We just got off the phone with our old pal, Tom Tapp, the former editor of the lamentably-late Variety celeb lifestyle monthly, V Life.

In one conversation, he ruined our afternoon: Six months after leaving Reed Business Information, he's launching - gasp! - a competitor to FishbowlLA - the cunningly-christened "Hollywood Wiretap" - designed to simultaneously exploit both the Anthony Pellicano scandal and the people searching the web for it. Get it? Tom Tapp? Wiretap?

Of course, Tom, tells us, it's much more than a Pelican news site, and its not a blog. It's meant to be "Matt Drudge, but for Hollywood." Tom has experience with that sort of pace, too: He was a wire-hanger for E! Online for years before joining Variety.

Naturally, we wish him the best of luck - even as we plot a denial-of-service attack against him.

This is Hollywood, after all.

(Though it launches Monday, you can check out the beta version today: www.hollywoodwiretap.com)