So apparently, due to the taxi strike, we're now operating on the zoned fare system so popular in backwater burgs like D.C. The map here (click to enlarge) shows the zones and fares. A ride from 62nd Street to 22nd Street will run you a good twenty bucks, but what the hell are you doing up above 14th Street anyway? For those who wonder why we chose not to include Brooklyn on the graphic, get real: You're not getting a cab to Brooklyn no matter what. At best, you'll get an angry "Fuck you," followed by a string of Syrian profanity. Still, if you're a crazy dreamer, you can find the whole thing on the TLC's site. [TLC]

There's a new award in town! We realized this week that some of our commenters are just so gosh-darn helpful in relaying the kind of information that we absolutely need to know to, as they say, move the story forward, that they deserve an award. Herewith, the inaugural Helpful Critters awards. Oh, and while we're at it, we've decided to execute people whose comments this week make them decidedly Unhelpful Critters. Go back from whence you came!

Ah, Philly, our sister city of brotherly love, or something like that. Once, for an incredibly brief and misguided period of time, it was considered our sixth borough. (For the next three weeks, obviously, our sixth borough is East Hampton.) But you know: it's still kind of better than that craphole Boston! What do the gays over at remarkably catty message board Datalounge recommend to do in Philly?

It's sunny and a little muggy out there. My train seemed fine early this morning, but apparently the E, F, and R lines are running slow. Also, there's some bus re-routing, but who the hell takes the bus? As for bridge and tunnel crossings, um, I don't know. Check the radio or something.

From the mailbag: "Just got the new Harry Potter book (for a friend...seriously) at the Duane Reade on Worth and Lafayette. I plucked it out of one of the opened boxes marked 'Do not open until July 21' and bought it with no hassle whatsoever. Embargoes are overrated."

Feeling fat, sweetie? You're not alone! It's high summer, and, let's face it, none of us made our target swimsuit weight this year. There's good news on the horizon: calorie labeling is coming for restaurant food, for those of us who are both fat and too stupid to roughly figure that something made out of vegetable oil and animal haunches might chunk you up. Still, this way we'll be able to ensure that our dinner's under 500 calories! For those who need more help than simple salad-eating and state-mandated calorie-counting, here are some handy tips for weight loss. Hey, I lost 15 pounds this summer—ask me how!

We asked who still officially gets to leave work early on Fridays in this town—and you answered, making us wonder why we bother sticking around on Friday afternoons at all. Umm, we're sure we will any more! What is it, 1955 out there? Anyway, we were somewhat surprised by the breadth of New York companies offering summer Fridays these days. (Seriously, Pfizer? Is that why Viagra's so expensive?) Anyway! The list, so far, after the jump; your additions are of course most welcome.

Williamsburg, nestled along the river in northern Brooklyn, has perhaps been New York's fastest-changing neighborhood in the last decade. Now subject to a massive waterfront rezoning, the homeland of hipsters is threatened with doom, just as it was when actual poor people lived there a couple of years ago. As part of our series of Users Guides, we've sent Joshua David Stein and Richard Blakeley to report from Bedford Avenue, the Champs-Élysées of New York City.

The classy way that Bauer handled the shuttering of Cocktail—hiring four people to start the day it closed, for one thing!—made us wonder just what else goes on in the offices in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. You probably already knew that our German friends who run the home of Life & Style and In Touch are as cheap as anything. But what you might not have known was just how cheap. Let's bring on the disgruntled Bauer staffers!

The weather is totally lying! It's sunny as hell on Long Island. (Uh, "we hear.") We say if you rush and get the 3:58 train to Montauk you'll even have time for a swim when you get in. (Seas: 4 to 6 feet! Whoo!) Let us know if you're all knocking off early, okay? Because then we'll quit pretending to blog!

During a recent visit to Winnie's, the onetime Chinese mafia hangout and current downtown karaoke dive, it occurred to us that in every karaoke bar in this town (and really, all over the world), one encounters the same cast of characters. They vary in accent and affect but, for the most part, karaoke is the closest thing to commedia dell'arte we have. In an effort to prepare you for the battlefield that is not only love but also karaoke, we've put together a field guide to karaoke archetypes, or as we call them, karaokarchetypes.

"Maybe I'm just too good at being single. Maybe I'm just not ready for a relationship. Who knows, maybe I grew up watching too many soaps. These are things I ask myself when I wonder why, after all my relationships, hot dates and hookups, I'm still so single," wrote Glamour specialblogger Alyssa Shelasky in August of 2006. One year and several gallons of Cosmos and a thousand mockings from us later, she's no longer wondering—at least, not professionally. In response to our query, she writes, "Hey, Emily. It's true, I'm going to be working on other projects. The blog isn't going away, there's a guest blogger for the summer, so no worries, you'll have someone new to write about soon. Lucky them. xx." Uh, I just teared up a little?

Sometimes our 90-year-old grandfather asks us if we think there's a future in what we do, and we answer him honestly: "Who the fuck knows, Poppy!" But actually, we're reasonably sure that most people who like writing and thinking and pretending to write and think will find themselves working at Internet Website Blogs at some point in the future of their careers. This is why, from time to time, we offer up some of the wisdom we've gleaned working at this job. It's about finding images to go with posts. Sometimes you are writing a post about, say, circumcision, and you're in kind of a hurry, so off you go to hunt for an image on the internet. Oh my God. NEVER GOOGLE IMAGE CIRCUMCISION.

One of the joys of summer in New York is that everyone you hate goes to the Hamptons on the weekends. Another joy is catching a classic movie on Monday nights in Bryant Park. Still, getting a spot on the lawn can be difficult, what with everyone competing for the same space at the same time. Our Nick McGlynn was there last night, and picked up some valuable tips.

Manscaping: According to Simon Doonan, it's an epidemic amongst our city's movers and shakers. The depilatory procedure, "known among practitioners as 'back, sack and crack,' ...concerns male hetero hair removal. Yes, below the waist. Eeeeeuw!" Our feelings exactly, compounded with fear: Do we really have to go out and get our short-and-curlies tweezed away? Because, seriously, you could make wigs for every resident of Staten Island and have plenty left over for blankets and handkerchiefs. To get to the bottom (haha, get it?) of this whole sordid business, we checked in with the ladies of Jezebel.

Many sections and residents of Brooklyn resemble life-sized Cuteoverload moments, except more annoying and even more precious. The Times Real Estate section recently visited Samantha and Jordan Green and their two little 'uns, Duncan and Reeve. They were Los Angeles transplants to Park Slope who became lost in the sea of preciousness that is their new home. And so they moved to Windsor Terrace.

The Politico is offering its audience of congressional pages and lobbyist interns a handy list of ways to get the ear of the blogosphere. While their tips are directed at those who want to make contact with political bloggers, many of them can be applied to those who blog about things like, say, media and celebrity gossip. And cats. And cheezborgahs. We've taken their suggestions and adapted them to let you know how to get your whatever placed right here.

Yesterday at Peter Braunstein's trial for kidnapping and sexual assault, jurors were treated to a series of readings from his personal journals. Braunstein's personal manifesto provided a chilling journey into the mind of a blah blah blah—the important thing is that both of the tabs have evidentiary photos!

We've ditched our shortsighted daily "to do" list for a spiffy new Gawker Google Calendar, a community fun-house where we list events from here to eternity. (The agenda view is handy!) You can subscribe to the calendar in a number of ways. You can import it right into your own Google calendar or Gmail services; you can subscribe to the RSS feed; or you can merge it with iCal. Or you can be lazy, and we'll feature it here daily. We're looking for a lot of help from you. You can invite us to an event, and if we accept, the event will show up directly on the Gawker calendar. For the Web 1.0 set, of course, you can always email josh@gawker.com with news of readings, lectures, parties, orgies and sales you think all the rest of us might enjoy. Or might hate! That's fine too. Whee! Internets!