What the world needs now, is love sweet love: The Penthouse Media Group has raised a whopping $48 million in private financing for expansion into TV and wireless platforms, according to AdAge's Nat Ives, who reports that Penthouse will use the funds "to build multiple high-definition on-demand and subscription TV properties" in order to directly compete with Playboy's Playboy and Spice channels. Says CEO Marc H. Bell: "We're building a lifestyle brand." Indeed. [AdAge]

What Toronto needs now, is clubs sweet clubs: According to Page Six, it's the one thing that my beautiful hometown just can't get enough of: "Nightlife in Toronto is so sparse that when a club opens, the doorman practically gets mobbed in the streets." Hmph. Apparently there was a -- cue tip of the hat to Canada's Francophone population -- melée outside the Motorola/Marquee party for the Toronto Film Festival wherein Maple Leaf Adam Toma tried to slip the doorman $1,000 to get in and "four very large men rushed the door and were restrained in a melee of punches, overturned tables and broken glass." Whoo! Sounds like my Bat Mitzvah. Meanwhile, over at Lobby (run by the Mandell Brothers of York Mills Collegiate Institute, alma mater of this blogger, Fortune writer Nick Stein and Vitals editor Joe Zee), a few Red Sox players failed to break the Curse of the Candadiambino when they were blocked at the club door because they weren't on the list. Canadians are nothing if not fair. (NB we're guessing that the would-be party-animal Sox players were not amongst those meeting the next morning for Bible study.) PS. We always have fun when we go home, Page Six, but that's probably because we know where to go. Snap! [NYP]

What the Times needs now, is funds sweet funds: Ladies and germs Greg Lindsay picked up when the guy sitting next to him on the plane sneezed on him, the moment is upon us: TimesSelect launches on Monday. Let's see, three of today's MEL top five are Op-Edsters Dowd, Friedman and Brooks; for the past week in MEL, 13 of 25. Yep, the Times knows what they're doing.