Hello America, how are ya? Like the train in Arlo's song, Top Chef is bound for the city of New Orleans — and starting tonight, we have just two episodes left to live-blog about it.

Hello Top Chef lovers, wherever you are! With Valentine's Day just around the corner, why not join us in posting a few hundred sweet nothings to the reality-show object of our viewing affections?

We're down to the final six, the end's racing toward us like a runaway shopping cart, and our live-blogging routine has become as warm and comfy as a favorite shirt fresh from the dryer.

Hello commenters! How are we all feeling tonight? Who feels like a hummingbird on cocaine? Raise your hands.

The Oscar nominations are being announced! We expect Vantage Point and My Best Friends Girl to dominate in all categories. I'll give my reactions, live, after the jump.

Ready for a new, more hopeful era of live-blogging? I sure am. I've been watching two days of inauguration stuff, and suddenly I'm hopeful about everything.

My fellow Americans (and other fellow travelers of cyberspace), it occurs to me that we stand at the threshold of an historic transition: This will be the last Gawker live blog of the Dubya era. (Heckuva job, Clownie!) When next we meet, a presidential upgrade will have been completed. This got me thinking — is there nothing We The People can't improve on, if we just set our minds to it? I say: No there isn't. What about lame reality-show catchphrases — can we improve on those? I say: Yes we can!

The 66th annual Golden Globe awards are underway in Beverly Hills. We'll update the list of nominations below with winners as they come in; your comments are encouraged in the threads below.

Welcome back, fellow Top Chef live-bloggers! In the three weeks since we last gathered, a holiday season has come and gone, and a shiny new year has dawned.

Season's greetings, Gawkerites. If you're in a gift-of-gab-giving mood, you've come to the right place. Why not don some gay apparel and join us in a group live blog of Top Chef?

Welcome to another group-live-blogging hour filled with possibilities — although my watching along won't be one of them. I'm stuck in a Bravo-free hotel in Vegas this week on business trip, so my quest tonight will be a quixotic one: hosting the live-blog of a Top Chef episode (starting at 10 Eastern) that I can't watch. But that's probably apt, because impossibility seems to be a theme tonight. Consider, for example, this list of highlights from last week's live blog:

Multitalented — that's one of many qualities I like about the crowd that gathers here each Wednesday night to comment on Top Chef (starting at 10 Eastern.) They can drink. They can tell jokes. They can … presumably do something for a living. And many can cook! And cook fancy stuff, even! So tonight, my "highlights from last week" involve the culinary feats performed not by "cheftestants," but by my fellow commenters. The fact that it was Thanksgiving Eve likely played a role, but everyone seemed to be cooking something special while they were live-blogging last week. Here's a sampling:

Hail, pilgrims! Ready to talk turkey on Top Chef? Who's up for some candid yammering? (I know. My Thanksgiving puns are awful. I'll do better on Christmas Eve, I promise.) In case you're new to this ritual, it starts at 10PM Eastern, when we all turn on Top Chef and post comments about it. And rest assured that no turkeys will be harmed in the process (although many a cocktail is likely to bite the dust). Before we dig in, here are some highlights from last week's live blog:

Welcome to another Wednesday-night cornucopia of commenting goodness. This is the reality show live blog where (starting at 10 Eastern) everyone can join in — even ignorant folks who think a vinaigrette is an emulsion. But while such people are welcome to participate, I think they are sadly misinformed: A vinaigrette is not an emulsion. I know this because Stefan says so. And who am I to argue with Stefan? Last week I picked him to win this whole thing, and so far he's making me look like a genius. Before we get started, a quick announcement: Remember that live blog rule I mentioned last week about not second-guessing the judges because, unlike them, we can't taste the food? I've decided to retract that, based on an epiphany I experienced after discovering a Bravotv.com feature called "rate the plate." There, site visitors can grade each dish from last week's episode on a scale of 1 to 5. Seeing this made me realize that I'd forgotten a key cultural norm of the new millennium: Judging something no longer requires actual knowledge of how good that thing is. If Maxim can give a two-star rating to a Black Crowes album they never heard, and Bravo can ask website visitors to rate food dishes they've never tasted … well, who am I to judge this new judging norm? So judge away, live bloggers! In fact, I just went to bravotv.com myself and rated all of last week's dishes, awarding my highest score to Eugene's "dry rub lamb with basmati sweet rice, tzatziki with tandoori glaze." I gave it a 4. It would have scored a perfect 5, but it looked like he used a tad too much salt. And while I was on Bravo's site, I also watched a few preview clips of tonight's episode. So here are a few "things to watch for" as we live-blog tonight:

Welcome, reality-TV junk-food junkies! Our commenter live blogs for Project Runway were such a blast, Gawker let us re-plate the whole concept for new season of Top Chef (in New York!), which kicks off at 10 Eastern tonight. So turn on Bravo, grab the alcoholic beverage of your choice and limber up those commenting fingers. (And here's a tip from the Glad family of products: To protect your keyboard or laptop from drunken spills, just zip it inside an extra-large Glad food storage bag!) I am your live-blog maitre d', Monsieur Hippity, and allow me to start things off by suggesting the first rules of our Top Chef commenter drinking game (suggest more rules in comments!): Take a drink every time … 1. Someone says the word "inedible," "palate," "tangy," "acid"/"acidic," "cheftestant," "challenge," "infused" or "plate" (as a verb). 2. A contestant "bleep-swears." 3. Padma shouts "utensils down!" 4. Something bursts into flame (whether by accident or design). Next, a few general live-blog rules. 1. Please don't use the word "cheftestant," just because I hate that word (pet peeve, sorry). 2. Try not to argue that the judges' opinions are unfair, because let's face it: They can actually taste the food, and we can't. (That's just the way it is with this show: Until somebody invents taste-o-vision, we have to take the judges at their word regarding what sucks and what doesn't.) 3. Don't post spoilers and/or spoil posters. Finally, here are a few of my impressions of this season after watching (too many) promo clips posted on bravotv.com. First impression: Reputed pot-imbiber Padma looks even more stoned than usual lately. (Here's an overshare: In one clip, Padma dreamily intoned, "I want every part of my palate to really be stimulated," and it gave me a culinary boner.) Other impressions: This season's contestant group looks refreshingly "global" (with origins from places like Hawaii, Italy, Finland, Spain and India) as well as promisingly eccentric. Examples include:

Yes, I know the last presidential debate is on tonight, but stay here and live-blog last episode of Project Runway with us instead. After all, we can watch more presidential debates in 2012 — but who knows when, if ever, we'll get to see Project Runway again?

I love the word "penultimate." So forgive me if I use it repeatedly in reference to tonight's commenter live-blog, which is the penultimate posting party for the penultimate episode of this season. Let's just hope it's not the penultimate Project Runway episode of all time. (C'mon Harvey — get all those lawyers together in a room and make it work!) At 9 pm Eastern, it'll be time for this penultimalooza to get started. Then penultimania will break loose! (If either of those words becomes popular, just remember that I coined them here, OK?) Until then, let's revisit a few highlights from last week:

Hello troops! I'm sorry I missed you last week (and also that I drank so much at the commenter meet-up), but like General MacArthur, I have returned. It will be good to live-blog with you all again tonight. And as we do, allow me to offer this advice: Type, drink and be merry, because tomorrow … who knows what will happen? Certainly not Harvey Weinstein, who was just hit with a court injunction blocking his plan to move Project Runway to Lifetime. Now, I know the show isn't as good as it used to be, but if it dies — or lapses into a coma — I will mourn. Because I still love Project Runway. I'll watch the new L.A.-based season if it ever airs on Lifetime. Hell, I'd watch the show if they moved it to Vegas and VH1. Or to Wasilla and Weather Channel. Or to… well, you get the idea. Anyway, we should try to enjoy the rest of this season as much as we can. Especially now that we're down to just four designers — which means that this week, not only could Tim Gunn count the remaining contestants on one hand, but so could Fred Flintstone! (Because, like most cartoon characters, has only four fingers on each hand. Ever notice that?) Hey, speaking of fingers: It's time for me to point to a few highlights from last week, and things to watch for tonight. (Was that a smooth segue or what? I should write for TV news!)

Well kids, it's hard to believe over two months have flown by. Remember July, when this commenter live-blogging party began? Those hot and halcyon days when the financial world had not yet collapsed, we'd never heard of Sarah Palin and ... people still liked Kenley? Remember? She was everyone's favorite spunky, talented, retro Bettie Page doppelganger. But that was before the crying, back-biting and bitching, and before her designs started sucking. Now it seems like the whole blogosphere is hating on her. But I have to confess: I still like Kenley. I liked the Good Kenley then, and I like Bad Kenley now. The bad, bad Kenley... Sorry; I lost my train of thought. Where was I? Oh yes, highlights from last week:

Willkommen, netzvolk! Guten abend! I'm Hippity Klum, your host for another fun-filled hour in which Gawker commenters live-blog TV's fiercest reality show. And as your host, I hereby make this solemn pledge: I will never bail on you with some lame excuse. I say this because J. Lo did that instead of guest-judging Project Runway's final competition in New York last Friday (an event we won't see until the last episode airs on October 15). But no "foot injury" would cause me to miss this little Wednesday-night party of ours! In fact, nothing would. (Unless, of course, a Gawker commenter meet-up were scheduled at the same time. But what are the odds of that happening?) Anyway, on to my highlights from last week, and a few "thing to watch for" tonight: