We're having too much fun to get started on Snakes on a Plane backlash already, but if this ad is real (we don't know if it is or not), we might be closer to the end of the love affair than we'd like. There's plenty of time between now and the movie's release in August to go from "edgy" Virgin Atlantic's "Now With Snakes on the Motherfuckin' Plane" to the horror of "Snakes in a Happy Meal."

Jessica Simpson is being sued for the outrageously large sum of $100 million by a clothing company that licensed her name for a line of casualwear, claiming she refused to properly endorse the sensibly priced duds in public:

Friday
· "Best Minutes of the Day: The Golden Age of Polaroid Advertising" opens today at the Museum of Television and Radio. Go and pay homage to the technology that gave us instant gratification in picture before the digital camera. [via LAist]
· Enjoy two of the greater Los Angeles area's roughly sixteen thousand film festivals this weekend: Malibu International Film Festival; The 8th Annual Festival of Film Noir.
Saturday
· The Kansas City Barbecue Society sanctions an authentic, life-or-death BBQ showdown at the Autry Museum. You haven't lived until you've seen a man gunned down because his pork shoulder was underseasoned.
· Finally, a music round-up: Sondre Lerche at the Troubadour; The Boy Least Likely To at Spaceland; Elbow at Avalon.
Sunday
· Hop aboard Charles Phoenix's magic school bus and embark on his "Disneyland" Tour of Downtown L.A. We've always thought of Skid Row as a kind of Tomorrowland.
· The Sunday Comedy show at Room 5 lines up Greg Proops, Nick Adams, and Charlene Yi for a gig to benefit Erica's Eye Care. Another chance to help out if you missed the show the other night.

It's time to put you all out of your blind item misery. Before going on to your guesses, check the bathroom stall for One Blowin'-in-the-Stall Blind Vice one more time:

Because it's Friday afternoon, and more importantly, because Brett Ratner's "protection" check just cleared, we're happy to pass along this unsubstantiated report of an unconfirmed catfight between Lindsay Lohan and Jessica Simpson at the Dime last night, an act of starlet-on-starlet near-violence incited over—get ready for it—Ratner's attention. Says our tipster:

This summer armageddon will rain down on our planet in the form of multiple musical vanity projects from the world's most over-exposed, blank-brained tabloid fixtures. But while Paris Hilton's skanktronic release is rumored to possibly be (pause to dry heave) not as God awful as we had hoped, couch-husband extraordinaire Kevin Federline's Playing With Fire, due this August, most assuredly is. The album is already getting KFed in legal trouble, as the second single, "America's Most Hated," samples from 1980s synth-freak Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me With Science" without the artist's permission. (No, KFed isn't hiding a genius musical palette. He sampled a Mobb Deep song that sampled Dolby.) On his blog, Dolby demanded the song be taken down from Federline's eyesore of a MySpace page, which for the time being he appears to have done:

Time to snuggle up with this week's sponsors, any of whom we'd gladly shack up with in Namibia until our lovechild is born. If you'd like to advertise on Defamer and taunt incredibly good-looking and affluent consumers with your wares, see this page.

· Fox picks up the reality competition show On the Lot from Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett, in which undiscovered filmmakers will compete in an Apprentice/American Idol-style competition for a development deal with DreamWorks. Unfortunately, Spielberg won't be a Trump- or Cowell-like presence on the show, robbing us the joy of watching him fumble through badly written narration or berating the contestant's work. Perhaps a better idea for a Spielberg reality vehicle would've been a Survivor-inspired series in which the director votes hacks like Michael Bay out of Hollywood. [Variety]
· George Lopez joins the cast of ping pong comedy Balls of Fury, drastically lowering any excitement we might have felt about the project. [THR]
· The British courts rule in favor of Dan Brown in the Da Vinci Code copyright infringement case, allowing millions to throw money at Ron Howard's big-screen interpretation this summer without fretting that the source material was misappropriated from another work. [Variety]
· Potential box office disasters The Benchwarmers and Take the Lead shouldn't even bother opening against CGI talking-animal juggernaut Ice Age: The Meltdown this weekend. [THR]
· Good news, bad news department: Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick will star in New Regency's
"neighbors in a fight over Christmas decorations" comedy All Lit Up, but the Big Momma's House 2 team is still writing and directing it.. [Variety]

In most walks of life, a few minutes of niceties between two individuals in which subjects such as hair length and looking one's age are discussed would hardly be given a second thought. But when the two individuals happen to be Hollywood's most beloved leading man and the Prime Minister of Japan, the exchange instantly becomes international headline news, which we then regurgitate here, for you to read, ponder, then ponder why you are pondering moments before moving on to your next Friday time-killing activity:

The gossip world is abuzz (is there anything more titillating than gossip about gossip?) over today's NY Daily News report that Page Six staffer Jared Paul Stern (whom the NY Post is very quick to label a "freelancer" who "who worked two days per week" at the column—hey, how did this guy even get in here?) attempted to shake down "bad boy" supermarket billionaire Ron Burkle for about $220K in return for "'protection' against inaccurate and unflattering items," but walked right into a sting:

Wherein we invite our readers to liberally coat their flesh in the tacky substance of their choice and roll around in the blind item feathers scattered about by humpy E! gossipist Ted Casablanca. This week, Ted manages to appropriate a bathroom stall, normally the province of his blow-hoovering starlets, for his bread-and-butter, guess-which-straight-boy-slurps-schlong tease. Bite the pillow of One Blowin'-in-the-Stall Blind Vice:

Yesterday, we post-mortemed the premature departure of American Idol contestant Mandisa from the show, asking whether her widely rumored hostility towards adherents of sex involving more than one set of testicles played a part. In their interview with the singer, The Advocate pushed the large-and-no-longer-in-charge diva into a corner, until she finally coughed up the ugly gay-hate within:

The LAT reports on the tensions between the Writers Guild and IATSE, whose leader believes that the WGA is poaching its members and scaring Hollywood into a de facto strike with its guerrilla tactics. Guild inside baseball is generally pretty dull and interunion membership squabbles even more so, but there's something really entertaining about it all when overblown war rhetoric creeps into the situation:

· Our brave pal at Gridskipper shares a tale of his terrifying, non-reptile-related attack on his flight out of Los Angeles. We give you: Rats on a Plane.
· Meanwhile, Wired rounds up some of its favorite bloggy SoaP moments.
· We cannot stress this enough: Do NOT click on this link (NSFW!) if you don't want to see the profoundly scarring reverse angle of the Britney Giving Birth sculpture. Don't do it, really. Just don't.
· Just in case you don't believe us about the preceding warning, this cyclops kitty is way less disturbing than what you'd see if you clicked the forbidden link. Don't do it. This is not reverse psychology. You really don't want to see it.
· TVGasm somehow lured Paris Hilton into a video interview. They play nice, mostly, but she still sounds as if her shopping trip to Rodeo with a Make a Wish kid cured cancer.

While former 1990s teen idol Brad Renfro appears to be on the long, uphill road towards substance-abuse recovery, former 1970s teen idol Leif Garrett does not. The unidentified drug that got him arrested in the Pershing Square subway station back in January has been found on him again, this time in his bloodstream:

Less than a month ago, reporters desperate for Brangelina copy swarmed the shores of Italy's Lake Como, hoping that the couple would show up to George Clooney's villa and oblige the tabloid press's thirst for a "surprise" wedding. But it seems that the globetrotting lovers have recently zigzagged to Namibia, where local journalists tracked them down in short order:

Just a little over an hour ago, an operative stepped out for a little mid-afternoon shopping and found herself face-to-face with America's Most Suspicious Expectant Mother™:

When vocal powerhouse/Jesus aficionado Mandisa was kicked off of America Idol last night, Fox's ratings monster continued a long-standing tradition of eliminating a plus-sized diva well before her time. Of course, this is hardly the end of the road for the singer: A fulfilling career of performing on gay cruise ships is hers if she should so choose. But since a report surfaced in The Advocate linking her to a prominent anti-gay writer, followed by a suspiciously worded introduction to an Idol performance in which she said, "This song goes out to everyone who wants to be free. Your addiction, lifestyle, or situation may be big, but God is bigger," many have been whispering that Mandisa may have alienated her core audience before she even built one. TMZ.com, clearly frustrated at not having the contestant around anymore to video-stalk as she tries on clothes at Ashley Stuart, uses the iffy tabloid algebra of "rumor/outcome=connection" to blame her downfall on her alleged anti-gay affiliations:

· Listen up: An all-star lineup is turning out to do a benefit at the Steve Allen Theater for comedienne Erica Doering's emergency eye surgery. Need names? Here you go: Patton Oswalt, Bob Odenkirk, Louis C.K., Dana Gould, Naked Trucker, Andy Kindler, The Tomorrow Show Band, and Jimmy Pardo, plus advance episodes of Wonder Showzen. Buy tickets or donate here.
· Music Round-up, A Bunch of Dudes Edition: Richard Butler (of the Psychedelic Furs) does it solo at the Keyclub, David Garza at Largo, and Mike Stinson at the Silverlake Lounge.
· Chutzpah, the "World's First Ever Jewish Hip Hop Supergroup," throws down at the Knitting Factory.

Upon seeing John Doe's face featured on the memo announcing Paramount's new ID cards, embattled studio chief Brad Grey called for his immediate dismissal, fearing that the ubiquity of his image on the Melrose lot might make the handsome—if slightly nondescript—employee yet another candidate to replace him.