• Jon Gosselin brought his daughter a birthday cake that read, "Happy Birthday Maddy" today. The only problem? Her name is spelled "Mady." But it's not "Johnathon's" fault: Entertainment Tonight ordered the cake for him.

• The owner of Cupcake Cafe in New York says that before Jon Gosselin came in with a TV crew to buy his daughter a birthday cake, she got a call from "a person from 'Entertainment Something,' ordering the cake and asking permission to shoot inside the bakery when Jon came in." Jon started checking out cupcakes in the store and was surprised to learn a cake had already been ordered for him. A rep from Entertainment Tonight says says the show didn't pay for the $94 cake. [TMZ]
• Another court date has been set for Jon and Kate Gosselin after their hearing this week was cancelled when the judge's wife died. They'll appear before an arbitrator, who could order Jon to return the money he took from their joint account. Jon has filed papers claiming Kate is the one who looted the account. Jon has also made a deal with a TV show to allow it to film his kids birthday party today even though he doesn't want them to be filmed on Kate Plus 8. Kate's lawyer says, "I've never seen a greater hallmark for hypocrisy personified." [TMZ]
• Jon Gosselin said of Kate Gosselin appearing in a sketch on The Jay Leno Show last night, "It's messed up, the timing." He added, "What she does on TV, that's her career. I'm happy for her career... I hope she can be happy for my career [and] we can have a career on TV, kind of together, but our kids will come off." [Entertainment Tonight]
• Michael Lohan says an intervention is being planned for Lindsay Lohan because she's addicted to prescription medications including Adderall, Zoloft, anti-anxiety drugs, and bi-polar medication. "Over the next couple of weeks I'm going to be doing things in a pretty public way,"says Michael Lohan, "But Dina has got to get on the same page with me. It's a serious situation. You can't just talk about it and tell me that you want to do an intervention and then do nothing." [Radar Online]
• Supposedly Radar Online has proof that Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom's wedding wasn't legally binding and Liza Morales, his ex and the mother of his two kids says, "To tell you the truth the whole situation is ‘so out there' and although it still hurts I find it laughable." [Radar Online]
• Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom have no plans to go on a honeymoon yet because, "I'm filming, and he has a season until who knows when," says Khloe. [People]
• A police officer testified in the John Travolta case today that Pleasant Bridgewater burned a copy of the extortion document and flushed it down a toilet. [TMZ]
• Angelina Jolie says of her relationship with her formerly estranged father Jon Voight, "We're in contact now and writing letters. My parents gave me a strong social conscience as well as any acting genes I may have." She added that she doesn't want her kids to be raised as, "Children who have 'movie star' parents. I grew up around that myself and I want to make sure ours are removed from it." [The Sun]
• Worldwide Pants says Stephanie Birkitt hasn't been banned from David Letterman's set, she's just on a paid leave of absence. [Extra]
• Joe Halderman, who is accused of trying to blackmail David Letterman, told the paparazzi outside his house that he's "not trying to hide or run, but there's nothing I can say." [TMZ]
• Some Australians are calling Harry Connick Jr. a hypocrite for criticizing a blackface Jackson 5 impersonation on Australian TV last night because they've unearthed a video of Connick impersonating a southern preacher on Mad TV 13 years ago... except Connick isn't playing a black man and isn't wearing blackface. A commenter writes, "If he can get away with that in the US why is a dated and harmless blackface skit on Aussie TV so offensive to him? The man is a hypocrite of the worst kind." [Sydney Morning Herald]
• Travis Barker visited the Georgia burn center where he was treated last year after he survived a plane crash. "I'm here to say 'thank you' to everyone who took care of me after the accident," he said. "I was sort of unconscious the last tiem I was here, and I felt like I owed them a big 'thank you.'" [MTV]
• At the link, Method Mad talks to radio personality Big Topper about his time in prison for tax evasion and calls jail, "cool." [Perez Hilton]
• In court yesterday Christie Brinkley and her ex-husband Peter Cook accused each other of violating the terms of their settlement and custody agreements. Cook says, "She is doing everything she can to ruin my relationship with my kids," and Brinkley says he violated their divorce agreement by going on talk shows. [People]
• Peter Andre got into a fight at a hotel bar with Katie' Price's gay friends, who were screaming "childish abuse" at him. [Daily Mail]
• Terry Christian gave La Toya Jackson two unpublished photos of Michael Jackson. Terry said: "I've got two photos for La Toya, one of Michael Jackson and one of the Jackson Five, from my mate in Manchester who was the official photographer on Top Of The Pops for years." [The Mirror]
• A rep for Dr. Phil says he did nothing wrong to the woman who says he held her captive in his offices, forced her to stare at a naked man, and grabbed her breast. He released a statement saying, "Dr. Phil is never alone in the House with any of these guests and all of his interactions are captured on video and/or audio tape. All guests are, of course, free to come and go as they please and once Ms. Dieu expressed her discomfort, and producers ascertained there was nothing they could do to help her, they called a car service to return her to her home." [TMZ]
• Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are in a "race to the alter" ... even though neither is even engaged. [Star]
• Liam Gallagher says, "Oasis is no longer. I think we all know that. So that's done. I know. Without a doubt. And it's a shame, but that's life. We had a good run at it. The thing about Oasis is ... we ended Oasis. No one ended it for us. Which was pretty, kind of ... cool." [The Mirror]
• Jennifer Hudson says of her pregnancy, "David and I were the only people who knew for a long time. I would forget I was pregnant, it was so easy. I didn't have any morning sickness, no cravings either. I just thought, ‘Oh, well, we'll wait until it'll tell on itself.' I didn't show until I was seven months so that made it easy right there." [People]
• Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo are back on... but do you care? [People]
• Jon Hamm is featured in the new Reader's Digest in an article called "Tall, Dark, & Wholesome." [ONTD]
• John Cleese says, "I went through a very unpleasant divorce and discovered just how hopeless the American legal system is... For me, most of the things people know me from -Fawlty Towers or A Fish Called Wanda - are things I've been able to write on spec because I had enough money to live. Now I have to pay one million dollars a year until I'm 76. So that means I have to organize my life around earning the first million dollars every year. And the normal sources of income for people like me are drying up. There aren't as many film and TV parts - and you can do interesting documentaries but they don't pay anything. So I'm doing one-man shows and other things." [N.Y. Magazine]
• Valerie Bertinelli says, "I've realized I'm more important than food is. I love a big slice of pizza. But I love myself more. Being thin is about changing the way you think about yourself. It's about saying you deserve to be healthy. In no way have I perfected this eating thing, and I don't know that I ever will. But life is about making progress. It's not about perfection." [People]
• Patrick Stewart told a group of school children that he became interested in acting because going to the movies was an escape from his abusive dad. "My home life wasn't very pleasant, and not fun, so getting out, not being at home, especially to have the opportunity to escape into a fantasy world was bliss," he said. "I hated it when the movie or the Saturday morning ended, and I had to go back to real life. So, in a sense I was being set up for being an actor, for entering this world of make-believe." [The Telegraph]
• Carey Mulligan says of Nick Hornby, who wrote her film An Education, "I'm not surprised, because a lot of the characters he writes in his books, he writes really well. But it is a massive achievement for a male writer to get into the head of a girl of that age and write such a three dimensional lead character. Not a girl who's just an accessory to the story, but actually is the story. It's not surprising because I know how talented he is. I think he did a brilliant job at creating her, being a man and creating this really believable, truthful kind of girl."[Inside Movies]
• "Photo shoots used to make me weep," says Carey Mulligan, "It's easier if I wear something that's not my stuff. It's more of a performance, less about me." [L.A. Times]
• Carey Mulligan says she's adjusting well to being in the United States: "Like, I wish I could say "jackass" and make it sound as cool as an American. I say jackass as, like, [in her British accent] "jahkahs." It just doesn't have the punch. So I've fallen in love with, like, lingo, you know. And New York. I was here for six months last year, and I didn't want to leave then, and this time I don't want to leave. So I don't think I'm going home. I haven't told anyone in London yet." [N.Y. Magazine]
• Peter Sarsgaard says of his character in An Education, who has an affair with a 16-year-old girl, "It didn't seem like he wanted to have sex with her. That was one of my first reactions... I think he actually wants to be her age. I think he thinks he's her age some of the time, and I think he is someone who has a very difficult idea of accepting the circumstances of his own life, and so, like a lot of people-and I mean a lot of people-he is very capable of explaining his life to himself as something that it isn't, and living in a kind of false reality, and living in a bubble of a fantasy. And that's how everybody always ends up doing everything, you know? I mean, there are very few people that wake up every morning and say 'I'm going to do something today that is wrong,' you know? And then go and do it." [Gothamist]

• Brad Pitt's on the cover of W, two months after ladyfriend Angelina Jolie graced the mag. In the photo by artist Chuck Close, Brad looks… wrinkly. [Just Jared]

• Oooh, and in W, Brad Pitt says Angelina is not a homewrecker! "What people don't understand is that we filmed [Mr. & Mrs. Smith] for a year. We were still filming after Jen [Aniston] and I split up. Even then it doesn't mean that there was some kind of dastardly affair. There wasn't. I'm very proud of the way that it was handled. It was respectful." [Page Six]
• Jennifer Garner gave birth to a baby girl Tuesday in Los Angeles. What will Violet's little sister's name be? [People]
• Jett Travolta's sudden death will dominate the new cover of People. Friend of the family actress Anne Archer says: "John and Kelly never discussed his physical condition with me. I observed that he was significantly mentally handicapped. John always communicated to him as if Jett could completely understand him. ... It was a kind of sweet exchange, where he was just happy with anything that Jett offered. Anything." [People]
• Sarah Jessica Parker is reportedly moving out! A source says she wants to "bring down the curtain on her marriage." More later in Midweek Madness. [Star]
• It was reported that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes bought three apartments in one NYC building (we heard one was for living, one was the gym, and one was for Suri). But! This story claims that when Katie's stint in All My Sons is done, the couple will return to L.A. [E!]
• Kate Winslet could win an Oscar if Academy voters get creative with the ballots. [Fox 411]
• Lauren Hutton talked to Lindsay Lohan for Interview and L.L. told her: "I have become this girl who just loves to be photographed, doesn’t know how to focus, doesn’t know how to work on set, just loves the attention, knows how to go out at night, knows how to party. I lived maybe six months out of my life like that, doing something wrong, and then I stopped. God forbid I should have ever learned my lesson. People are so distracted by the mess that I created in my life." [WWD]
• Britney Spears missed some dance rehearsals for her upcoming tour and supposedly doesn't want choreographer Wade Robson to see "that she's not as good as she used to be." Uh, Brit? He knows. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Are ghosts to blame for the delay of Courtney Love's album? A spokesperson released a statement which reads: "The studio that Courtney was using to record had paranormal technical issues so they have moved to another studio." [The Sun]
• The "hunk" Amy Winehouse has been hanging out with in the Caribbean swears there's nothing going on: "She’s sweet — but just not my kind of girl." Maybe he likes 'em crack-free? [The Sun]
• Bad news if you're sick of Anne Hathaway talking about putting the past behind her: She says, "As horrible as what I went through was, it's not the worst thing that could happen to a person. In the history of humanity, it doesn't even come close." And some other stuff. [USA Today]
• Jennifer Love Hewitt is having a "tough time" after breaking up with her fiancé, if you care. [People]
• Perez Hilton on Anderson Cooper: "Rumor has it that [actor Mitch Morris] was having some kind of relationship with Anderson, but I don't have any photos. If I did, you would have seen them by now." [Village Voice]
• OMFGG: Will Nicole Richie be on Gossip Girl? A "friend" says "She wants a really bitchy, juicy role." [Gatecrasher]
• Ben Lee got married to Ione Skye in India?!?! [ONTD]
• Blind item! "Which pothead actor is seeking refuge for harder drugs in a NYC rehab center? The toker couldn’t quite kick the nose-candy habit." [Gatecrasher]
• Sometimes gossip "news" is too surreal to absorb, which is why the following information is presented without comment: "Rock superstars U2 have revealed their Spider-Man musical will be ready to hit Broadway this year." [The Sun]
• The new American Idol judge, Kara DioGuardi, says she's seen some male contestants who are uniquely talented. Unfortunately, this is not a euphemism. [AP]
• Some schoolkids saw Nicolas Cage in a Starbucks and offered him money. Time to shower and shave, dude. [Telegraph]
• The court system is trying to get Roman Polanski to return to L.A. to get his sexual misconduct charges dismissed; his lawyers are all, "No." [Variety]
• The woman who was used by police as a Jamie Lynn Spears decoy is pissed! She wants $2 million for her humiliation and harassment and "had no idea that her privacy would be invaded and her identity made synonymous with 'fake Jamie Lynn Spears—a nobody.'" [Yahoo News via E!]
• Will people actually purchase tickets to attend Mel B.'s Vegas extravaganza, Peep Show, which is a night of burlesque, singing and dancing? [Mirror]
• Kevin Federline's new girlfriend was kicked out of her apartment after not paying rent for six months. Perfect for each other? [TMZ]
• Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony went on a romantic jaunt to Puerto Rico and either are doing great or are arguing, like any couple, but it's so hard to give a shit. [People]
• Whoa: Back in the day, La Toya Jackson was kidnapped, forced into marriage and beaten by her husband! [The Sun]
• The wacky/emotional judge who presided over the dispute involving Anna Nicole Smith's remains has been cleared of wrongdoing. As you may recall, he cried while reading the verdict of the case. [AP]
• If you have £7,000, you can be the proud owner of this oil painting of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, a prop from the BBC adaptation of Pride And Prejudice. [Telegraph]
• Aerosmith is ready to work on a new studio album. Is the world ready for more rock of aged? [Reuters]
• Producer Scott Storch, 35, got the face of a 19-year old chick inked on his skin. A source says: "The tattoo is ghetto, big, and on his arm. It's crazy because he's not even actually dating her." [Page Six]
• How is it possible that the Christie Brinkley/Peter Cook court battle is still not over? Her ex-husband has filed contempt of court charges against Brinkley, and her attorney is calling it "unwarranted and petty." [Extra]
• Richard Branson's New Year's Eve party on Necker Island was B.Y.O.M.: Bring your own model. [Page Six]
• Hate your boobs? MTV wants to talk to you. [Page Six]
• "If a play came along now I would jump at it. I’m very keen on doing new writing. I’ve always kind of been doing new writing with plays and that’s where my heart is. Not that I don’t think that doing the classics is a wonderful idea, but Shakespeare’s got too many lines and the other stuff is really complicated. I like newer media stuff." — Daniel Craig. [The Sun]
• "I'm sorry it took until your 40s for you to be recognized. I wrote [Josh] off as I do all square-jawed actors. But bit by bit — as he became older and older — I realized he’s going to become such an asset to the film industry." — Sean Penn on Josh Brolin. [Gatecrasher]
• "I have made my position very clear. I do not believe that there is a military solution to the situation in Gaza. I support peaceful conflict resolution, and dialogue, which HAS to take place inevitably in order to resolve the situation in any case. I do not believe that the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians will solve anything. It will only make things worse for everyone, on BOTH sides… I am not “anti Israeli”, nor have I EVER been, and for anyone to say that I am is profoundly offensive and completely wrong." — Annie Lennox. [Pop Dirt]

That sentiment was echoed in the oft-emailed Maureen Dowd column from last Sunday on an "ideal husband." MoDo was totally phoning it in with this one (she basically wrote a paragraph and then just quoted Priest and marriage expert Father Pat Connor at length), but it is still in the top-five most emailed list five days later because the advice contained within is sound. Connor said to Dowd, "Don’t marry a problem character thinking you will change him. He’s a heavy drinker, or some other kind of addict, but if he marries a good woman, he’ll settle down. People are the same after marriage as before, only more so."

Which brings me back to the Brinkley/Cook fracas. According to a Rush & Molloy column in the New York Daily News from May, 1996, "Cautious as she is after her brief marriage to Colorado playboy Ricky Taubman, Brinkley is still a sucker for gorgeous guys. She's been making the first round of Hamptons parties with Cook. who's a former model, a Duke grad and son of a federal judge. Like Brinkley, Cook has been quick on the romantic draw. In 1992, he proposed to actress/model Anna Rhodes six weeks after meeting her. But then, he reportedly got distracted by Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Ashley Richardson Montana."

A serial modelizer with a history of hasty proposals? I probably wouldn't have put money on him staying faithful. Sorry Christie!

Staying Civil In Divorce Court Is Hard To Do [USA Today]
An Ideal Husband [NYT]

• We find it hard to believe that Angelina Jolie is in any way threatened by her man Brad's ex, but a source tells 'Page Six' that that's precisely the case, making Angelina, sadly, a little more like us mere mortals. [PageSix]
  
• Christina Aguilera is expecting a baby. Think she'll wear her
  full-on face paint to the birthing room? [PageSix]
  
• Madonna has finally gotten the message: No one wants to watch her in
  movies. Who says people don't get wiser with age? [NYPost, 6th item]
  
• Paris Hilton once said she's only had sex with two people. And apparently Jack Osbourne was one of them. [TheSun]
  
• Oh wait, Age of Love star / tennis pro Mark Philippoussis has had sex with Paris too! [SkyNews]
  
• Nicole Richie has won a 2-week postponement for her trial on drunk
  driving charges, probably in the hopes that her baby bump/distended belly is
  clearly visible to a sympathetic judge. [Reuters]

• How best to declare budding affection for Uma Thurman? By stroking her hair in public, of course. [Gatecrasher]
• Peter Cook and Christie Brinley continue to hash it out regarding custody of their children. [Rush & Molloy]
• Liv Tyler wants plastic surgery, and fast, because having a baby made her body all fat and ugly and shit, yo! They so did not mention that in Lamaze class! [People]
• Speaking of, Drea de Matteo is already bitching about how fat she feels while pregnant. [People]
• Scott Baio to star in dating reality show, a la The Flavor of Love, on VH1. Ew. [TMZ]
• Oh Isaiah Washington! Stop! Stop! You are NOT Malcolm X! [SFGate]
• Ellen Barkin? Pot calling kettle black. [DailyMir ror]