"Reading articles like this I often wonder if I'm alone in drinking because I … like the taste of alcohol. I don't find getting drunk all that pleasant or a good social prop (quite the opposite, I hate making a fool of myself because drink has dulled my social reactions). Because of its depressant effect I find I drink less when I'm feeling down than when I'm feeling good. I drink because I don't know of anything nicer than a rich red wine or port on a winter's evening, or a crisp, mineral white wine on a summer's day. I love the complexity and sharpness of a good IPA and [...]

From commenter fenkalevobocek in Your Donations Are Off to Madison:

This is amazing. I started reading Gawker when I was an undergrad at NYU, and I've been reading The Awl since it started, and that supply list is the same one I've been looking at on the office wall for the past week. I'm a TA and union member at UW-Milwaukee, and I've been in Madison working with my union & my sister union at UW-Madison as much as possible since all of this started. To come home from a long day at the Capitol and see this post, to know that list probably came from either the [...]

Drinks are on you tonight in Boston, the town where the drinks are always on you! The Boston Bawl v.2.0—a casual holiday party thrown by Awl readers for Awl readers—is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. tonight, at the Green Street Grill (in their downstairs bar), which is located, unsurprisingly, at 280 Green Street, Cambridge, Mass. Questions? Talk to your cohosts, Garge and BoyOfDestiny.

Alert! Code red! This coming Friday's Awl reader's party, a party thrown by readers for readers, also known as the Awl Hawliday Bawl, has a change of venue! We hope you will join us there. (Yes, you!) So the new venue for Friday, December 10, is the Ella Lounge, at 9 Avenue A, which is located, unsurprisingly, between 1st & 2nd streets. Why? Let us tell you!

A reminder to Angelenos and those who happen to be in the environs: Tomorrow night marks the Official Awl Los Angeles Commenting People's Good Times Jamboree Get-Together, hosted by DeepOmega and Natasha Vargas-Cooper (credit the multi-talented Ms. Vargas-Cooper for the astounding graphic that accompanies this post). In any event, it's called for 7 at the Dresden, which some say is in Hollywood but others will argue in that typical LA way that makes New Yorkers seem laid back is in a TOTALLY DIFFERENT NEIGHBORHOOD ALTOGETHER. See you there! (I mean, I won't see you there, obviously. LA makes me itchy. But those of you who are there [...]

HEY CHICAGO! Your hosts Tyler Coates and Maura Johnston would love to receive you at 11 a.m. on Sunday, at WestEnd, on Madison west of Racine. Location chosen due to its 11-minute walking distance from the Pitchfork Festival! Time chosen so no one has to miss Best Coast!

Come one, come… well, I can't think of a good pun there? Anyway! Tonight in Washington D.C.! People are coming together! At the Looking Glass Lounge! 3634 Georgia Avenue NW! After 5:30 p.m. and onwards! There will be bourbon balls.

You may remember how last Memorial Day, Miami Beach police officers gunned down black tourists and seized the cellphones of anyone recording the cops in action. (Spoiler: the shot bystanders, ignored for a full year now, are suing!) Well, Urban Beach Weekend is back again this weekend, and the city is ready! They've installed a "one-time" DUI checkpoint, some watch towers, scanners that record everyone's license plates, some "light towers," some road blocks—and a whites-only bridge. Oops sorry, "residents-only" bridge. (Ahem: "tourists will be given the impression that they can’t get in.") Let's look at some notable quotables from the Herald today, which are likely [...]

You know, with the redesign of any web property comes reader outrage, anger, threats of leaving and even some actual leaving. That's normal! Sometimes it's effective in shifting an audience, or getting a new one. Sometimes it's good for the community to have its say, and work it out on its own. But the comments on this Gawker post are not, I don't think, par for the course for a website after a redesign.

Many of your fellow Awl readers would be delighted to drink with you this evening at the Ella Lounge, at 9 Avenue A, from 6 to 10 p.m. You look like you need a drink!

* By "on us," of course we mean "mostly down our shirts." Not like, as in "we're paying for them"! That's crazy.

While you are already perhaps saving the date of December 10 in New York City (6 to 10 p.m., at the Gallery Bar, 120 Orchard Street) for a reader-sponsored Hawliday Bawl, perhaps you live in the greater Boston area! If so, our apologies, but here: Boston-area Awl readers are throwing a party for Boston-area Awl readers.

You are cordially invited to save the date of August 10th, 2010, for the Official Awl Los Angeles Commenting People's Good Times Jamboree Get-Together, hosted by DeepOmega and Natasha Vargas-Cooper (yeah yeah, buy her book, etc.) and our other many fine friends of Los Angeles. August 10th! At The Dresden in Hollywood.

You may remember the rather terrific Giant Russian Penis escapade, designed by the art agitprop outfit War, to torture the Russian Federal Security Service. Now (or as close to "now" as we can tell from the slow migration of news from Russian Livejournals), they are protesting supermarkets. The translation goes something like this: "Food in Europe became a privilege and not a right of every freeman. And we, War art-movement, are waging a war with this infernal system till the very last cog of the Capitalists machine will be torn out." Commenters at English Russia are torn on whether the protesters are "dirty smelly hippies," [...]

"Women in other parts of the world go to the beach topless. We think New Jersey women are just as beautiful as any women anywhere in the world." — That's Asbury Park, N.J., deputy mayor John Loffredo, as quoted by this Daily News story about his jurisdiction maybe allowing women who are soaking up the sun's rays on the local beaches to bare their breasts, just like their Vitamin D-starved counterparts across the Hudson can. The city council will vote on the matter next week. As always, the comments are quite the hoot, with someone by the name of "kitty62862" saying, "Well, ladies, if you're flapping them [...]