Ah, the September Issues—when fashion magazines sell more ads than any other month, and staffers gorge themselves on parsley, in celebration. How are the September ad sales looking this year? Not too fab. Especially for Vogue.

Baby Winged Cupid's got competish! This French spot for Durex has a mystical used purple condom package that flies through town inspiring old folks, male cops and teens to do the nasty. That's right, teens.

Fresh after this week's sobering slideshow of our troops in the Middle East, Matchbox toys comes out with an oddball ad campaign to spark kids' war fantasies of returning home draped in the American flag.

In your early Friday media column: Laurel Touby is officially chillin like a villain, the Boston Globe gets another contract vote, Nikki Finke is mysterious, and CNN's creative accounting of what it means to be "number one."

Microsoft has long been prickly about Apple's inspired "Get a Mac" ad campaign; Chairman Bill Gates once accused Apple of "lying" with the TV spots. Now the tables have turned, and Microsoft is unabashedly gleeful to get under Apple's skin.

How will Twitter ramp its revenue from nothing to $21 million a month in less than two years, as its managers forecast? Maybe by simply monitoring what you tweet about, and then targeting ads at you.

When KFC enlisted Oprah to help roll out its new "Grilled" "Chicken" food product, sparking furious chicken riots across America, it looked like the "Grilled" "Chicken" food product would go down as a terrible fiasco. Think again! Grease+teevee lady=win.

It's my understanding that if you're in the Army you can't just up and choose to move wherever you like, so one would think that an entire bizarre ad campaign devoted to convincing military people to move to your town would be a waste of time. But maybe "one" is not a patriot! Fayetteville, NC is "The World's First Sanctuary For Soldiers," a title that they clearly just made up. Why move to lovely Fayetteville, NC? Plenty of reasons! Let's examine a few:

Look at this nasty ad for shingles medication. It is featured prominently on the New York Times home page today. Is there no gross ad the Hobo NYT will not display, in exchange for precious money? (Click for full grossness!)

In your level-headed Wednesday media column: Jared Kushner congratulates his busy employees, the New York Times Co. explains how broke it is, a great idea for J-schools, and Fitness magazine finds success in fat America, somehow.

Things have gotten so bad that unpaid corporate interns are literally starving. Across America, interns are desperately prostituting their fresh young smiling faces in return for a single box of Little Debbie muffins, so they may live another day.

In your tragic Tuesday media column: the ad slump is *almost* over, the NYT Co. sells its classical music station, an act of God stops Bob Woodruff in Iraq, and a eulogy for a murdered Complex magazine intern.

Comedy Central's new show "Michael & Michael Have Issues" features Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter making so much meta-humor you may just fall down and die. It will also feature—in a true breakthrough—live-action ads! Uh...meta?

If you believe technology is rapidly turning us all into hedonistic degenerates, these advertisements for an online video game give you a perfect case study. The game, Evony, is about empire-building strategy. The ads, increasingly, are about boobage.

If failing print publications go online-only, what can struggling websites do, short of closing? Turn into microblogs, naturally. It seems to be working for AdWeak, the advertising world's own Onion.

Billy Mays is dead, but his ghost will return to haunt your television until you order roll after roll of Mighty Tape, to quiet the bearded demon. It's what he would have wanted.

So the copyright wars have come to this: Incensed over rampant online file sharing, some of the largest software and media companies show how copyright violations can get you brutalized in jail. Subtle.

Turns out they're all beset by alcoholic tremors. Oh, mercy!
[Copyranter]

The Onion is hurting badly. And CEO Steve Hannah has already gleaned a lesson from the downturn, explained in the memo after the jump: resisting advertisers is a "losing game."