Ask and ye shall receive, not that it'll do any good: At right, bitch-smacking restaurateur Nello Balan's full-page ad that ran in the Saturday Post (click to enlarge, marvel). Alas, the puppydog picture and faux-gothic font do little to help explain what Balan snorted before having this "note" published. Though from a scientific standpoint, it certainly is enlightening to see a concrete, media-oriented manifestation of psychosis. In which case, you can walk those dogs and crane your Ophidian neck all you want, Nello — we love to watch a man document his own deterioration.

A few frightened readers have informed us that restaurateur Nello Ballan took out a cryptic full-page ad in Saturday's Post, which reportedly read something like the following:

Page Six editor Richard Johnson and bride-to-be Sessa von Richthofen's nuptials are rapidly approaching (anyone want to cough up the date, please?); we can only imagine the stress these two lovebirds must be going through, throwing unacceptable flower arrangements in the face of their browbeaten wedding planner, who really should have known better.

• Nick Lemann has 5,000 words on Bill O'Reilly. Which we'll get around to reading soon. [NYer]
• David Carr thinks VF, underneath all its bullshit, is actually a pretty good mag. [NYT]
• And Jon Friedman thinks that all the other magazine editors are ganging up on poor David Remnick. [MW]
• We always thought Bill Beutel was kind of a little crazy, but that's probably because we only really watched him in his later years. He helped invent Eyewitness News, and he died Saturday. [NYT]
• Bloggers "are the new media darlings," and — shockingly — many hope to get paid gigs with traditional media. [Newsday]
• More breaking insights: An attractive grad student who is raped and murdered makes for great tabloid fodder. [Baltimore Sun]
• No Hachette mags were among the Ellie finalists. Again. [WWD]

From across the pond, news that The Sun plans to "give its website a massive boost by tying it to the recently acquired and hugely popular MySpace.com community and networking site to create a "MySun" online readers' network.

Monday Washington Mutual bought you the Daily News. Yesterday Fresh Direct bought you the Post. Will the madness ever end? Oh, no; it won't. Here are today's reports:

Roving reporter Bucky Turco — who else? — provides us with photographic evidence not just that there are freebie Posts today but also of the ad on those freeibie Posts. And, frankly, we're shocked shocked that rightwing Rupe would print such a thing:

Yesterday was free Daily News day, courtesy of Washington Mutual. Today — as a tipster warned us — is apparently free Post day, courtesy of Fresh Direct. So far we've got two reports of Post giveaways at Union Square. Writes one tipster:

You see, the blood found on the material used to tie together murder victim Imette St. Guillen's wrists matches that of prime suspect Darryl Littlejohn. Littlejohn is tied to the murder. Wrist ties, blood ties — ha ha, right? Get it? Anyone?

Back in September, as you may or may not recall, the Observer reported that Lowdown Lloyd Grove's Daily News contract was for two years, not the previously reported three, that it was set to expire that month, and that the paper likely wouldn't keeping him around. The two-year anniversary came and went, and Lloyd remained at the News.

But it does seem a cruel and unusual punishment, no?

Mort Zuckerman is quickly realizing that the media business is much more fickle than real estate. The Times dissects The Daily News publisher's track record in media and paints a sobering picture of how the News is faring under his reign: a dip of 40,000 in circulation, a surging New York Post and a lack of "cachet" in the tabloid wars. The Times also points out Zuckerman's other media failures: the "struggling" U.S. News and World Reports, a failed attempt to resuscitate Radar and the fumbled launch of a Daily News gossip magazine. Yet, it appears a crumbling media empire is best kept in the family and Zuckerman still hasn't lost his sense patriarchal generosity:

Why is this man smiling? Because he's Keith "R." Kelly, the Post's resident media hack, and his adorable face is gracing the online edition of his column! After the darkness of internet anonymity, Kelly's friendly visage is now ours to cherish: the ruddy cheeks, the fluffy hair, the too-healthy-for-a-newsroom glow. There's that mischievous sparkle in his eye — like he's about to blow us all away with an amazing tale of circulation drama. And is that a seersucker shirt he's wearing? Charming!

• CBS Radio sues Howard Stern for using their air to promote his new Sirius show. So why didn't they just kick him off the air back then? "I'm the one who kept you on the air and I knew I could sue you afterwards," Stern says Les Moonves told him, presumably with an enormous, blindingly white smile. [NYT]
• Boston Globe in talks to print, distribute New York Post in Massachusetts. And finally New Englanders will have their hoped-for chance to play Post Poker. [BG]
• You know Nancy Grace, the crusading anchorwoman on CourtTV and Headline News? Yeah, well, she's kind of full of shit. [NYO]
• Bode Miller was Jim Kelly's second-worst cover decision, the Time editor, whose hindsight checks in at an amazing 20/15, tells Jon Friedman. [MW]
• NYT's Elisabeth Bumiller to write Condi bio; NYT's Steven Weisman, Bumiller's hubby, to get kicked off State Department beat. Such are the compromises of married life. [NYO]

We're not even going to talk about this weekend's murder of Imette St. Guillen — except that the tabloids' detailed accounts of her body's condition should have come with some sort of warning, as they quite literally turned our stomach and forced us to stop reading — but we have to express our surprise at this morning's front pages. Could it be that the Daily News actually beat the Post on creating a catchy nickname for the killer? Damn. We always had our money on the drunken Australians to be the first in tasteless punnery.

This is what appeared nine months ago on a West 33rd Street billboard, directly opposite the Daily News's office windows:

After both papers wound up with synchronized "Sassy Sasha" back pages on Wednesday, you'd think they'd try a little harder for today's edition — but you'd be wrong. In their defense, however, it's incredibly hard for these people not to pick the most obvious, go-to headline. It's all they've ever known, really. Poor little headline-writing orphans, looking for scraps of puns just to survive.

We were marveling today at Page Six's rakish lan in passing off an admission of its screwup yesterday as though somehow the underlying facts had changed:

In the wake of the Westminster Dog Show (and can we just say that we were incredibly disillusioned by the bull terrier's win? How could any God-loving American overlook a golden retriever?), the Post has finally found their holy grail of content. Hence today's Pulse section, in which there are not one or two, but four pages of readers' dog photos. The logic is simple: readers LOVE dogs, and they love dog photos even more. This, by God, is how the Post will finally crush the Daily News — with a pack of teacup Yorkies.

Oct. 14: Negotiations start on new contract.
Dec. 16: Old contract expires.
Dec. 20: Systemwide strike begins.
Dec. 22: Strike ends.
Dec. 23: Full MTA service resumes.
Jan. 20: Union membership votes down negotiated deal.
Feb. 10: MTA, TWU announce that no substantive new talks have taken place.