Dan Sheridan is just a humble folk singer up there in Aspen, Colorado, who listened to his heart and sung a little tune talkin' about how the city folks come on into a place like Aspen with their fancy cars and fancy furs and big money and change things for the worse—maybe those folks just don't quite understand the magic of the mountains, which you can't buy with a big old pile of money, hmm? So of course the evil corporation that controls the venue where Sheridan was playing fucking fired him, because, hey, these are paying fucking customers here, what are you, crazy? Take that hippie shit out to the woods and play around a hippie bonfire or whatever, hippie.

The Way We Live Now: Self-pityingly. College freshmen are the recession's littlest victims. China is a bully. Our house is cold. And trying to make it in New York is worse than the Holocaust.

The Way We Live Now: Cursing the minimum wage laws. Curse you, minimum wage! Were it not for your harsh dictates, maybe we'd still have that part-time poverty-maintaining job down at the canning plant. Now all we have is Cash4Gold.

It's official: the New York Times is going to start charging for its website at the beginning of 2011. The press release just went out. Key details below.

The Way We Live Now: Good, in bad places. Haiti: ballin. Broke students: ballin. Jerks: ballin. And guess who is not ballin? That's right, "the middle class." And glassmakers.

The Way We Live Now: Fleeing the crumbling aftermath of a disaster-stricken hellscape. Having taken in the stark, hopeless, post-apocalyptic nature of their once-thriving home, citizens are getting out however they can. (Manhattanites, we mean.)

The Way We Live Now: Being mean. On purpose! The good thing about being mean is that is is fun to make others feel your pain. Homeless shantytown? Bulldoze it! Rich bankers? Tax em! Church money? Steal it! Whee.

The Way We Live Now: Putting things in perspective. It works like this: we think our lives are fucked because of the recession. Then we contemplate Haiti's circumstances. A few minutes later we're like, whatever, it still sucks here, too.

The Way We Live Now: Just wandering on up to the front counter of Equinox gym thinking everything is fine. Well it's not fine. It's far from fine. Your money's gone. Your jobs are gone. Your abs are gone.

The Way We Live Now: Licking our frozen orange juice. It tastes almost the same, don't you think? You still get that orange flavor, right? You'd pay me for this block of ice, wouldn't you? Hello?

The Way We Live Now: Rentin' like 47 apartments at the same time! And what is to stop us? It's a renter's paradise out there. As long as you're not jobless or getting robbed or naked and/ or freezing.

Wesleyan, an annoying school populated by rapping sex magazine columnists, is suing its former C.I.O. for illegally using his post at the school to help his fledgling hedge fund. Why was Wesleyan employing a square in the first place? [Dealbook]

The Way We Live Now: Ungratefully. Just like the mere knowledge that Ethiopians were starving did not make you enjoy your mom's gross turnips, neither does the knowledge of widespread unemployment make you like your job. You ungrateful bastard.

The Way We Live Now: Bowling alone. Bowling for Columbine (we are sad lunatic gun nuts). Bowling for dollaz! We're bankrupt, but we put the bowling on our debit card. Visa will understand. Visa: master of hobobowling.

The Way We Live Now: Muttering angrily to ourselves on the subway. Don't be alarmed! It's the normal response to a public transit system that crumbles at the same time driving becomes increasingly unaffordable. Don't cry—it could be worse.

The Dow Jones is already up nearly 150 points this morning, as everyone who made a resolution to invest for the new year piles their money into the market. Savvy finance sharks will take advantage of this onrush of dumb money, sending the market plummeting downward in the near future. And then there's that whole recession thing, which is still not over. So basically, sell now.

The New York Times' list of New Year's Resolutions from NYC notables included calls to help the poor, improve transportation, fund education, and bolster the city's image. Then there was evil billionaire plutocrat and opulent party-thrower Stephen Schwarzman's suggestion:

Government tax revenues are down. Nobody can get a good mortgage. We're resorting to trade protectionism. Stocks are lower. Old folks can't afford health care.

The Way We Live Now: Desperately seeking Alpha. That is totally just some Wall Street slogan I heard somewhere! It would be more accurate to say we're too broke to even afford snow plows, for our homeless snow den hovels.