferential treatment of celebrities while loyal customers are left to pine hungrily for the spinach dip. We're not recommending that the restaurant in question change their policies, as this would precipitate an instant, bloody anarchy and a likely hail of locusts, but it's fun to hear someone fart into the hurricane of the local social order now and again. Next time, Owen Wilson, why don't you just turn down the quick table and set the Apocalypse in motion? The letter follows after the jump.

Neil Strauss' profile of Tom Cruise in the new Rolling Stone has us scratching our heads, as it seems to toe the line between full-on reacharound and tip-toeing hit piece. (We haven't seen the full, print version, just the online excerpt, so we're reserving judgment until we steal the neighbor's copy.) But after Cruise's recent press binge, he should be begging Pat Kingsley to take him back and lock him up in the dungeon where she's kept him all these years, safe from his bizarre publicity impulses. The guy really does seem to love Scientology, though, and he might just snap your neck if you've got a problem with it:

The summer box office season is officially over. Enjoy these predictions about this weekend's table scraps.

The writer of this internal Miramax e-mail, directed to the entire NY office, pledges to beat Harvey and Bob Weinstein to the punch and quit in solidarity with his or her fallen co-workers. Someone please hook up this selfless team player with a job (or at least some good drugs) immediately! The message is after the jump.

· NBC Universal renews their deal with DreamWorks TV, which gives them first-look rights to all the studio's projects (Las Vegas, Father of the Pride, The Contender). True bonus of the deal: NBC's Jeff Zucker can continue riding on DW's Jeffrey Katzenberg's shoulders to form one full-sized executive. [THR]
· As Seen on Defamer: Fox picks up North Shore for a full season. [THR]
· We've always felt that the West Wing's descent had nothing to do with Aaron Sorkin's departure and everything to do with its total lack of "The Jimmy Smits Factor." Rejoice, the Wing has been saved. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· NBC is bringing you more Olympic coverage this year than all 5 past summer Olympics combined. Luckily, with the current 500-channel galaxy of cable programming, the strange, tiny people doing backflips are easier to avoid than ever.[THR]
· Projectionists turn in pirates and earn a cash reward; MPAA execs go home to laugh about how jailed pirates are going to explain how they wound up in the joint to their homicidal, rapist cellmates. [THR]

We didn't see this coming: Craig Kilborn has quit The Late Late Show. leaving CBS with a gaping void in its Smarmy Conversations With B-listers department. Kilborn's semi-ironic smoking jacket and greasy come-ons won't be easily replaced, but we imagine there's a USC frat guy riding the mechanical bull at Saddle Ranch who can step in while CBS begins its own heavy-handed overtures (i.e., gigantic bags of Viacom cash) to Conan O'Brien.

We hear that the long-awaited Miramax layoffs finally began this morning, with the beheadings starting in the NY publicity office. NY readers: Keep your eyes peeled for people lugging cardboard boxes around Tribeca, drinking a little earlier in the day than normal, and comparing odd scars through tears of joy. Developing...

After Andy Dick's NYC rampage of existential angst over BFF Rick James's death, we would've expected that he'd be on the first JetBlue flight back to LA for the funeral. The resulting, heart-rending scene at Forest Lawn would poignantly evoke the moment in La Bamba when Richie's jealous, conflicted brother finds out the plane went down. No dice:

—Lindsay Lohan's father collapsed in a Long Island courtroom yesterday. Sure, he has a history of heart problems and the drinking probably doesn't help, but if your daughter was fucking Fez, you'd be praying for a heart attack.
—Britain's Channel 4 refuses to meet Warner Bros.' asking price for Joey. Hey, guys, we can still make a deal here. The next time Chandler's goes to rehab, we'll make sure he does it in London. OK, what if we thrown in the Coco baby?
—At her Hollywood book signing, Pamela Anderson demonstrates her estimable powers of literary misdirection with a risqué T-shirt that only seems likes it's about sex.
—Poor former NJ Gov. Jim McGreevey's been through a lot today, but at least there's aren't any fake nude pics of him on the internet. Oops, spoke too soon.

Yesterday, we linked to this post on The Movie Blog about the gathering storm of bad buzz hovering over Alien Vs. Predator. And now the guys at TMB think a Fox mole tried to slip in a good word about the coming sci-fi bomb in their blog comments. This comment, from someone posting as "Christine," seemed a little suspicious:

1. Check out PJ Harvey's free in-store show at Amoeba to jump-start the Don't Knock The Rock film and music festival. Harvey's scheduled to start at 6 p.m., so you'd better leave right now if you don't want to claw your way through vinyl collectors who have been fingering records since early this morning. After you've been rocked by Harvey and are satisfied by your "inadvertent" groping by a guy in an ironic Rick Springfield t-shirt, head over to the festival's opening night party at Club Lingerie, where there's probably enough room to avoid your fellow handsy rock fans.
2. The Egyptian hosts the sneak preview of Bush's Brain, a movie that "explores the remarkable political journey of the man who is running the United States of America – a ruthless political mastermind whose name is not George W. Bush." They're talking about Karl Rove, but we're pretty sure George is taking orders from Barbara and Jenna after they've finished a tag-team keg stand.

A reader tips us to an eBay auction offering box-office superstar/breeder icon Tom Cruise's "Original Artwork." The description is as understated as the piece itself: "Artwork signed ("Tom Cruise"), 11 1/2 by 8 inches, no place, no date, overall excellent condition. The famed actor's signature appears near the bottom right of this simple drawing of a car. Tom Cruise has appeared in 26 films to date." No doubt the sketch was inspired by his role as hot-shot, womanizing driver Cole Trickle in Days of Thunder, or at the very least, his days eating paste in kindergarten. We'll leave it to the critics and auction bidders to determine the artistic and monetary values of the work, which seems to hint at an artist who's struggling with his identity while coping with the costs of fame.

Blogger Dave White takes the bullet for all of us (we never get invited anywhere!) and attends a press screening of The Brown Bunny for an upcoming review on E! Online. All of the controversy that director Vincent Gallo stirred up by erecting a monument to his moment cinematic triumph seems to have er, petered out, as the screening was not exactly well-attended. But way to go on the penis, Vincent! At least you've got that thing to distract from anyone looking you directly in those crazy eyes and instantly succumbing to madness. We'll assume that's what happened to Chloë Sevigny.