Listen: I'm bailing out of Gawker a little early today. I've got to get an outfit together for tonight that'll shock, horrify, and/or get me laid. (Fine line!) That and I'm dying of this illness that all of you already had and finally coughed up on me. Hey, thanks for that!

Besides, Gawker's publisher Nick Denton is away in Europe or something. What did he say? Reykjavik? Sao Paulo? Where do they have that New Year's Eve internet millionaire playboy convention? Once again, I just wasn't listening. So between y'all and me, I'm taking the afternoon off while he's not here to whip me and Pete and Jonno as we wearily man the oars of his cruel, cruel media galleon.

FYI, Google News returns 581 results for the search "Orange Alert, Times Square." If you pretend I'm not hacking up my lungs when we airkiss at the New Year's Eve party, I'll pretend you don't stand a 50/50 chance of getting blown up in Times Square. Mmm: it's that tension between the need to be a drunken marauding party monster and the need to defy rather Orwellian threats of terrorism that'll always make me think so very fondly of 2003.

Well: that and the scabies.

Happy New Year, everyone!