What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. Being the nation's capital, DCist felt especially proud to let freedom ring this week by exposing the really important issues, like how sad they......

By Jake Dobkin Hey everyone: you may have noticed that we've made a few small changes to our commenting and feedback systems: 1. Commenters now have profile pages with a bit of information about them, and links to their recent comments, along with comments other people have left in response. If the commenter is also a Gothamist network author, the page will include a list of their recent posts. Here's mine. You can register here......

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......

Although the TLA's re-branding doesn't officially happen until tonight, Wednesday's show's venue was listed (on Phillyist and elsewhere) as the Fillmore at the TLA. That depressed us here at Phillyist. But then I walked in that night, and I've gotta say that, at least from an aesthetic point of view, I'm not nearly as sad anymore. There are wood floors and chandeliers and the the bathrooms (previously discussed in Royal Flush) are clean. Otherwise,......

You may have noticed that yesterday's video post has been taken down. It should never have gone up. That was a huge, huge oversight on my part, which I am completely mortified by. I'm not here to defend my actions. I'm only here to tell you that I made the unfortunate mistake of listening to the video while I wrote a Film Festival diary, rather than watching it. If I'd actually watched it, I'd have......

A tall, icy glass of our favorite internet junk, just for you. A sneak preview of Grindhouse is screening in Philly, TONIGHT. Sorry, we don't know exactly where or exactly when (little help, commenters?), but we see that some people are hitting Craigslist looking for tickets, so you could try there. Joystiq shows us how to create a Mii with Pac-Man chasing a ghost on his face. Very odd, but very impressive. Once you read......

Proofreading Philly tries to capture typos, wordos, and all other kinds of grammatical mistakes that we see around the city. But we need your help! Email photos to us from your computer or your phone, and show the city that you care about good grammar. Okay, so this error isn't actually Philly-related. But it was submitted to us by Phillyist reader Christina, and it comes from this article in The New York Times. We know......

The best of the internet, squirted out in flavorful neon globules, just for you. We were kind of hoping they wouldn't make Harrison Ford do too many ridiculous stunts in the next Indy movie, but he at least seems to think they're going to put him through his paces; he's supposedly working out on treadmills for three hours a day and has switched to a high protein diet just to get ready for the filming.......

Since the powers that be have reassigned Blinq editor Daniel Rubin to the metro desk, we're left with the Inky's 9 other blogs for unique online content. We decided to browse through them so you don't have to. Dick Polman's American Debate: Moderate reporting on political issues. Informative, unbiased, and zzzzzzz. Yawn. Even the commenters are boring. Weather or Not: Um. WTF? Does anyone care that much about the weather? If it was written by......

In their continual attempts to protect us from annoying and horrible spam commenters, our tech guys have decided to change the commenting system such that you will no longer be able to post full URLs (either in the body of your comment itself, or in the URL field of the comment form) unless you are logged in with typekey. If you really need to put a URL in your comment, and you really don't want......

Sunday. Usually, a quiet, contemplative day in the Blogosphere. But not here in the Ist-a-Verse. Nonono! Just look below and see all of the wild and crazy stuff our staffs are up to. In Austin, bands are beginning to confirm for SXSW and the rumor mill is up and running. Good thing, too, because we all know how much Austinites love live performances. Austin also found itself in the national spotlight, with Longhorn Legend......

Halloween is Tuesday, which means this weekend is really the time for all of the –ists to celebrate. And whether they’re designing super-spooky costumes or talking about the super-spooky upcoming elections, we’d say that they’re doing a fine job of it. Austinist knows that few things in life are scarier than zombies, people with way too much money, and politicians who try too hard to be funny. Slightly less scary, depending on whom you......

As we sat down to write this week's Best of the -ists post, a car blaring "21 Questions'" passed by our house. And that started us thinking about how some of the best -ist posts out there have at their hearts questions, some of which are answered, and some of which are left open. Check out the Best of the -ists from this week, and see if you agree. Londonist answers the questions "How......

Breaking the law, breaking the law. We -ist folks love us some crime, and no misdemeanor is too petty for a post on any of our sites. This week, join us for a rogues' gallery of miscreants major, minor, and alleged. Gothamist gets us started with "Law & Order", muppet style. Oh, you know what isn't a crime? Taking pictures on the MTA. So, why are cops stopping photographers? In other Gotham crime, a......

God, we're so sick of Snakes on a Plane that we want to kill anyone and everyone that makes a "something on a something" joke. But then we realized that there was no way we could ever win this fight, and, hell, if you can't beat them, we might as well join them. And with that, you have the theme of this weeks' Gothamist network post. Austinist makes it easy for us, with Candidate on......

People, people, people! The internet is, in many regards, a beautiful thing. It lets us do things that we wouldn’t ordinarily do. Like bid in auctions and watch a lot of porn. It also allows us [almost] complete anonymity. So we can be a lot ruder than we ordinarily would in person. Forums, message boards, and listservs are ripe for anonymous examples of bad manners. People even start flame wars on YouTube. And we’ve noticed,......

As we've been reminding you, Phillyist turned one almost three weeks ago, and to celebrate, we're having a little party to show all of you how much we appreciate you as readers, commenters, and even critics. (Critics beware, however: the throwing of tomatoes at Phillyist contributors and editors -- especially editors! -- inside of Devil's Alley is strictly prohibited.) The fun starts at six p.m., with as much food and drink as Phillyist can......

LAist has so much fun this week! They go to E3, where they overhear the timeless remark "Man, this is where nerdy girls get laid." Is that a promise? They also give us this week's best CDs and make us realize that LA is the best place to use Zillow. Ah, Houstonist. They're biking to work, that is, if they can figure out how to get there. That's right, Mapquest says "Houston had the......

Londonist prepares a Happy Birthday bath for Buddah this week and then things get all cliched. A madman goes on a rampage while axe-wielding and London's mayor warns an American diplomat to avoid the kitchen if the heat bothers him so much. LAist has finally come around to purchasing tickets for Clipper Train. Hyper local dating sites are spamming L.A. neighborhoods and the fascinating Dame Darcy talks with LAist about art, the city and earthquakes.......

SFist commeters pose for before and aftershocks when the mayor commemorates a 1906 earthquake...at 4:30 in the morning. A hot tip on the Chronicle vending machines comes in and the SFist war correspondent risks life and limb to post this dispatch from the frontlines. Houstonist announces their new Cops spinoff "World's Funniest Tazer Videos" and the possible cancellation of their pervs' "World's Grossest Bathroom Videos" and PBS trains cams on cows at, uhg, Mootube. Also,......