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Every weekday morning we'll be featuring a photo (or two) from our readers. Please feel free to submit your photos (min 600px width) by adding them to the Austinist Flickr Group. more ›

Just because I can’t stand Christmas doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a nice gift. And so I must admit: I am beyond thrilled to announce that I got a big sparkly ring, people! And—keeping it local and all that—this ring was custom made for me, me, me by a local artist. And when I say big, I mean BIG. I can fit my whole body into it. That’s right—I’m talking about a Hoop. We can’t call it a Hula Hoop, since that’s a brand name. And besides, this hoop of mine is bigger, and stronger, and prettier than any store bought Hula Hoop. It’s silver and green and white and I LOVE IT. (And, I confess, I bought it for myself. This is, after all, the best way to insure one gets exactly what one wants in the gift department.) more ›

Every weekday morning we'll be featuring a photo (or two) from our readers. Please feel free to submit your photos (min 600px width) by adding them to the Austinist Flickr Group. more ›

Every weekday morning we'll be featuring a photo (or two) from our readers. Please feel free to submit your photos (min 600px width) by adding them to the Austinist Flickr Group. more ›

• Torontoist exposed infamous local fiend Dimitri the Lover's new protégé, Pavel the Lover—a man who approaches underage girls, calls them "elegant," and passes them business cards asking them if they'd like to "swing on a star."
• SFist was disheartened to hear that Equality California's executive director refused to attend next month's inauguration due to Barack Obama's regrettable decision to have anti-gay and prop-Prop 8 pastor Rick Warren deliver the invocation, but perked up when attorney general and former (and future?) CA Governor Jerry Brown said that same-sex marriage ban Prop 8 was invalid.
• Bostonist interviewed Jamie Sneider, a comedian who likes to be naked and checked out the action at Fenway's Cask'n Flagon, where fists flew at a charity ball.
• Phillyist revealed the ten names rejected by the Campbell family before they settled on naming their son for the Fuhrer.
• Chicagoist watched Governor Rod Blagojevich's quick speech and marveled at a local artist's interpretation of Blago in the nude, toasted Drew Peterson for getting engaged while his fourth wife remains missing and his third wife remains murdered, and talked about not much plowing and calling dibs on parking during a snowy week.
• DCist commenters had a lot to say about whether MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski was really mugged outside the Georgetown Ritz Carlton or just fell prey to an aggressive panhandler.
• Seattlest's coverage of Snowmageddon 2008 started off fun, with visiting reindeer and snowbound drink suggestions, but then two charter buses nearly took a 30-foot header off Capitol Hill onto I-5.
• Houstonist started scheming to turn a Space Shuttle into a taco truck, a teaching lab or an arts center if they could get their hands on $42M to buy one when they are decommissioned in 2010.
• LAist wondered if Obama choosing evangelical minster Rick Warren to speak at the inauguration would pick at the Prop 8 wound; to prove Prop 8 was still a priority, protests were organized this weekend, as supporters of the Prop filed a lawsuit to nullify the 18,000 gay marriages that took place in California this year.
• Shanghaiist was amused by this video of a Canadian guy singing The Star Spangled Banner in Chinese.
• Londonist salivated over space shuttles and skating Santas.
• Gothamist got to see Governor Paterson (1) get spoofed on Saturday Night Live, (2) express him anger about it, and then (3) refer it the spoof again when he introduced a bevy of new taxes, including an "iPod tax" and "non-diet soda tax."
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Every weekday morning we'll be featuring a photo (or two) from our readers. Please feel free to submit your photos (min 600px width) by adding them to the Austinist Flickr Group. more ›

Twas the week before Christmas, and all through Spike’s house She sought out ways her Yuletide misery to douse. The hand knitted socks hung from the shower rod sans care Washed with generic shampoo also used for her hair The pooches were nestled all snug on the futon Dreaming of liver and dead squirrels and croutons When Warren in his undies awoke from a nap Announcing, In the laundry room a dog took a crap! She looked at the pack—Rebound, Bubbles, Satch, Tatum And promised if that happened again she would crate ‘em. more ›

Every weekday morning we'll be featuring a photo (or two) from our readers. Please feel free to submit your photos (min 600px width) by adding them to the Austinist Flickr Group. more ›

Every weekday morning we'll be featuring a photo (or two) from our readers. Please feel free to submit your photos (min 600px width) by adding them to the Austinist Flickr Group. more ›

Every weekday morning we'll be featuring a photo (or two) from our readers. Please feel free to submit your photos (min 600px width) by adding them to the Austinist Flickr Group. more ›

Every weekday morning we'll be featuring a photo (or two) from our readers. Please feel free to submit your photos (min 600px width) by adding them to the Austinist Flickr Group. more ›

Okay, so last week I was waxing philosophical on the holiday-inspired urge to maybe off oneself. This week, in the interest of being just a little less dreary out of respect for you goofballs that wear flashing mini-Christmas light necklaces to the office and get off on the whole White Elephant crap, I’m offering up some suggestions for Those Who Insist on Enjoying the Goddamned Holidays. But first, you must listen to what has inspired me to be ever so slightly less curmudgeonly this season, and no, it has nothing to do with watching The Grinch or It’s a Wonderful Life. Instead, two other things—one deeply personal, the other crassly commercial— drive me this year. more ›

Every weekday morning we'll be featuring a photo (or two) from our readers. Please feel free to submit your photos (min 600px width) by adding them to the Austinist Flickr Group. more ›

Barton Springs hosts many time-honored traditions. While most Austinites take advantage of the summer days and nights, a handful of brave souls venture to the springs on the days when the air temperature drops below the water temperature. Most people are familiar with the Austin Polar Bear Club, which meets the morning of January 1st and performs a ritualistic dip to rejuvenate oneself at the onset of the new year. Their younger counterparts at the University of Texas Polar Bear Club have turned the ritual into a weekly meeting, commencing once the first cold front of the year sweeps through the capital city. more ›

Every weekday morning we'll be featuring a photo (or two) from our readers. Please feel free to submit your photos (min 600px width) by adding them to the Austinist Flickr Group. more ›

Every weekday morning we'll be featuring a photo (or two) from our readers. Please feel free to submit your photos (min 600px width) by adding them to the Austinist Flickr Group. more ›

• LAist wined and dined on some of the city's best international food. The Korean BBQ truck had the edge of a street taco and the Imagawa-Yaki Japanese pastries were fulfilling.
• Seattlest turned investigative reporter for a story on a major transit funding giveback and then ate some clam chowder and gourmet popcorn.
• Bostonist pondered the Missed Connections implications of removing seats from one of our major subway lines and listed the things that Harvard could have bought with the $8 billion its endowment has lost this year.

Every weekday morning we'll be featuring a photo (or two) from our readers. Please feel free to submit your photos (min 600px width) by adding them to the Austinist Flickr Group. more ›

As we move to the next square on the calendar you're still out there trying to make a connection. Sadly you let most of them slip by without saying a word. We understand, no one wants to be overzealous and get shot down. If only you had some place to find a second chance. Oh yes, Missed Connections. If only you had someone to sort through and find the best of the above. Oh, right, read below.... more ›

Every weekday morning we'll be featuring a photo (or two) from our readers. Please feel free to submit your photos (min 600px width) by adding them to the Austinist Flickr Group. more ›

Now the goddamned holiday season is upon us once again, and with it the myth that suicides increase disproportionately to the rest of the year. Untrue, according to official reports. But it’s easy to buy into the rumors because the undue stress of being forced to be jolly (or else) is just too much for some of us to falsely smile our way through and so our thoughts turn dark. For many years, my holiday motto—a joke born of a kernel of truth-- has been this: Move over turkey, and make room in that oven for my head. I have contemplated suicide roughly one bazillion times in my life. This is a tricky one to talk about, because invariably, to bring up the topic even in a clinical manner is to invite over concern on the part of friends who begin to worry if you’re dropping hints of some imminent jump off the planet and into the ether. But I hold that few, if any of us, have escaped contemplating this particular end, if only for a moment or two. So let’s talk about it. more ›

Every weekday morning we'll be featuring a photo (or two) from our readers. Please feel free to submit your photos (min 600px width) by adding them to the Austinist Flickr Group. more ›

Every weekday morning we'll be featuring a photo (or two) from our readers. Please feel free to submit your photos (min 600px width) by adding them to the Austinist Flickr Group. more ›

Every weekday morning we'll be featuring a photo (or two) from our readers. Please feel free to submit your photos (min 600px width) by adding them to the Austinist Flickr Group. more ›

• Gothamist was horrified when an out-of-control crowd fatally trampled a Wal-Mart worker on Black Friday.
• Shanghaiist looks at media reports of the supposed ban of Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy.
• Bostonist saw a lot of hats and a lot of legs while drinking a lot of booze at a pretend USO Show.