Thanks to this week's sponsors, who always make sense. Interested in joining them? More info here.

As part of our new commenting initiatives, we'd like to reiterate for novice and senile readers the way our glorious commenting perestroika works these days. "How," you ask, "can I become a member of exclusive, rarefied star chamber known as the Gawker commenting community?"

• The new McDonald's advertisements in China are downright sexy. Funny how'd they'd encourage any sort of sexuality in a country where the female seeds get killed. [WSJ]
• Frat boys, mount up: tonight's the launch party for Times Square's latest horror, the Hawaiian Tropic Zone Restaurant and Lounge. It's the 700 cubic tons of sand you've always dreamed of. [The Real Estate]
• The 22-year-old founder of Facebook wants to sell for $1.5 billion, and the twit just might get away with it. You ready to kill yourself yet? Here, use our knife and be sure to cut vertically. [WSJ]
• Fox News partially sponsored the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association convention in Miami Beach. Don't tell Rupert. [New Times BPB]
• Wow: Weird Al is back. We didn't realize he was gone, but hey. [YouTube]
• You can do a lot in NYC in a single day and spend less than $100. You just might have to go to Luke and Leroy's. Sacrifices, people. [Gridskipper]
• You still have a chance to have your dirty secrets immortalized in print — the forthcoming Gawker book is still taking submissions, and it's about time you told someone about how your refusal to do anal with your boss ultimately cost you that promotion.

Great news! Really great. Two fundamentally classic Gawker t-shirt designs — "It's not whoring if you do it for free" and "Yes, I am quietly judging you" are back in stock after a terrifying period of scarcity. Moreover, they now come in even bigger sizes to adequately cover your various unsightly protuberances. Of course, they still run small, so don't think we can accommodate just any ol' lardo who comes along. Though we'll still happily sell shirts to any ol' lardo. We're not monsters.

Thought we'd wait a bit on this, right? The last bloodbath was comparatively recent, but as the comment village expands, so doth comment villainy. On a side note, we believe we've finally gotten that whole avatar graphic thing worked out properly, so go ahead and re-upload your personally visual witticism by clicking "Edit My User Profile" at the bottom of any Gawker post. Now, on to the banny goodness.

Thanks to this week's sponsors, whose blood money allows us to buy that ridiculous striped balloon dress thingy that Marc Jacobs just showed. Fabulousness! Interested in putting us in your pocket? More info here.

So, have you become jaded and bored with your elite status as an approved Gawker commenter? Think there's no higher level of Gawker sycophantery remaining to achieve? You couldn't be more wrong. Sit down, relax your cerebellum, and unclench your sphincter, because we're writing a book. And we'd ever so much like to have your help. Because what would our maiden venture into dead-tree media be without the active participation of our most vital resource — our readers? There's no reason to blog for a book deal when you can just turn the blog directly into a book, with the virtually free assistance of gullible swells. By which we mean readers. Our most vital resource! Wait, did we say that already?

Since we first launched Gawker Mobile, many tens of dozens of subscribers have thrilled to clever composting of the hottest Gawker goss, sent right to their mobile devices. Each day, wizened Sufi mystics at our Hyderabad call center use ancient divination techniques to reveal the 160 most salubrious characters in a day's worth of Gawker posts. These characters are then painstakingly rearranged into a text message broadcast all over the (paid subscribing) world, incrementally weakening the spiritual chains that bind us all to the karmic wheel of this hellish existence. The daily text message may appear, on the surface, to merely tell you about 50 Cent or Paris Hilton, but it's really saving your very soul. All this for only $4.99 per month, billed directly to your device. How can you refuse, and live?

Most of you cool kids have already heard about our new commenting features — individual commenter homepages, avatar graphics, and perpetual comment tryouts for those still locked out in the non-commenting cold. If you haven't yet checked out the new toys, please, oh please, do. Note that comment avatars are actually 32 by 32 enormously sexy pixels, not 16 by 16 as originally reported. Note also that if you're seeing "Image by hotsnack" or similar error message instead of your avatar, it means your image file didn't get properly digested. Regular, friendly JPEG or GIF files should be used in all cases. If you experience further problems with the avatars or any other comment features, let send us an email describing the problem, plus your browser (and version) and operating system (and version), to tips@gawker.com.

Our advertisers must have been beautiful babies, because, baby, are they beautiful now. Care to join them? More info here.

As Gawker comments taketh away, so does it giveth. Many readers have already noticed a few cute new perks in the commenting system. Let us splain the community-building hotness. New features include:

It's been far, far too long since we've cleaned house. Not that our house will ever really be clean. Still, let's irrigate the rosebush of comments with the blood of eejits, or however that goes.

Thanks to this week's sponsors, who are all thin and smart. Care to join them? More info here.

At the risk of veering into dangerously cheery territory, we want to say this: On our way to work, very early this morning, we passed by the wide variety of New Yorkers whose job requires them to be in Manhattan by seven. To a man (and woman), they were all yawning. We had a momentary surge of camaraderie, the feeling that, you know, these are our people, that our job is to somehow make their day a little bit brighter. We know it's raining, it's gray, autumn's coming early, etc., but we're going to try and be the best Gawkers we can be today: Everyone who's still on this godforsaken island and forced to suffer the cruel lashes of employment deserves no less. We make no promises, but we're going to be very deliberate in our attempts to suck a little less through Friday. Either way, cocktail weenies are totally back! How could it not be a good week?

Want a chance to win the Triple Oxygen Treatment at Bliss Spa? Of course you do! Here's why and how:

Thanks to this week's sponsors, none of whom are bitter, angry men incapable of dealing with the advancement of women in the corporate world. Care to join them? More info here.

So here we are, approaching the period where summer goes to die. For the next week or so J. Co will be off, attending sensitivity training for her pathological dislike of Jews. C-Money will be gone as well, coincidentally confronting his hatred of the Tribe, which makes more sense when you consider that he works with two of them. That leaves Balk at the helm, which is completely in line with Gawker policy: Let's have the least experienced member of the team run the ship in the absence of the regular sources of authority. We're mostly sure that they'll be back after Labor Day, but you're free to make your inevitable jokes about Nick Denton's firing policies in the comments section.

• Time needs Newsweek like Slate needs Salon: as a measuring stick for comparative suckitude. [Slate]
• MTV needs videos like Time needs Newsweek: as a differentiator for younger, hungrier competitors. [BW]
• BusinessWeek needs Brandchannel the way MTV needs videos: to run the same thing you saw last week into the ground. [BW]
• Tony Kornheiser needs to be put down. Seriously. This is not a joke. Nice job, though, Weingarten. [WP]

• Jennifer Leuzzi cannot get enough of Jo l Robuchon. It'd be nice if she let Sun readers know that they're BFF. [TGC]
• Newspaper industry believes newspapers should be more expensive. Newspaper industry also plugging ears with fingers and chanting "We can't hear you." [Independent]
• Fox, on the other hand, understands the value of its product. [TV.com]
• Simon Dumenco brings us a chilling vision of the future, where Gawker merges with Hallmark. Get ready for those "Darling, please accept my apology for being such a douchebag" cards any day now. [AdAge]

The summer's not the only thing that's practically finished. Presenting Gawker's weeklong series Already Over, where we focus only on the interesting side of the classic "What's In/What's Out" list. Because anything "in" is already "out" or on its way, so let's just eliminate the middleman, shall we? With each installment, you'll be treated to an unsparing profile of whatever needs to be dragged into the weeds and put down for good. And just to kick things off in style, let's look no further than Gawker.