Sometimes we get a tip that's just so fun that we can't bear to check it and find out that maybe it was just made up by some loon and/or convicted sexual predator. Like this one about Fox 5 reporter Julie Chang's way of saying "thank you":

• A summer bar preview and a roundup of happy-hour specials. [AMNY, NYP]
• The restaurant at the Andre Balazs's Standard Hotel doesn't debut until June, but the outdoor patio—which serves food—has opened. [GS]
• More photos of Locanda Verde, which is now in the hands of Andrew Carmellini, NYC's "best young Italian chef," according to David Chang. [GS, P6]
• The price of beer and wine may go up if Washington gets its way. [NYP]
• Speaking of wine, now isn't such a bad time to be investing in it, FYI. [NYT]
• A recap (and photos) from last night's Taste of the Nation event. [Metromix]

May 21 @ 3:30pm On a bike looking a little heavy and bedraggled. Wearing aviators with knotty orange hair flowing behind her. [Submit your own Gawker Stalker sightings to stalker@gawker.com]

Microsoft's applied for a patent on facilitating meetings via hologram. Yes, this is ridiculous. But perhaps salable!

The townhouse belonging to Marisa Noel Brown has officially hit the market. The youngest daughter of disgraced hedge funder Walter Noel (who had $7.5 billion invested with Bernie Madoff), and the wife of Matt Brown (who worked for her father at Fairfield Greenwich), Marisa's been contemplating a sale for quite some time now. But now it's official and 12 East 78th Street has been listed with Stribling for $12 million. Keep in mind, though, that "it's well-known the couple is willing to take much less." [NYO]

Finally video footage of late night host Jimmy Kimmel's evisceration of ABC at their own goddamned upfronts has surfaced. And, surprise surprise? It's really not all that controversial—mostly funny jokes and inside-baseball industry hoo-haw, thrown in because it was supposed to be a closed audience. So what's the fuss?

May 21 @ 1pm Having lunch at Rio Grande (inside the restaurant - not outside like most patrons). They appeared to be having a business meeting. [Submit your own Gawker Stalker sightings to stalker@gawker.com]

Working for Bonnie Fuller, who created the glossy gossip age at Us Weekly, was always a challenge. But since she was fired from her job at Star-publisher American Media last year, the only place she's had to aim her mercurial celebrity theories is her Twitter followers.

[Happy Thursday. That's Anne Hathaway picking up dog poop in the East Village. Image via INF]

Digital Advertising On NYC Buses at Night [Public Ad Campaign]

ABC's marketing department is so hardcore that they will get Mickey Mouse to hand out cigarettes to children if that's what it takes to get people to watch their crappy shows!

Yesterday it was revealed that former Lehman chief Dick Fuld had stepped down as the bankrupt firm's chairman. Now another symbol of the economic collapse is heading off into the sunset. Ed Liddy, the chairman and CEO of AIG, has announced plans to step down from the scandal-plagued insurance giant, although he may be there for a while considering he plans to remain here until the company comes up with a suitable replacement. The good news? There is now a little bit of light at the end of Liddy's dark tunnel, and he should have a chance to trade the self-tanning mist in his office for some real sun in the near future. [NYT]

Your baby daughter is wailing. You'd really like to quiet her down, but you don't want to have to actually interact with her to make it happen. What to do? Let your cell phone do the work, naturally! As one dad tells it, when his infant daughter starts to get "fussy" in the car or during a walk, he simply turns on the free iPhone app "White Noise Lite" and drops it into her carrier. "It immediately relaxes her," he explains, which is nice since that makes two of them.

Baby-making lothario Larry King was on The View today discussing, among other things, the sacred act of doing it. The gals asked him if he still does it, and he said, basically, "No." But don't assume that he needs Viagra! It's just his "get up and go" that's broken..

In your bad-itudinal Thursday media column: Seymour Hersh hates newspapers, Paste Magazine makes bank, journalists deserve to be paid a mere pittance, and MissBehave's final goodbye email to staffers, which is not a very good one:

There's much hissing about American Idol's swandiving numbers—lowest finale ever! down 10% from last year, which was already low!—but in this modern world, it's really nothing to worry about. (Or, if you hate Idol, to get excited about). Idol is still winning where it counts.

Reports surfaced recently that media mogul David Geffen had expressed an interest in buying a piece of the New York Times. As the story goes, Geffen had offered to buy Harbinger Capital Partners' 20 percent stake in the paper; but Harbinger, the hedge fund operated by Phil Falcone, had rejected the overture because it had been hoping for a higher price. Much was made of Geffen's attempt to snag a piece of the esteemed paper, what his true intentions were, and whether the DreamWorks co-founder had been hoping to shape the paper's coverage of Washington and Hollywood. It doesn't matter much now, since the deal doesn't appear to be moving ahead. In the meantime, though, let's all be thankful that Falcone's wife, Lisa, hasn't been making any efforts to influence the Times's fashion coverage. Click on the photo above to see Lisa at the NYCB spring gala the other night in all her glittery glory.

Michael Saylor has written in with corrections to our item on him yesterday. The MicroStrategy CEO was was not in Cannes this year, as Page Six had it. And we used an old, fat picture!

The Way We Live Now: Fashionably. But only for the necessities. $775 shorts for the men. Online shopping sprees for the olds. The basics.