...

Dear Mamaist: Lately, I've been babysitting a lovely little girl two days a week. Her parents are close friends of mine, and they named her for one of their personal literary heroines, which you know I think is awesome. She's five months old and thinks just about everything I do is funny, except for when she's a little tired. But when she is tired, I put her down in her crib and play lullaby versions......

Dear La Petite Mort, Why is it so enjoyable to motorboat an exquisite pair of boobies? I dont know the answer, but perhaps you do. Either way, i shall continue to motorboat. — Johnny Brumsky [sic] Dear John, Not quite sure why it's such excellent times. Perhaps you are flashing back to your infancy, when you were a wee lad and your mother's breasts loomed over you like giant hot air balloons. You wanted to......

A 21-year-old rookie Philadelphia police officer saw a motorist driving a Buick suspiciously in West Philly yesterday morning and approached the vehicle. Three teenage passengers (who turned out to be University City High School students) got out of the car. When he ordered them back to the car, the driver got on the hood of the car and shot the officer in the face with a sawed-off shotgun loaded with birdshot. The officer then chased......

...Great Parenting: Raise your hand if this one surprises you. (Via The Superficial.) ...Good Ideas: After seeing the above link, this obviously makes a lot of sense. (Via People.com.) ...Ummm... There are no words. Just click. (Via What Would Tyler Durden Do?) ...Naked: We like meat, but this is still hot. (Via E! Online.) ...No Fair! Ummm... We've known sea urchins who were more deserving of their own television shows. (Via TV Blend.) ...Fatwah: That's......

The Daily News has a lovely story about a young woman who was born prematurely some 25 years ago, and whose life was saved by a nurse at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children on Erie Avenue near Front Street. The young woman is now working at that same hospital with that same nurse to save other premature babies. The George School, a Quaker boarding and day school near Newtown, yesterday became "the recipient of what......

...Faux Pas: Jerry Lewis? You, of all people? (Via Actress Archives.) ...Interventions: We're not sure if it's really fair to blame someone for another person's drug relapse, unless that person was the one who brought the coke. But it's happening anyway. (Via The Superficial.) ...Explanations: Honestly, even if Bill Murray was drunk, it was an effing golf cart. And here we thought the Scandinavians were supposed to be nice... (Via Yahoo.) ...Ewww: For a good......

...Irony: They tried to make her go to rehab. She finally stopped saying no. (Via The Superficial.) ...Britney: Yeah. At this point, she just gets her own category. (Via What Would Tyler Durden Do?) ...Bogus Lawsuits: We'd kind of love to see Lindsay Lohan taken for all she's worth, too, but this one doesn't seem to hold water. (Via TMZ.) ...Icons: Wow... only $200? (Via People Online.) ...Routine: Lindsay Lohan scrubs toilets. Sweet! (Via The......

All across the Ist-A-Verse (or at least the American parts thereof), writers and editors are in the midst of enjoying their three-day weekend. But after the week we've all had, we feel like the break is not only needed, but deserved. Just look at everything we've been doing! Gothamist headed into the Memorial Day weekend with a number of tasks accomplished. They worried about Long Islanders giving New Yorkers a bad name. They tried......

"I feel naked," our friend leaned over and whispered. We nodded our head. "Exposed, but in a good way," we replied, in awe of the man who was causing this feeling. It was the third song in and Damien Rice was alone on the stage, bathed in red light, with only his voice and his guitar. He sang, "It's not that we're scared/It's just that it's delicate," with such candor that the vulnerability in his......

I'm meeting my boyfriend's parents on Friday. It wasn't supposed to happen this soon. I mean, we've only been a couple for a month. But he's graduating from law school, and his family knows I exist. So there's the expectation that I'll be there, in the role of doting new girlfriend. (I don't really dote, but that's beside the point.) Since receiving, and then accepting, my invitation to post-graduation dinner, I've been collecting unsolicited advice......

A steaming hot pile of our favorite things from around the internets. Extra, extra! Google cares a lot less about the First Amendment than we thought. Think those squirrels you see frolicking in the park are adorable and harmless? Not in Denver, where apparently, they're carrying the plague. On this day ten years ago? Computer Deep Blue Something (how 1997 can you get?!) beats its human opponent in tournament-level chess. In what's surely an attempt......

by Ryan Dougherty Editor's note: In celebration of the Phillies' opener that's going on right about... well, now, here's a preview from a reader who'll soon be a writer. Enjoy! It’s Opening Day in Philadelphia, and the forecasts for the weather and the Phillies are bright. Which means a plurality of Delaware Valleyians is thinking one thing: “How are they gonna [foul] it up this time?” It’s hard-boiled and reasonable skepticism. As has been the......

I've written before about parents who really need to keep their children in control on at least one occasion, but for every impolite or incompetent parent who doesn't know how to control his or her child(ren), there are probably a dozen other parents who do. There are also genuinely good children who don't usually need to be reigned in by their parents. I've recently made a fabulous new friend who has the most adorable six-month-old......

We here in the Ist-A-Verse know that we're sensational, but it's very rare that we get a chance to be sensationalistic. This week, we've decided to have ourselves a little fun and try our hand at tacky tabloid headlines, using nothing more than our favorite posts from this week. Torontoist Special Report: Rosie to Trump: "Fire 300 Bicyclists for Fraud!" On DCist: Students Go Wild for Slogans, Secrets and Sexual Harassment The action was thick......

Kristen Schier of The Philly N Crowd...

I would like to begin this review by strongly urging all those who believe in abstinence-only sex ed classes to see Spring Awakening. There has never been a better defense of Joycelyn Elders' opinions on sex education—even though it was written over a hundred years before President Clinton appointed her to the office of the Surgeon General. I would like to follow up my moderately political endorsement of Spring Awakening by saying, quite simply,......

...Ummmm: Has he actually looked at the baby? (Via The Superficial.) ...Stepford: Oh lookie, Tom Cruise is back at it again! (Via What Would Tyler Durden Do?) ...Oh No She Didn't! Actually, it's not surprising at all that she did. (Via I Don't Like You In That Way.) ...Crazy: Whether it's true or not, it's a damn funny story. (Via LAist.) ...Babies: That's a lot of diapers to change! (Via People.) ...Punishment: There are......

...Drastic Measures: Or, she could have just stayed in rehab. (Via The Superficial.) ...Role Models: Clearly, Britney has taken a cue from Lindsay. (Via What Would Tyler Durden Do?) ...Homophobia: We mentioned this in this week's Across the Ist-A-Verse, but it bears repeating that Tim Hardaway is a homophobe. That being said, George Takei (!!) would still do him. (Original story via Chicagoist. George Takei video, embedded above, via Horny Oyster.) ...Babies! Two more. Yay!......

I still hate Valentine’s Day. I’m still bitter and I will still want to throw brightly colored, probably already stale Necco hearts at anyone who wears pink or red today. But, I’m lazy. And bitterness requires more energy than a general acceptance, so Philadelphia, here’s my Valentine of sorts to you (feel honored, I’m not even sending one to my parents): 10 Things I Love About Philadelphia (In no particular order) 1. Brunch at Sabrina’s......

Texas is thawing, the Northeast is freezing, and a sort of natural order seems almost restored to the Ist-A-Verse. Almost. Londonist HQ—that is to say, the city of London—was battered by heavy winds, making it a bad time to be a twelve-meter (nearly forty-foot) tall snowman. Still, not everyone decided to keep warmly covered. Meanwhile, back indoors, the Big Brother racism is now causing all kinds of headaches for international diplomats, and Londonist got into......

...Cartoons: The wonderful thing about tiggers is most definitely not their propensities for violence. (Via Local6.com.) ...Lame: Wax on... Wax off... (Via The Superficial.) ...Aww: We like celebrity babies. Because when they're babies, they're not yet corrupted by Hollywood decadence and seeing Britney Spears' cooter. (Via San Jose Mercury News.) ...Precautionary Tales: And this is why Phillyist wants to be done with the baby-havin' by forty. (Via People.) ...Maternal Instincts: And suddenly, much of......

...Rejection: If he read the blogs, he'd know that she's not a firecrotch. Her esthetician makes sure of that. (Via The Superficial.) ...Holy Crap! He's a scrawny guy, but we still wouldn't be happy if this happened to us. (Via Popsugar.) ...Reconciliation: Hell, as a heterosexual female, this Phillyist would want her back, too. (Via Hollywood Rag. ...Coverage: That is the sound of a thousand erections vanishing. (Via Popoholic.) ...Rude: Another category Paris Hilton......

Dear Retailers (Again): Today is December 22 (Happy Birthday, Grandma!). That means yesterday, obviously, was December 21. Four days (I'm good at subtraction) prior to Christmas. So what I'm confused by, is, yesterday, I walked into a certain large retail chain to pick up a few prescriptions, and saw, on a display for snack foods, HEART-shaped snack cakes. Heart. Shaped. Snack cakes. Gag me with a spoon. Further perusal of the store (I was......

No, this isn't a column about blow jobs. I already did that. It's a column about a filthy habit that we've noticed is quite common in this city: spitting. I know that sometimes, you can get sick and need to cough up some of the stuff that's collecting in your throat and lungs. In that case, spitting is at least a little okay. But if you're sick enough to be coughing things up, you should......

Phillyist loves sushi. So much, in fact, that we end up eating it at least twice a week. It's not great for our bank account. We just think of it as getting our fill now, because someday we're going to want kids and that will be nine months plus nursing time, times however many babies end up happening, that we'll be missing out on our sushi consumption. So in the meantime, we want to know......

After a couple of wild and crazy weeknights out (so much Woodchuck, so little time) that very much hampered our abilities as bloggers, Elite -ist spent both Friday and Saturday nights in, watching backlogged TV on our DVR. And it was amazing. In fact, we highly recommend it. Austinist: They couldn't just walk down the street and count? Parisist: We're glad this isn't a purely American phenomenon. Chicagoist: This is actually old, but we......

A steaming hot pile of our favorite things from around the internets. Some kind of very unique accident has occurred in the game Mayhem in the Skies, because both bombs and babies are floating to the ground on parachutes. Your job is to catch the babies with a trampoline held by two firemen while shooting the bombs out of the air with your cannon. The game has surprising depth, as you can buy upgrades for......

Our weekly look into the odd, strange and bizarre at one .org. If you do find her and get married and have lots and lots of babies, you know what “your song” should be. It’s a much better song than “Angel” anyway. Oh, SNAP! of the week. I’m really sorry if I offended you. But did you notice that maybe all of us can’t partake in such an activity? O…k…a…y…Reaching for the restraining order…......

Just because the Festival is officially over, doesn't mean that you're done hearing about it. No, no, no. You see, over the first seventeen days of September, we noticed some pretty bad theatre etiquette, and we thought it might be time to give you a refresher on why it's important to be courteous and well-mannered during a live performance, and how you can behave accordingly. Cell Phones You know how annoying it is when someone's......