Long-gone are the days of matching dress shirts and Sears family portraits — Jon Gosselin is whining to anybody who’ll listen that his soon-to-be ex-wife Kate is preventing him from seeing twins Cara and Maddy on their 9th birthday. According to the NY Daily News

Jon claims she wrote an email to [him] saying, “Due to recent events, it will be too stressful to the kids to have both of us here as planned. I would like to split the evening so they can see us both.”

“She’s trying to prevent me from seeing my kids on their birthday because she doesn’t want to see me,” the dad claimed. “She can’t tell me what to do. I’m not going to allow it. I’m just going to stay. I own the house so I can do what I want.”

As for how he will behave once inside the family’s $1 million home, Jon said he will act like “my old self, as an avoider and passive.”

Did you get that? He’s an “avoider” and “passive.” Ah, the comfort of the psychobabble label! Is there any warmer a teat at which to suckle away any sense of personal responsibility for one’s actions? No, seriously. I’m really asking. God knows the tequila I’ve been nursing for the last six years sure isn’t doing me any favors.

Kate making fun of her controlling mommy image on Jay Leno last night:

Simon Cowell’s $2 million dollar, nine-hour long birthday party this weekend was a marvelous testament to narcissism and Caligulan excess. The Daily Mail says

A 60ft high image of Cowell was beamed across the frontage of the palladian mansion venue at Wrotham Park, Hertfordshire. The waiters [all] wore Simon Cowell masks.

Endless [$1000] magnums of Louis Roederer champagne were on offer. He even had baby sharks swimming in tanks in the lavatories.

The party’s entertainment included exotic topless dancers, naked women gyrating behind a big screen, and a guest enjoying a good whipping on stage from a dominatrix.

But the highlight of the show was the appearance on stage of a giant replica of female genitalia, joined by two giant sex toys.

And of the guests:

The model Jordan, mother of three, was so drunk she could hardly stand. Kate Moss anticipated being so out of it that she insisted no photographs be taken of her that night. Amanda Holden left with her knickers in full view of the cameras. One man departed in a limo completely naked [great shot of him here].

Well, once at my birthday party, I had a clown and a magician, and my dad came downstairs in the middle of it without any pants on, so I think I kind of understand what Simon’s birthday party was like. Only instead of a 60-foot high image of me and giant dancing genitalia, my Dad bumrushed the magician through a sliding glass door because he thought he was the step-aerobics instructor my mom had been sleeping with. I spent most of that party giving a statement to the arresting officer and picking glass out of my hair. Turning nine really sucks.

Surrounded by — what else? — women and mirrors:

PHOTO CREDIT: Bauer-Griffin Online, Pacific Coast News Online