Michael Phelps

Here's a question that we found ourselves asking during the laborious season premiere of Saturday Night Live: after an entire summer off, this is the best they can come up with?

With the exception of the hilarious cold open, a press conference with Hillary Clinton (Amy Poehler, with clenched jaw perfection) and Sarah Palin (Tina Fey, predictably hilarious), the season premiere felt like a dress rehearsal. There wasn't one skit that followed even worth cracking a smile over. As one of our friends, who texted us a little after midnight, so eloquently put it: "Wow, this is awful."  read more »

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's West Village neighbors are becoming increasingly irritated by the girls' "military presence" on their block. [P6] 

Kanye West was arrested yesterday for breaking a photographer's camera at LAX. [TMZ] 

At the premiere of their joint venture, Righteous Kill, neither Robert De Niro nor Al Pacino would comment on the swipe director Francis Ford Coppola took at the two of them in GQ. [NYDN]

Barack Obama will join Michael Phelps on the season premiere of Saturday Night Live this weekend. [People]   read more »

Olatz Schnabel is upset over reports that her husband, director Julian Schnabel, has been seen out with "Miral" author Rula Jebreal. [P6]

Exes Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley attended a performance by daughter Alexa Ray Joel in Sag Harbor. Brinkley's latest ex, Peter Cook--Alexa once him described as an "evil stepfather who once forced her head into a bucket"--was also there, for some reason. [NYDN]

The girls of Danity Kane are reportedly so upset over creator P. Diddy's favoritism towards member Dawn Richard that none of them showed up to her birthday party. [NYDN]  read more »

Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson have responded to Michael Lohan's public comments about Ms. Ronson's supposed tell-all book via their MySpace celebrity blog. [MySpace via Daily Intel] 

A Gossip Girl script for the upcoming season has leaked! Click through at your own risk. [Gawker]

At the DNC, Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) asked staff to introduce her to Jennifer Lopez. Meanwhile, Jessica Alba is over there drinking something called a "Dirty Delegate" martini. [NY Daily News]   read more »

A funny thing happened to Saturday Night Live during its 33rd season. After a few years of languishing as the television version of punching a clock, it became culturally relevant again. And as loyal viewers who still DVR the show week after week with the hopes of finding some hilarity when we re-watch it on Sunday mornings, we admit that we don't totally understand why.

Sure, we love the cast; they're an appealing and likeable group of future character actors destined to appear in Judd Apatow movies and NBC sit-coms from now until the end of time. But there isn't a breakout star among them, as far as we can tell.  read more »

The Huffington Post's Media page alerts us to a note from Bob Costas on NBC's 'The Daily Nightly' blog. In it, Mr. Costas apologizes to his colleague Brian Williams and Olympics superstar Michael Phelps for passing along an erroneous report that Bruce Springsteen had dedicated "Born in the U.S.A." to Mr. Phelps:

I had every reason to believe this information was accurate, and its source was reliable. In fact, I had intended to use it in my own interview with Phelps, but when time didn’t allow for it, I passed the story on to Brian, who did use it.

Can you guess which ragingly hot chest belongs to which swimmer? It sounds like a game you might play on Queerty or something, but you can just do it on, you know, NBC's Olympics Web site.

Stare at the chest, think of the swimmer, click a button, and there's the face. It's like online shopping.

Apparently NBC isn't above link-baiting.

Olympic gold medal-winner Michael Phelps has a few thoughts on Facebook, the social networking site beloved by teenagers and marketers everywhere. In an article by Karen Crouse from this weekend's New York Times (in the new "platform agnostic" era, it ran on August 9th on the Web and August 10th in the paper), Ms. Crouse writes:

As Phelps’s legend grows, so does his popularity. The last time he checked his Facebook page, he had more than 4,300 friends. And then there is President Bush. All of which does not impress Phelps much. All the hotheads and cold shoulders he endured as a child have inured him to celebrity’s charms.  read more »