This is your guest-editor, Andrew Krucoff, signing off now and I would like to thank everyone who wrote in with tips or nasty comments. Both are equally fun to wade through. I apologize for the absence of a proper "To Do" list but if you don't have plans for tonight yet, you're a bit screwed. Of course, if desperation is your soulmate then check out Shecky's Guide for some help. Have a Safe and Happy New Year.

[Ski mask from a 1965 McCall's Needlework & Crafts Magazine via Swapatorium]

Two more end of year wrap-ups in case you didn't see them already: Year in Culture [Slate] and Year in Gossip [Salon]. One phrase that keeps popping up in these types of pieces is "coming of age" which we always thought referred to our 13th birthday and becoming a man (or woman). But other things come of age too, like really techie, business things, and some countries.

Coming Of Age, 2004:
The DVD [NYT]
Inter-generational dramas [Boston Herald]
Blogs [BBC]
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) [Tech Target]
USB flash drive [USAToday]
New Zealand capital markets [Stuff NZ]
Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) [Yahoo Singapore]
Wireless Internet [Seattle P-I]
Botswana [All Africa]
India and China [IBD]

We end this series of guest contributors playing Santa to celebrities and other lesser-known beings with: New York Post's Jared Paul Stern who hates Lloyd Grove, blogger Jason Kottke equally hating apartment brokers, and Eddie Hayes, lawyer/Court TV analyst, who has nothing but love for New York.

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Gasp! Another scandal is brewing hotter than a cup of ice water over at the New York Times. Jennifer 8, formerly a Harvard co-ed and currently a Gray Lady reporter, has her very own anecdotal Deep Throat: a quote-spewing, dog-walking, model/actress named "Amanda Tree" who has popped up in two articles of 8's in as many days.

1. Birds are better than Barbie
2. Where have all the white people gone?

We're concerned if there's really a shortage of people willing to talk about homeless birds and the flight of Manhattan's better-class.

Related:
Jennifer 8. Lee [You Want a Piece of Me?]
Jennifer '98 Lee [LowCulture]

· A coincidence that both Soho House and Lotus are throwing "Roaring '20's"-themed New Year's Eve parties tonight? Soho House manager Mark Somen thinks not. "Are you copying my ideas!!??" he wrote in an email to Lotus owner David Rabin, who we imagine responded: "LOL! ROFL! TTYL!" [Page Six]
· Paris Hilton is apparently not welcome in Gstaad, Switzerland. As the always thoughtful and not at all culturally insensitive Taki Theodoracopulous put it, "Poor Phuket got a tsunami, and we got Paris Hilton." Maybe the same judge who ripped away Anna Nicole Smith's inheritance could do the same with Paris's and give it to the tsunami relief effort. [Page Six]
· Cindy Margolis is having twins. Coors Light endorsement contracts are pending. [Page Six]
· Martha Stewart loses prison holiday decorating contest with only $25 worth of materials. Seriously, you can't love Jesus for less than $1500 a creche. [Daily Dish]

The international community has pledged $500 million (half of it from the World Bank) to help the recovery effort in the aftermath of the tsunami disaster in Asia. But what exactly is half a billion dollars in today's global economy? Let's have a look.

Four wide-bodied Boeing 7E7 Dreamliner jets [Turkish Press]

Dubai Bazaar [AME Info]

A wireless network in India [Channel News Asia]

Capitol bond program for Oklahoma Higher Education [Channel Oklahoma]

About half of the Scottish Parliament building which cost 500 million, in pounds [The Scotsman]

For more perspective: the US has pledged $35 million, which is how much it spends in Iraq every 7 hours. Donate: Red Cross.

Music critic for the New Yorker, Sasha Frere-Jones, takes a time out between deadlines and holiday family matters to let us know how he sprints the last ten yards of 2004 and what dance moves he would teach Clay Aiken and the advice he would offer to Pedro Martinez.

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A real estate record was recently broken with the purchase of a $45 million estate in Wainscott, making it the most expensive home in New York state. (Just a butler's pension more than Rupert Murdoch's $44 million Fifth Avenue penthouse.) Industry insiders debate the value.

"It's a sickness," said Mona Holzman, who oversees sales for Laffey Associates, a real estate firm on the North Shore of Long Island. She said she was shocked that a Hamptons home had fetched $45 million. "I guess people just don't know what to do with their money. I don't know what could be so spectacular about this house."

But the worst part? The new owner, Stewart Rahr, CEO of a pharmaceutical distributor that rakes in $3 billion a year in sales, was able to pay for it all with a check. We guess no one told him about Tucker Carlson's fear that the Hamptons could one day be under water. Sucker.

Sale of Estate in Hamptons Raises Bar to $45 Million [NYT]

Sightings are sent in by readers; send yours to tips@gawker.com.

In this edition: Scott Foley, Julianne Moore, Maggie Gyllenhal, Jim McGreevey, Rosie Perez, Charlie Rose, Daniel Libsekind, David Schwimmer, Joey Slotnick, Sandra Bollock, Dave Chappelle, Kelly Rowland, Regis Philbin, Donatella Versace, Spike Lee, Marla Maples, Lorenzo Lamas, Matt Damon, Jon Favreau, Al Goldstein, Wilmer Valderrama, Will Arnett, Amy Poehler, Joan Collins, Joan Allen, Donald Faison, John Norris, and Drew Carey.

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· Finally, a year-end list we can support: The 27th Annual Top 8 NY Entities That Didn't Exist. It covers the Lower East Side, blogs, etc. [SITNNY]
· An unbelievable, almost shocking, comprehensive review of the year concerning only matters of import: gossip, pop culture, and media. You might have to print this one out. [The Corsair]
· Lindsay Robertson releases the results of her annual "Porn Titles For 2004 Movies" contest. Personal fave: I Penis Huckabees. [Lindsayism via Fleshbot]
· The official news from U2's website on the safety of Adam Clayton. He's alive. Climb back inside your iPods. [U2.com]
· Susan Sontag remembered as a Jew, above all. [Nextbook]
· Parents pay the rent for a "Spoiled Cunt" while she attempts to launch singing career. Ah, just another feel-good New York story. [You Can't Make It Up]
· Miami nightclubs market Paris Hilton as an attraction, whether she comes or not. But of course, she always comes. [Page Six Six Six]
· Joyce Purnick of the New York Times remembers 2004 as the year we took back the city, from ourselves. She also hands out her own gifts to local politicos. [NYT]
· A summary of the Year in Reality TV done with a respectable use of multi-colored fonts. [Reality Blurred via AdRants]
· Talk about relief efforts, the women of Algiers now have a fashion magazine. "It's a virgin market" said one French publisher. Yep, unlike us sluts in the States. [AlertNet via Mediabistro]

1. Alas and alack the Tinkle pre-New Year's Eve Show at Piano's hosted by David Cross, Todd Barry and Jon Benjamin with guests Paul F. Thompson, Fred Armison and Eugene Mirman is sold out. But! You can still catch the show, free of charge, upstairs on a big screen TV. And maybe, if you're lucky, you can touch David Cross's sleeve on your way out. [Tinkle.info]
2. Holidays have you feeling a bit atonal? Then catch "drone music" pioneer Birchville Cat Motel perform with Sonic Youth-er Lee Ranaldo at Tonic. [Tonic NYC]
3. Onetime funk-sideliner Maceo Parker takes the funk center stage tonight at Irving Plaza. [Irving Plaza]
4. Rest up for tomorrow. [at Home via Common Sense]

Memo to Lindsay Lohan: Stop this wicked path of self-destruction you are currently on or suffer the consequences of ending up on the Country Music Channel in twenty years.

[Pictures were reader submitted. Thanks Michael!]

Hell hath no fury like a Clay Aiken fan scorned or forced to look at a pin-up of Ruben Studdard. The hate mail continues to pour in from the allegations posted here that Aiken acted like the Great Santini of choir leaders to a bunch of school kids. One determined reader has written us three times. Each time the font got bigger, redder, and crazier. You really have to appreciate this kind of devotion from a fanbase. Or get very, very, very far away from them.

Subject: DONT TALK BAD ABOUT CLAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Message: I do not believe the crap u guys r giving me about my clay aiken!!!!!!!! why would he be mean to kids in only this one town of nj?? thats crap people!!!!!!!!!!!!!! u r just so stupid and jealous that he is doing soooooooooooo much better than rueben, and i think that is really gay!!!!!! so cut the crap b/c i am really mad at u people right now!!!!!!!!!!

Two more bombs after the jump.

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Cliff Kincaid of the conservative media watchdog group Accuracy In Media (AIM) thinks the proverbial cat is out of the dimebag with a story exposing the employment history of American Association for Retired Persons (AARP) magazine editor Ed Dwyer, who worked for High Times and Playboy, as well as Penthouse with top AARP editor Steven Slon. When the AARP released a study showing 75% of elderly Americans favor the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, the ears of suitcase sniffing dogs perked up and now seek to damage the credibility of AARP with their alleged drug and pornography backgrounds.

AIM uses such non-biased phrases as "pro-illegal drug lobby" and "counter-culture takeover" to describe the AARP's editorial agenda. Of course, the organizations under AIM's founder Reed Irvine, who died this past November, are right-wing and funded largely by billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. So you tell us Mr. Pusherman, who's pushing whose agenda?

From Pot to Porn to AARP [AIM]
Media Watchdog Reed Irvine [WaPo]
Who Is Richard Mellon Scaife? [CNN]

Back when we published a daily interview here we paraded out book/writer types left and right. Maybe that's why we killed the feature. One leftover that never got posted is from Daniel Maurer who's been an editor-type at Grove/Atlantic the last 4 years. Instead of his interview, we offer this exclusive analysis he conducted of New York Daily News headlines since 1997 and what it takes to get killed in them.

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· Donald Trump plans to launch a line of hair care products for men over 40. Just as we generally avoid taking music recommendations from deaf people, we think we're going to pass on buying leave-in conditioner from Donald Trump. [Page Six]
· In the Denial Is Not Just A Parasitic-Diseased River In Egypt Department, Vanessa Williams claims that she is not getting a divorce from ex-L.A. Laker Rick Fox...but that's not what Fox's publicist says. Those bi-coastal marriages never work out. [NYDN Gatecrasher]
· Either Page Sixers got a copy of "100 Years of Solitude" for Christmas and are hoping to inject a bit of magical realism into the washed out pages of the New York Post or someone hot-boxed their offices. Something has to explain this item. [Page Six]

We hear THAT Time Out NY honcha Cyndi Stivers, whose terrace was visited by a ring-necked turtledove before Christmas three years ago, took it in from the cold and still has the bird, Milt, which does a funny headbanging impersonation of Dana Carvey in "Wayne's World"...

More holiday gift-giving from two well-respected bloggers who graciously answered our call to play Santa. Matt from Fluxblog has a soft spot for Lindsay Lohan, Bono, and the Republican Party while Rex of Fimoculous wraps Karl Rove, Janet Jackson, Mel Gibson, and Neocon Bloggers in a giant bow. Their wonderful gift ideas after the jump.

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The Sunshine Cinema on New York's Lower East Side gives moms, immigrant nannies, and stay-at-home dads a break on Wednesday mornings by holding special screenings that allow babies free entry. Sounds like a great idea except yesterday they showed The Woodsman, a movie where Kevin Bacon plays THE WORLD'S MOST DISTURBING PEDOPHILE. Babies don't retain this stuff, right?

Rattle and Reel [Landmark Theaters]