For those of you who don’t know, this little gossip blog is largely funded by the fantastic folks over at RealNetworks. Scoff all you want, but Wendie and Molly and Kelly and I — as well as the women of Zelda Lily and Lilly Likes — wouldn’t be here for you to scoff at daily if it weren’t for their unwavering support of our website and of my personal sanity, day in and day out. This company has been nothing but amazing to me, and they have supported every bizarre and non-traditional creative decision I’ve insisted on making. I have no problem selling out to the man if it means I get to run a gossip blog for a living and employ other phenomenally talented women who deserve to be paid to write.

This was a really exciting week at RealNetworks, as users of our flagship product, RealPlayer SP, used it for 100 million video downloads in less than six months. That’s a huge number; it took YouTube 17 months to get 100 million video views. We’ve been really excited (and there have been a lot of free cookies), and Lacy Kemp and Oona Rokyta, two of our amazing PR girls (and my friends) made a video to celebrate. I make a fun little cameo around the 0:37 mark, and at 0:29 you might recognize another coworker and friend of mine: the beautiful and uber-gangsta Chelsia Hart from Big Brother. Enjoy!

Remember like a billion years ago when we asked you guys to send us your very best proposal stories to win a trip to Las Vegas or Napa? It was a contest we were running to celebrate the release of The Proposal on DVD, but it didn’t feel like work — we had such a fantastic time reading all the entries and laughing our asses off. I don’t think we got even a single entry that wasn’t either funny or interesting or just bizarre.

We’re a little late on announcing the winner; the process got a bit derailed when everyone in the office had the flu for like two weeks. But we read every single entry, and we discussed, and we voted, and we are SO EXCITED about our winner, Liz from North Carolina.

Here’s Liz’s entry, which we thought was funny and touching and definitely unique:

My boyfriend came over to my apartment while I was outside walking the dog. I wasn’t expecting him, so I ran up and hugged him. He didn’t hug me back and wouldn’t look me in the eyes. I asked him what was wrong and he said “I need to talk to you about something; I wrote you a letter to explain everything.” He had once tried to break up with me in a letter, so I was furious. I ran upstairs and he gave me an envelope. I opened it, cursing him “You fucking asshole, we have been together forever and now you’re breaking up with me?!” It was a swirly lettered card that said “Congratulations on Your Engagement.” I was confused. On the inside of the card, my boyfriend had written “That is, if you say yes.” I looked up from my angry tears to see that my husband was kneeling down on one knee with a ring. I realized what was happening. I started to cry even more and I said, “Yes, you asshole!!!” and beat him with the engagement card. I later asked him why he would propose to me in such a completely unromantic way, and he said “Well, you knew I was probably going to propose soon, and I wanted to make sure you were surprised.”

Congratulations to Liz and her husband!! We can’t wait to hear all about your trip! Make sure to send pics!!!

I don’t go to church every Sunday and I don’t own rosary beads.  I don’t observe religious holidays and I inwardly groan when I get a wedding invite and realize that it means I’ll have to sit through an entire mass.  How.Ev.Er.  I believe that God exists and he does answer prayers.  Today, I have proof.

Today, Oprah is expected to announce that she’s ending her show.  After 25 interminably fucking long years, it will finally be over in 2011.  This has been like suffering through the world’s longest colonoscopy.

I was rejoicing about this good news on Facebook when a few people tried to take the shine off my elation by pointing out that O will just be moving her show to her long-awaited — and I’d like to personally meet the people who are waiting for this — Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).  Yeah, I don’t care about that.  As long as I keep out of the high 200’s when I’m channel surfing, I should be okay in avoiding her.

Can you even imagine what this new OWN is going to be like?  If you suffer from depression, low self-esteem, have suicidal tendencies or are just having a bad day, STAY AWAY FROM OPRAH’S NEW NETWORK!  Because Oprah is awesome.  And almighty.  And living her highest and most purposeful life.  We simple commoners cannot possibly understand such complex concepts that are discussed on O as evidenced by Oprah constantly taking the words of her guests, chewing them up and serving them pureed style to her apparently idiotic audience (”Do you get that, people?  What she’s saying is that her husband cheated on her, but she’s choosing to move on.”)

Personally, I’m glad that O is waddling off into the sunset.  I hope she finds tons, and I do mean tons, of success at her new network.  Anything to keep her off the main stations where I could accidentally come in contact with her when I’m desperately searching for Full House reruns.

This is a great day.  Teresa and Jacqueline from Real Housewives of New Jersey make a cameo appearance on tonight’s episode of Mercy.  And is it just my imagination, or do they have completely superior abilities in comparison to the actual actress who is confronting Michelle Trachtenberg?

I will say that I was slightly disappointed that there was no talk of bubbies and no tables were flipped.  How is this new show, Mercy?  Worth watching or ER regurgitated?

Johnny Depp!  Do you agree with this selection?  Obviously, since it isn’t James Franco, I think y’all know where I stand on the topic.

It’s a damn good thing that those “Funny or Die” skits aren’t literal, because we’d all be a pile of rotting carcass right about now.  But I love being able to work “Zach Galifianakis” into any conversation such as “I’ll feed you as soon as I’m done posting this really unfunny bit starring Zach Galifianakis” or “I’m not sure what the right decision is.  What would Zach Galifianakis do?” or “I hurt my ankle.  I can’t remember how, but I know Zach Galifianakis was somehow involved.”  I love typing it and I love saying it.

So, this bit with Andy Richter, Andy Dick, Conan O’Brien and Zach Galifianakis isn’t great, but, you know … Zach Galifianakis.

This “cover” of Nickelback’s “Photograph” had me LOLing, and I thought it would be a nice end-of-workday treat for ya’ll. Thanks to my very favorite film critic, Laremy at Film.com, for the heads-up.

Oh, and while we’re at it, Pamela at Film.com is giving away FREAKIN’ AMAZING Top Chef cookbooks. It’s super easy to enter (click here for details) and the book is amazing. I have been cuddling with one at my desk all day. I WANT TO KEEP IT FOREVER!!!

Because I know all you young ‘uns are going to be like “Who the fuck is Edward Woodward?  What the hell is the Equalizer?” I found a little tribute clip that some genius on YouTube put together two years ago.  The Equalizer was a fantastic, albeit short-lived show that ran in the ’80s.  ”Got a problem?  Odds against you?  Call the Equalizer.”  There were tons of famous and yet-to-be famous people who appeared on that show (Macaulay Culkin, Melissa Joan Hart, Kevin Spacey, Vincent D’Onofrio, Adam Ant, David Grier, John Goodman, Lori Petty, Bradley Whitfor, Laurence Fishburne, Patricia Clarkson, Jennifer Grey, Laurie Metcalf, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, Roma Maffia, Olympia Dukakis, Michael Moriarty, Chris Cooper, Michael Rooker, David Strathairn, Charles S. Dutton, Cynthia Nixon, Laura San Giacomo, Kasi Lemmons, Ving Rhames, Amanda Plummer,Jon Polito, Jasmine Guy, Mark Linn-Baker, Tony Shalhoub, Stanley Tucci … shall I go on?) and the theme song was written by Stewart Copeland.  Just a fantastic show.

The actor who played Robert McCall (the Equalizer!), Edward Woodward, did a bunch of movies and theater and also appeared on The Eastenders.  In 1987, Woodward told the AP “I think I’ve probably [sic] more television than any actor living.  I’ve done over 2,000, could be 3,000 now, television productions.”

Woodward passed at 79 due to an illness.

Did anyone actually see Couples Retreat?  I didn’t, but according to my research, the black couple played by Faizon Love and Kali Hawk, had roles that were featured as prominently as the other couples appearing in the movie.  Then why did Universal Studios give them a big ol’ delete off the movie posters as they promote this film in the UK?

The studio claims their reason for the edit of the image and names of Love and Hawk was to “simplify” for the UK audience.  You hear that, folks across the pond?  Universal Studios thinks you can’t handle the visual stimulus of eight actors and their names on a movie poster.  They think you need simplification.  They are putting their act of racism on the shoulders of UK citizens.  It’s your fault this happened.  I hope your knickers are in a serious twist over this.

Movie critic Jason Solomons wrote:  ”We don’t cater much for the black cinema-going audience in this country, which is a great shame, so it seems strange that when there are black stars in a major feature film this fact isn’t promoted. And, in terms of business decisions, this seems a pretty counter-productive one.”

2012 was number one at the box office this weekend, raking in $65 mil domestically and a whopping $160 million worldwide– the fifth biggest international opening weekend ever.

And while most of us probably just get a weird, self-destructive kick out of seeing apocalyptic visions of California falling off into the ocean, we don’t really believe that on December 21st two years from now, the Earth will break apart and the only survivors will be enigmatic limo drivers who also happen to be experts on the Mayan calendar, a la John Cusack in this flick. At least, I’d like to think that most of us wouldn’t believe that… but I must be wrong.

NASA, an organization responsible for such things as vacuum toilets and freeze dried beef wellington, has launched a website aimed at dispelling claims of a 2012 apocalypse. It answers such burning questions as “Is there a planet or brown dwarf called Nibiru or Planet X or Eris that is approaching the Earth and threatening our planet with widespread destruction?” I know that’s been on my mind for quite some time. It’s good to know that rocket scientists are out there, spending our tax dollars on answering all the really important questions.

Not that dispelling any possible panic incited in legions of idiots by a John Cusack movie aint important, but maybe you could get back to that whole, “Holy shit, there’s a ton of water on the moon” thing.  (It’s called “science.”)

I was so confused.  I knew there was some sort of country music award ceremony this week and pictures from the 57th Annual BMI Country Awards came across the wire this morning.  Now, I wouldn’t attend an awards show that reminded me of my body mass index either, but I was surprised to see how few celebs attended.  Like, Keith Urban, Nicole Kidman and Taylor Swift were there, but not too many more notables (if you can count Chris Sligh of American Idol “fame” as a notable).

It took a little bit of research for me to learn that the awards that people actually pay attention to, the CMAs, are tonight.  Prepare for a blinding photo gallery tomorrow full of the over-whitened teeth and liberal use of sequins that I’ve come to expect from Nashville.

Okay, okay, it’s possible that he didn’t really mean that he struggled with mental illness, even though lots of media outlets are reporting it that way.

Robert Pattinson — I think his people are transitioning to “Rob Pattinson” now — has admitted in an interview in New magazine that he’s a bit all over the place when it comes to relationships. The actor said “You over-analyze everything — you analyze how if you say one thing, someone likes you, and if you say another, they don’t. You begin to experiment on people, which isn’t good for real life. I don’t think I’m very romantic any more — just manic depressive.”

Well people characterize themselves as bipolar or manic-depressive all the time (as well as crazy, psycho, schizo).  It’s a bad habit that our society has picked up (I’m certainly very guilty of it) to use mental illness terms in common speech.

I don’t know if Pattinson was being serious or not — he did say that he hasn’t been officially diagnosed — but he can pretty much assume that the “mental illness” label (as well as the Kristen Stewart’s boyfriend label) will be brought up at every single press junket and interview that he ever does for the rest of his career.