There's something sort of patriotic about the fact that I'll be memorializing the aughts well into this brave new year with a sizable debt to Bank of America. Like our great nation, I spent the last ten years getting stung and overcompensating, acting indecisive and entitled, living way beyond my means. And now I am paying. With interest! My credit card statements are so textbook "Don't" they deserve a reality show: a trip to Japan for the wedding of a couple I'd never met; $500 worth of phone calls from what was supposed to be a budget trip to the Dominican Republic; shitty new Ikea furniture to replace shitty broken Ikea furniture; more late fees than I care to add up; more liquor than I care to admit. Oh hai, it's me! The girl Suze Orman warned you about. READ MORE

When I was younger, Long Island seemed oddly resistant to chain stores, or at least the standalone types that couldn't be contained by a shopping mall. It was a big deal when, during my high-school years, the Island got its first K-Mart. Wal Mart didn't arrive in the 516 until 1995. After that, a series of big-box complexes rushed in, as did new streets to lead people inside their hulking parking structures. (I still have to swallow hard before I can give people directions that incorporate "Corporate Drive.") READ MORE

Tom Scocca: Is your Fashion Week over?

Choire Sicha: Is it ever!

Tom Scocca: Did anyone there notice that Perez Hilton is now more famous than Paris Hilton?

Choire Sicha: I'm not sure if anyone besides the publicists noted that!

Tom Scocca: But the publicists showed they'd noticed?

Choire Sicha: Well there is some anecdotal evidence, such as the post-show release from the horrible gay Canadian twins of "DSquared," in which they touted the appearance of Nicky Hilton and... Perez Hilton.

Choire Sicha: Also anecdotally? He was everywhere... and Paris Hilton was in, like, Stuttgart and Venice? She was actually busy being sued for canceling appearances. Her big fashion week headline? "HILTON FACES CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT OVER ALLEGED EUROPE NO-SHOW."

Tom Scocca: We spend all our time second-guessing publications' output. Time to second-guess the input, isn't it? Shadow Assignment Editors! WHY ALL OF YOU NO HAVE?

Choire Sicha: That is a good point. They were eager, historically, to cover Paris, but they are exceedingly less eager to cover Perez. In part, I think because he has a platform via which to castigate, undermine and rebut? I think publications dislike both Hiltons equally. But they were never afraid of Paris, because she had no editorial product of her own.

Tom Scocca: "Both Hiltons," you say. Apologize to Nicky!

Choire Sicha: Oh I would never. Although! Hilton mania reached such a fever pitch not long ago that I was conscripted to actually write a Nicky Hilton potential cover story for a large New York-based magazine. (One that fortunately never came to... fruition.) And by "not long" I believe I mean 2005 or 2006. Even I, as much as I love the celebrity industrial complex, found this a bit suspect.

Tom Scocca: Possibly Nicky is the Interesting Hilton. At least, there's still a job opening for that slot. But: Perez Hilton is a bigger name that Paris Hilton. Am I the only person who is freaked out by this?

Choire Sicha: I have a metric for you! Paris Hilton on Twitter: 631K followers. Perez Hilton on Twitter: nearly 1.5 million followers.

Tom Scocca: It is like when George W.S. Trow wrote about how contestants on Family Feud were trying to guess what the survey participants had guessed that the average height of an American woman was. Perez Hilton has derived greater fame from Paris Hilton than Paris Hilton had herself derived from being famous for famousness' sake.

Choire Sicha: That is accurate, I think. He leeched it out of her in a really fantastic way! And often he did it by going where she went, and doing what she did... except not by revealing his chest and being what a delusional teen boy would think of as "being sexy." Somehow he didn't need to! That credit goes to his editorial product. Unfortunately, Paris Hilton's editorial product is a failing, disastrous MTV reality show.

Tom Scocca: I only have about 87 GB of open memory here, and that's not enough to hold all the scare quotes that need to go around the word "'["'(reality)'"]'" in that sentence.

Choire Sicha: Well sure. Here is another interesting bit of fact! Perez Hilton is having a very bad income week.

Tom Scocca: Why is that?

Choire Sicha: I do not know why? It may be just the general ebb and flow. But he is only receiving $28,000 worth of ad income this week. [UPDATE: According to the wonderful honcho of BlogAds, there were also some takeover sales this week, though in checking Perez's site I didn't see them. So $28,000 sounds like Perez's floor income. As in, that is basically what he found in quarters on the floor.] Often he rakes in upward of $50,000 a week. Math will tell you that that is $2.6 million a year. So he has only sold small ads this week; most weeks he has also sold ads up top, for $25,000 a week.

Tom Scocca: So what does this combination of fact and cultural observation give us? Who are the advertisers?

I just received the latest issue of SELF, and I'm looking forward to enjoying it from cover to cover! The section on how to save someone's life in an emergency, the delicious-looking recipes and the fashion suggestions I can actually afford are among the many standouts. It's the best issue I've gotten in a long time. Style and substance-that's why I subscribe! Keep up the good work. READ MORE

In March 2003 France stated that it would not support a U.N. resolution to invade Iraq. And with that, a nation constipated with 9/11 rage found the perfect place onto which to crap. Heretofore dopey, jocular anti-France sentiment was exchanged for vitriolic, publicly expressed hatred. And yet, six years later, a hamburger demonstrates why the very fervent wrath the right has produced is nothing to worry about. READ MORE

Washingtonians were privileged Wednesday night to view a free advanced screening of the new Ang Lee film "Taking Woodstock" hosted by The Nation. Given the film's subject and the entity responsible for the promotion of this event, its safe to say that the audience which nearly filled the theatrer was the kind of people who ponder Woodstock with a whiff of mysticism. Through that misty veil of peace, love, and music, however, lies confusion and discord as to why the hell we're still talking about those three days in the August of 1969. READ MORE

Tom Scocca: OK, so my September copy of Glamour arrived the other day. READ MORE

BUSHWICK-"I don't really turn people on," Max Steele said. The first time he go-go danced, someone complained to the DJ, who promptly turned off the music. This might have been because Max's go-go dancing is a disturbing sight. He tends to dance in fits and jerks, his arms stiffly at his sides except when he suddenly draws one hand up towards the side of his face. He moves around a lot when he dances, his legs following his upper body, which spasms rhythmically to a beat slightly different than that of the music. READ MORE