Tech blog company GigaOm is starting a subscription research service to drum up cash; some think TechCrunch could soon follow. It would seem everything old in tech media is new again: Bloated dot-com magazines attempted this same tactic amid the popping of the last financial bubble.

Mayor Mike! What a lovable guy! One minute he's palling around with adorable muppets, the next he's telling a City Hall reporter "you're a disgrace" because the guy asked him a pertinent question about his bullshit rationale for buying a third term.

• A peek inside Avenue, the new "gastrolounge" by Noah Tepperberg. [GS]
• Brooklyn is not getting a Shake Shack for the time being, alas. [Gothamist]
• Nightlife impresario Mike Satsky on Lily Pond: "My waitresses are hands-down the most beautiful waitress staff in the Hamptons." [NYO]
• Terrance Brennan's Bar Artisanal is now serving lunch. [TONY]
• Tim Zagat lists his favorite restaurants in NYC. [Urbanite]
• The husband and wife behind Sfoglia open Civetta in Nolita next week. [NYM]
• Park Avenue Spring is now Park Avenue Summer. [GS]
• End times! Wine consumption in France was down 10% last year. [AP]

[That's FAO Schwarz toy store in Manhattan. Toys 'R Us announced today that it's bought the troubled high-end chain, which has filed for bankruptcy twice; image via Getty]

Roman Catholic priestess and White House correspondent for the Macon-based Georgia Informer Brenda Lee just wanted to give Barack Obama a letter telling him to stand strong against the gays. Why did the Secret Service pervs have to do her like that?

May 28 @4pm @ Barmarche with a crowd outside staring in. [Submit your own Gawker Stalker sightings to stalker@gawker.com]

The downtown Armory played host to the 37th annual Fragrance Foundation FiFi Awards last night. A big bunch of celebs and designerswere on hand as Marc Jacobs was inducted into the foundation's Hall of Fame, including fellow award winners like Diddy and Paris, as well as Queen Latifah, Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer, Dustin Hoffman and Lisa Gottsegen, Hilary Rhoda, Kendu Isaacs and Mary J. Blige, Kathy and Rick Hilton, Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler, Harry and Laura Slatkin, John Demsey, Linda Wells, Doug Reinhardt, Tracy Reece, Nacho and Delfina Figueras, Kate Walsh, Samantha Harris, Tova and Ernest Borgnine, and Jacobs's fiancé, Lorenzo Martone. [PMc, WWD, Vogue UK, VF, NYO, Wireimage]

News Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch has referred to Google "stealing" or "taking" his copyright. His Wall Street Journal lieutenant Robert Thomson has likened the company to a "parasite or tech tapeworm." But now News Corp. needs to renegotiate a lucrative MySpace ad deal with Google. Whoops.

Right this minute, executives from the largest newspaper companies in America are meeting in a hotel outside of Chicago to discuss how to "Monetize Content." Is this the first step towards a (necessary) industry-wide move to charge for online content? And, uh, is this legal?

This is the biggest story yet to come rumbling out of the gate on this dreary Thursday. Paris Hilton, known reality TV empress and dater of Hills castoff Doug "the Frozen Burrito Heir" Reinhardt (LC totally dumped him!), has taken the show to task for being "fake" and "lame." Hm.

It seems Facebook's new investor is keen to downplay its ties with "the hard man of Russia," an oligarch one critic called a "gangster and racketeer." How inconvenient, then, that said oligarch is reportedly buying up more shares.

The British tabloids don't mind single-sourcing and getting things a bit wrong in the name of a good story, so who are we to believe when the Pentagon—they lie about everything—denies a Telegraph story? Are there terrible rape photos Obama refuses to release, or...?

Were you aware that the Gansevoort Hotel is "the new Hamptons"? We had no idea either. But if that isn't an exciting enough prospect for you, the hotel also says its new weekend rooftop pool party is going to bring "the sexy St. Tropez feel to New York City every weekend." The Hamptons and St. Tropez all in one place? How convenient! Details below.

FAO Schwarz has a new owner. The investment firm that controls the legendary chain of toy stores, David Shaw's D.E. Shaw, has sold it to (Wayne, N.J.-based!) Toys 'R' Us. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but we'll go ahead and assume it couldn't possibly have been more than the most expensive stuffed animal on sale at the store. [Crain's]

Ha, noted radical political journal Sports Illustrated is running these ads in South Africa insinuating that SI is very, you know, radical, and political. A big black panther for the '68 Olympics, Fight the Power! How did SI really cover that story? We will show you!

Al Roker headed downtown to do jury duty today, as the friendly folks from the Today show explained on TV this morning. Unfortunately, Al decided to document the experience by taking pictures and tweeting from inside the courthouse, which, at least according to TMZ, constitutes a crime of some sort. Al quickly fired back ("I'm not breaking laws... just trying to share the experience of jury duty"), and his rep informed TMZ that he had authorization to do it. But then TMZ countered with the news that you can't actually get permission to take photos inside the jury assembly room, although "if Al got bogus advice, it's not his fault." Al is now clearing up the matter by clarifying that he never asked for permission, but he's stopped taking pictures and he was excused from jury duty this afternoon anyway, so can we all drop it? We'd be happy to. [TMZ]

In your misty Thursday media column: no bunnies for Richard Branson, no viewers for NBC, a shot at enlightenment for America's dumb children, and—finally—a classy new porn mag:

An FBI interrogator told Time some of the deep, dark secrets of his trade. Will the liberal media threaten our national security by revealing the secrets of our interrogations to terrorists at large? How did we soften up Abu Jandal, the former chief bodyguard of Osama bin-Laden himself?

You know what people do not want to be photographed doing right now? Taking in a polo match while they sip on expensive champagne. Veuve Cliquot is sponsoring the second annual Manhattan Polo Classic this Saturday on Governors Island. The problem?

[Whitney Port out in Manhattan today; image via Bauer-Griffin]