Courtesy of Media Guy Simon Dumenco and Marjorie Ingall, it's the Metropolitan Diary Drinking Game! When reading the Times' thoroughly modern column, simply take a shot each time:

• David Frost, already on on shaky ground for general smarminess, will probably find that his new gig at Al-Jazeera will cut short any trips to the US he may have planned. [WaPo]
• Bill Keller makes fun of Fox News, Yahoo, and the Saturday Wall Street Journal. When asked about Judy Miller, he covered his ears, chanted loudly. There is an admission that the paper is preventing its reporters from writing in-depth about the story, which comes as a surprise to absolutely no one. [BusinessWeek]
• Did you know that there was a "bitter East Hampton newspaper war" going on? Right now, even? [NYM]
• The Times gets in on the advertorial action with a free movie magazine to be handed out and promptly thrown out at a movie theater near you. AdRants]
• We're guessing Time's beatific Hemingway-impersonator covers don't sell quite as well as the annual Jesus issue. [MediaMob]

• Michael Isikoff finds "the Times' conduct at this point inexplicable." He also reveals in Newsweek that Judy's super-secret magically discovered June notes were "discovered in the [Times'] Washington bureau," rendering a little suspect the paper's former claims that it didn't have any of Ms. Miller's notes.
• Syd Schanberg points out a brilliant exchange from Judy's Barbara Walters interview:

Addendum to this entry:

Our lady in D.C. reports:

Other "specific but not credible" terrorist plots against New York:

Any day now we're gonna see that full, thorough, public Times report about Judith Miller and her testimony. Remember that? Douglas Jehl and/or Adam Liptak reporting it... this week, or this weekend... well, not so much. Per the very last two paragraphs of this Times story:

From the latest issue of Vogue, which proving to be a goldmine of inane comedy:

To be fair, there really hasn't been any news in the past week.

Thursday Styles
OCTOBER 6, 2005

Maureen Dowd doesn't need your dirty money to feel good about herself, and she's not going to whore herself out for her corporate masters. Having lost her reserved spot on the Most Emailed List, people who bother to shill out money for content have noticed that MoDo has become uncharacteristically withdrawn:

When two world famous journalists sit down for a chat, you can expect some hard-hitting questions and take-no-prisoners grilling — and Lou Dobbs, interviewing Judith Miller last night, didn't disappoint:

An emailer sends along this scan of an article on "transgendered barflies" from Sunday's Times City section, saying it features an "intriguing, subliminal hyphen break:"

Whether you think the Times writing about itself is more like "O.J. promising to hunt down the real killers" or "like reading Pravda about the Kremlin 20 years ago", there's something for everyone in Kit Seelye's Party Crash: Judy Is Elected Homecoming Queen by the New York Times. Watch the video, the outtakes from which are sure to be an office Christmas party favorite!

We went looking for the promised Judy Miller-penned report about how she was sent to prison to break her brother out, or whatever the story will be once the lawyers vet it, but we very, very quickly got distracted. As did, if the most emailed list is any indication, everyone else.

How to score a book deal in 10 easy steps:

Inspired by our lovely commenters, we did a little "research" into the dark underbelly of Metropolitan Diary, the Overheard In New York for the leisure class. What we found may shock you:

• October 3, 2005: Without missing a beat, he replied matter-of-factly, "I wondered what that was."
• June 9, 2003: Without missing a beat, he said smoothly and with a perfectly straight face: "Jump."
• November 18, 2002: Without missing a beat, the man said, "New Jersey and California."
• May 8, 1996: Without missing a beat, my husband, Gerald, yelled out, "$100,000."
• August 2, 1989: Clerk (not skipping a beat): Honey, in New York they're a dime a dozen.
• December 24, 1986: Without missing a beat he said, ''Getting audited, eh?'' I nodded. ''You're the third person this morning,'' he added cheerfully.
• September 11, 1985: Self-assured customer (continuing on her way, not missing a beat): ''That's the chic look, you know. The Japanese influence.'

Total beats unmissed, 1985-2003: 48

Metropolitan Diary [NYT]

Have you noticed, lately, that there's been a lot less mocking of Times columnists and a lot more mocking of Times reviewers? How long before they put Alessandra Stanley behind a pay wall, do you think?

Now that Times reporter Judith Miller has finally agreed to testify regarding the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, the national celebration of Miller's "hard-won" freedom can begin. A Gawker spy on the left coast sends word:

So you poll a thousand New Yorkers and ask them what topics come up most often at "dinner parties" and these are the results?