Today as, unlike other sites, The Awl marks no sort of anniversary at all, co-founder and Associate Editorial Director Alex Balk talks about the first five months and sixteen days' surprises, obsessive commenters, print's premature obit, Sarah Palin, his enormous penis... and what's next for the site.

So how was your first five months and sixteen days at The Awl?
Excellent! I've finally found a medium commensurate to my peculiar metabolism. That sounds believable, right? I revel in the immediacy, the responsiveness, the real-time-ness. I used to be the impatient type. Now I'm the serene type. Because I've started drinking in the mornings! No more waiting around for bars to open or Choire to run out for cigarettes so I can sneak a quick shot. I put the bottle right out there on the table and pull from it pretty much throughout the day. Plus I'm working with a brilliant young staff and a superb executive editor, Cat the Cat, who runs the show.

How's traffic these days?
Beyond our wildest hopes when we started last April. We closed September at a million billion monthly unique readers and 35 million trillion page views, which is up 70 percent and 220 percent, respectively, since our first month. It took me two years to build my Tumblr to less than half that number. And the readers are loyal: 60 percent of them come back again within 24 hours. Lord, do they ever. It's like they NEVER STOP COMING AND NEVER SHUT UP. Of course, keeping 'em satisfied is a 8/5 task. I know what the tireless blogger Andrew Sullivan means when he told me last summer that he sometimes gets so high on weed he can see through time itself.

Do you read the comments?
Each and every one of them. I embroider the wittiest ones on pillows in my spare time. We have well over 40 zillion commenters who have each commented over 500 zillion times! There's one called Cho who often weighs in with a contrary view on doing posts about Lauren Conrad. Earlier this year I was introduced to a Tuvan throat singer who was visiting New York, and he told me he liked The Awl. Yeah right, I thought, until he suddenly blurted out "Grrrrgrgrgrglllgrgrglll!" It's all about undertones with those people.

I log onto The Awl and find bear videos alongside Chris Lehmann's column on the grotesqueries of American capitalism. What's the big idea?
That's the big idea. Bear videos, rich people things-it doesn't matter, as long as both are covered with a sharp, original, Awly take. Or we need a post.

What's with you never being on TV?
Nobody asks. Why am I NOT ON TV? I'm FUCKING GORGEOUS! This face could sell anything! Why won't any of those bitches book me?

Any new developments?
It's been nothing but new developments round here. Last week we emptied the ashtrays for the first time in three months. We looked like coal miners! Oh, the fun we had.

On the site itself we've rolled out four new verticals: Contributors, Most Viewed, Most Commented, and most recently Read On, our new "extended post" feature. The gorgeous photography and photo galleries that you see on most sites, by the way, have been something we've talked about doing, but we haven't yet been bothered enough to actually look into it. We need to train our readers to blindly click through anything, which hasn't happened yet. A few more bear videos might dumb 'em up, though.

Where's the advertising?
Hey, don't be so impatient! We were lucky in a way to start in the deepest recession since 1929. Our business plan required us to focus on traffic first, then in the second half of the year on advertisers-which was a good thing because there weren't any. Now we have started to reel 'em in, led by our business manager and digital guru David Cho. From our small start with fart jokes, we've ramped up to, I dunno, whatever you see to your left. There's lots more in the 2010 pipeline. We have literally seven hundred bazillion ads coming in! David Cho, our advertising manager, co-originator and one of the sharper minds of the three of us, has challenged us to think beyond the troubled banner ad, and we are well on our way. He's planning a nudie calendar for Christmas, but so far I'm the only one who has volunteered.

What has been your top moment and one you'd like to forget?
One I'll never forget was the high of two weeks after our launch when we were both like, You know what, fuck this, let's take the afternoon off and go have lunch. Which we did. Separately, of course, because we don't want to spend one more second in each other's presence than absolutely necessary, but it was still a great, great afternoon.

And we've had many great highs since. I'm particularly proud of the contributions from [Can we have an intern fill this slot in with the name of every columnist ever? What? We don't have an intern? Well why the fuck not? Oh, right, like I'm the only sex harasser here. Fuck you, I hate you!] Doldrums? Hmm, not many. Except when a friend like Benson the carp dies and you are as close to the grief of the readers who comment as you are to the throb of political excitement when it catches.

Are you and Nick Denton still on friendly terms?
You betcha. Last time I saw him he actually said "Go away" to me rather than just giving me that two-fingered salute that means "fuck you" in England like he usually does.

I heard you have a Secaucus bureau? What's next, Hoboken?
No Secaucus bureau yet, thanks. The whole notion of bureaus is so 20th century. Get me a smart blogger with a laptop and an iPhone in Jersey City or Fort Greene and The Awl is in business. I realized how fast good foreign journalists will find you during the Iran elections right after we launched. We had a constant stream of great pieces on the crisis from terrific Iranian journalists who were on the ground. I mean, sure, we ripped them straight off of Twitter, but that counts.

Are you still writing print's obit?
Yes. Yes I am. Suck it, print, you dying motherfucker. I hope you choke on your ink bottles. I will bury you deep in a hole in the ground, rape your corpse, and then defecate on your violated carcass. I will-I'm sorry, what was the question?

How often do you come into the office?
Every goddamn day. It's like entering a crackhouse, only with worse lighting.

Which story are you more obsessed with, Silvio Berlusconi or Sarah Palin?
I am sick of both of them. But it's safe to say that Palin's got a better rack.

Who's more dangerous to the world?
Neither, if The Awl has anything to say about it. Because we are THAT IMPORTANT. We're the ones who came up with the phrase "Summer of Death," you know. Did you know that? Because we did.

Anything else?
I want to thank our hard working staff, our columnists who do excellent work for no pay, the rich people who are probably chomping at the bit to give us a gajillion zillion dollars, and our wonderful readers for your enthusiasm, repeat visits, commenting obsessions, video addictions-and a fabulous first five months and sixteen days. You too, Cho. Ya traffic-whoring DB.