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?
Well so, OK, the world is ruined. The concept of "money" no longer exists and a makeshift barter system has sprung up in its place. A soiled wig is worth one subway ride, a clean wig is worth a taxi ride, and a Commie for best comment of the week? Worth it's weight in m.f.'in gold. So praise the six who've received the honor this week after the jump, then plot and scheme as to how to steal it away from them.
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:
As you may have heard, Gawker is making some unfortunate cutbacks because loan officers had a really wicked party while their parents were out of town and now the whole house is ruined. This affects all of us, even you, dear commenters. So in an effort to tighten our belts in whatever way we can, we're only giving out three Commies this week (plus your Party Pick). Those medals get expensive. We'll be back to the regular format next week, when this crisis will surely be over.
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!)
Lots of terrible, awful things happened this week. So it's a credit to your moxie, spirit, and dedication as commenters that you guys did not suspend your duties. You soldiered on and made fun of things that are, in truth, terribly troubling and possibly world-changing. So good on you! After the jump we'll celebrate our (and your) six favorite distracting comments from these most troubling five days.
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:
Victory! Earlier, we argued that newspapers should stop slumming as blogs and disallow comments on their websites. Now, at least the Maui News has. "Dear readers," the letter from the publisher begins. "Due to flagrant abuse of the privilege—including continual name-calling, crude language, profanity, slander, threats and racism—the Maui News will no longer allow comments to be posted on its Web site... the volume, frequency and vileness of the abusers' postings have grown beyond the newspaper's capacity to remove them in a timely manner." If readers can't handle nice things, they will be taken away! [Maui News via Romenesko]
After reading your feedback about our new commenting format that went live yesterday, our able tech crew has made some changes. Hopefully they will make the new system more user-friendly. Essentially, the comments will once again be displayed in their old chronological order. Replies to comments will be collapsed, but still in chronological order. Read about the new changes here.
Though we at Gawker Media (and here on Gawker, in this case) love our comments and commenters (well, not always), we've decided we need to shake the format up a little bit, allow for more conversation than simple one line posting. To that end, today we're introducing an entirely new commenting structure: threading! Threading is a way to make comments read more like conversations instead of a bunch of disconnected single replies. When a comment is replied to by other commenters, all the replies will appear directly below the original comment. Each of these blocks is called a "thread". All of this will be self-explanatory once you start using the new system, but read on for a more detailed explainer. Some Potential FAQs! So, um, how does this all work? Well...
You commenters are all so smart and so clever (well, for the most part.) But six of you, this week, really hacked into the password-protected recesses of our hearts—making us laugh, think, feel, and shake our heads bitterly. Read the achievements of your comrades (WE ARE COMMUNIST ATHEIST ANTI-CONS) after the jump.
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:
Comments here, get your comments here! Here are the six best reader comments of the week, five chosen by us on this side of the compooter wall, one chosen by YOU. Because we're struggling toward democracy! A high-functioning democracy in which our votes count five times more than yours.
The time once again has come for you fast-typing, pun-making masses to gather (in person!) and drink yourselves into a stupor unmatched even by AOL.com commenters. The editors might come by too, so if you have anything you'd like to drunkenly berate us for (again, in person!), this is your chance! Here are the deets:
Hello, you asstastic people! Are you ready for another asstastic hour of group live-blogging madness? Oh, am I saying "asstastic" again? Sorry. It's become my favorite new word, ever since commenter downlow used it (aptly) to describe Leanne's winning design last week. Now it's my catchphrase - my "fierce," if you will. Everything lately is asstastic! Everything but me, that is. I'm actually kind of a sad chicken this week, because Stella is out. (Fortunately for Tim Gunn, she didn't brain him with her hammer when he called her "ebullient" - what kind of adjective is that for the "heroin Cher"?) I'll miss Leatha, and I'm sure you will too. But don't despair: I wouldn't be surprised if she and her boyfriend appeared in their own reality show soon. They could call it simply: "Stella and Ratbones." With a name like that, how could it miss? I'd watch a show called "Stella and Ratbones." Wouldn't you? Anyway, here are three asstastic "things to watch for" as we live-blog tonight: Girl power! Expect the women to keep kicking ass tonight, on the way to what I predict will be an all-female final three (or four). To paraphrase Helen Reddy: They are woman, hear them roar! In numbers too big to ignore (five out of eight victories to date)! In tonight's preview, I glimpsed this message scrawled on a chalkboard in the women's apartment: "Bad Ass Mutha Fuckas In The House!" That pretty much sums it up, doesn't it? Double auf heaven! As I mentioned last week, the final faceoff of this season's three (or four) finalists will occur in New York's Bryant Park this Friday, but eight contestants remain. This means they must multiply some eliminations, and stage several "decoy" shows on Friday, to avoid spoiling surprises. So news that two designers will be auf'd in tonight's team challenge should come as no surprise. Let's hope the losing team is Blayne and Suede - Blayne, because he called Mary-Kate Olsen a "fashion legend" last week; and Suede, because we've had to look at that fauxhawk long enough. The fauxhawk must go. Life imitates snark! Remember when I joked that, given all the recent guest stints by charismatic past entrants (in unflattering contrast to this year's crew), they may as well stage a joint appearance by Christian Siriano, Jay McCarroll and Santino Rice to the strains of "We May Never Love Like This Again"? Well, it turns out that something very close this is actually slated to occur tonight - off by one person and, probably, minus the song. When the moment comes, we'll all just have to sing it ourselves, OK? Well, that's enough from me. Let's get ready to liveblog, all you bad-ass mutha fuckas! Tonight is gonna be asstastic! (P.S.: We miss you Jerilyn! Come back under a new name soon!)
Today's Times opinion section features an op-ed by Ronen Bergman, an Israeli newspaper correspondent who tracks the mood of jihadists by monitoring their internet message boards. This is important intelligence work! Apparently they're all having debates about suicide bombing and should they maybe not be martyring themselves quite so often, because suicide itself is not considered a good thing. All interesting stuff! But reading excerpts from discussions on Ekhlaas and Firdaws, "two main Web platforms for discussing the technical aspects of jihad," just got us thinking: who moderates these forums? And why is their level of discourse so much calmer and smarter than Western blog comments?
Back in miserable ole England, I didn't work every week. London had 8 hanging days a year, spaced every 6 weeks or so. This is because the city of London had far fewer criminals than the Gawker readership. At Tyburn, where the hangings took place, heads and corpses were preserved and then put on display as advertisement that London was a city where law and order reigned supreme. I've asked Denton to install a vat of formaldehyde on the Gawker HQ rooftop, but there is not enough room amidst the beer pong tables and antiaircraft guns. Instead of embalmed cadavers, I have these posts. Do they work? Not really. If anything, as Gawker's readership has grown, more and more unworthies have managed to sneak in. Blame it on the Montauk Monster. So take this as a warning to stop being such sniping, off-topic, oversharing whiners. You're embarrassing yourselves. And now, as a result of our little discussion earlier, several of you are dead. Executed: La Cieca TheHonJudgeSmails they live Christ Sabo TheIvar Yawn Unfun Jerilyn International Lespionage intothelight To those remaining, remember the faithful departed. Then don't fucking act like them.
