Breaking servicey alert for Manhattanites: There's an unexplained "smoke condition" in a midtown subway tunnel. Click through for the full alert.

GMail is still down. But forlorn users of Google's email service are not without ways of coping with their waking nightmare. Together, we will get through this. Here's how.

While America's medical debates rage on, many of its significant members, of all colors and sizes, limply, quietly weep to themselves: penises. But! This is one health care package making serious progress: flaccid penises demand innovation, as the Times discovered.

Curious about what it's like to be shot in the head? Here you go.

The New York Department of Transportation has set up Twitter accounts for all of the city's subway lines, so now you can receive advanced warning on how badly you'll be screwed on your commute. [511NY via Felix Salmon's Twitter]

Poor Ruth Madoff's been reduced to coupon clipping. Sadly, since Cipriani's no longer running their Buy-Nine-Truffle-Strewn-Lobsters-Get-An-Iced-Tea-Free promotion, Ruthie went elsewhere: California Pizza Kitchen. How'd it go? Terribly. Also, tasty tips for her!

Whenever someone gives out free things, it can be anything from a positive, organized promotion to lawsuit-inducing mass hysteria. And today will be no exception, because today, my friends, is FREE. SLURPEE. DAY.

Do you remember what life was like before cops had stun guns? They sure as hell don't.

The New York Post issued an angry non-apology for Sean Delonas' monkey cartoon. The New York Times issued a mealy-mouthed non-apology for its winking John McCain(*cough*SEX*cough*)-lobbyist story. Please; it's very important to non-apologize correctly:

We received a letter from a young Williamsburger in a legal "pickle." (We know a little about that!) "About ten months ago, I got a ticket for riding my bike on the sidewalk outside of the Mckibbin lofts (yes, I used to live there). Later that weekend, i got a ticket for public urination about two blocks away, near the Brooklyn Life Cafe. Sometime that Sunday, I either threw the tickets out or lost them....it was a bleary weekend, to say the least. So now, WTF do I do? Can I just show up to court and say, hey, I plead guilty for whatever you have me marked down there for in that little book? (and chances are, they've thrown out the charges.) Or, do I have a warrant [out for my arrest by now]!?" Read on to learn how to beat a ticket that you ignored. It's easier than you think!This guy just needs to call his local precinct and ask what he owes. There will be money penalties for ignoring/losing the tickets, but not jail time. The tickets that carry jail time for this kind of stuff if you ignore them don't demand money—they demand that you sit in court all day until a judge calls you and tells you to pay $20 for being a fucking idiot. The tickets most people get just get more and more expensive as long as you don't pay them. There's also this possibility, according to City Room:

People often ask me for media-world advice, assuming that I actually know the answer. Usually I don't, but sometimes I'm able to offer vague, skewed help based on personal experience. What came across the transom (OK, the Gchat) today? "Hey, how do I find a literary agent for my book project?" Well! The first step, of course, is the query letter...The second step is somebody leaking that query letter to a publishing blog or maybe the Observer or something. The third step is your Dad doing a Google search and not talking to you for several weeks. (Sorry, Dad!) Step four: Denial, bargaining. Step five: Ulcer & shrink time. Shrink asks me for advice on how to promote his book. Wants a mention here. Step six: OMG, a date just Googled you! Go back to step three. Step seven: "Fuck it." Freedom! Rinse & repeat. After that, my friends, it's smooth sailing ahead. See? It's easy. Don't be afraid to follow your dreams!

If NYC residents could hope for anything good to come out of this economic crisis, it would be this: the rollback of gentrification. The Observer is already writing trend stories on it, whether it happens or not! Are you worried about whether your current neighborhood will remain safe for yuppies once the economy tanks? Click through for our citywide, neighborhood-specific map showing the fate of post-recession NYC; you may not be pleased, hipsters: [The key: Purplish-pink for traditional strongholds of the rich that will remain unscathed. Red for core neighborhoods that are probably too gentrified now to roll back significantly. Pink for marginal hoods, where a recession could send gentrifiers fleeing. And grey for wilderness neighborhoods, where yuppies would fear to tread after The Poors and other non-glamorous types take them back for good.]

The weekend looms, but hard times are already upon us. We made a handy guide on how to have fun and fight for your rights to party (and survive!) during the financial freakout. Ready for a rent party?

Everyone—even 6'5" dudes—is planning on being Sarah Palin for Halloween this year. We called up a Ricky's costume store, looking to see if they carried Palin costumes or at least had noticed an uptick in glasses-and-brunette-wig sales. "Who?" Sarah Palin. "Sarah... um, oh. No." But had the sales clerk noticed people buying more brown wigs and glasses? "Well, we got Obama masks, John McCain masks, Bill Clinton masks." But don't just throw on a wig and glasses—there are so many angles on dressing up as Sarah!The Definitive Palin: Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live. Do not attempt this.

Who's Priyantha Silva? Funny you should ask. He first appeared in 2006, described as a "drunken leech who feeds off of Manhattan's more exclusive social scene. As a semi-professional gatecrasher, he poses as Conde Nast editors, claims to be a producer, and like a true ass, pulls the 'do you know who I am' routine at doors." Ruh-roh: we got a tip from a lady—as is often the case with our favorite outlandish cads—saying she met Silva at a recent film festival and was saved from his clutches by doing some pre-emptive Googling. How's the game going for the tax-evading, reporter-threatening con artist that Conde Nast once had to pull an investigation on?

Earlier this week, Gawker explained how to infiltrate the magical fairy tale world of North Korea. (Hint: It's inside the wardrobe.) It turns out that this post was so service-y that an impressionable young college student immediately went out and did it! (Why else would he go there?) He even filed his report already for the Washington Post and guess what? North Korea is ... awesome!Yale senior Jerry Guo actually rode into town on the backs of some Chinese tourists and they all had a blast. Instead of goose stepping soldiers, they find a casino! Black market shopping! A statue of Kim Il Sung that everyone—including non-citizens—have to genuflect to! Their hotel is on an island known as the "Alcatraz of Fun." What's not to love? Sure, no one has seen the Dear Leader in weeks or has any idea if he's even awake. And yes, Jerry did get detained by the secret police for six hours and was also placed under surveillance simply for taking a picture, but you seriously have to see this place!

Do you live in one of those "second-tier" cities that seems woefully bereft of despicable and/or overprivileged and whatever the case self-promoting social climbing youngs? Ever find yourself reading, say, a blog…and feeling just a twinge or a pang or whatever of envy for New York's thriving industry of microcelebrity manufacture? [JUST SAY NO.] But Kate Carraway, a writer in Toronto reflecting on that lofty matter of Jessica Roy, actually claims she does. "We have no Julia Allison, the current Wired cover star, and centre of much debate on media celebrity; no Sloane Crossley…" [sic] she laments. Nor do they have a Keith Gessen nor an Emily Gould nor even much, like, blow! "The NY media circus is ordered and replenished by an anxious, aggressive, semi-twisted sense of value, but value nonetheless," she writes, calling for "a collective pursuit of something better and more worthwhile." Well, Kate Carraway, if this is what you deem "better and more worthwhile," allow me to get service-y with you for a minute and and share with you an abridged and hastily-told tale of a group of anxious, semi-twisted twentysomethings who tried to do exactly what you aspire to do in their own "lesser" city.

When patron of the arts William Kingsland died in 2006, he left a big stack of paintings behind. Guess what, some of them were stolen back in the 60s, Animal New York tells us. Now the FBI is—wait for it—crowdsourcing its investigation of the paintings' origins. They put photos of the paintings on their website. After the jump: do you recognize any of these paintings? Plz halp! Luv, FBI.

Recently, we explained how to make fun of Barack Obama. We thought that would be the end of it! But no, you people-you animals-have more questions, so many more questions. Questions we're obligated to answer. Don't thank us, we're just doing our job. Below: snappy answers to stupid questions about Barack Obama.

Poor Maureen Dowd doesn't know how to make fun of Barack Obama. It's actually pretty easy! Everyone misses Bill Clinton because he enjoyed extramarital sex with interns and oddly unattractive women, he had a southern accent, and he was kind of chubby. Everyone will miss George W. Bush because he's stupid. Those traits are so, so easy to mock! But the problem is jokes about those traits were and are and always have been terrible. Have another Big Mac, Bubba! Then put a cigar in someone's vagina! Hey George Bush you look like a chimp! And, like a chimp, your grasp of complex concepts like grammar is often lacking! Jesus. Stop already. Obama's a godsend, because he lacks those easy buttons. So everyone has to be more creative with their humor. Allow us to help you!