--Semi-Finals: Thursday, October 11, Nick's Comedy Stop (Upstairs), 8:30 pm --Semi-Finals: Friday, October 12, Nick's Comedy Stop (Upstairs), 8:30 pm --Finals: Saturday, October 13, Cutler Majestic, 8:15 pm During the last night of the preliminaries, many of the comics tore into their routines like it was the last show of their lives. Everyone is burning out after four days of endless stand-up shows, but the comics of the last preliminary round made it all worth......

Seattlest watches as a S.L.U.T. is born and Seattle Flickr users go nuts over a local art installation. A restaurant critic demands a Diner's Bill of Rights over a gnat next to her drink, and, in lieu of a Portlandist, Seattlest debates with itself over the identity of the Northwest's crown jewel. Seattlest also joins the guys from Fantagraphics for an ill-fated gun party in the woods. LAist saw national headlines soar this week with......

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. Being the nation's capital, DCist felt especially proud to let freedom ring this week by exposing the really important issues, like how sad they......

We can't get the image of the neon red lights invading Kramer's apartment in the episode of Seinfeld when Kenny Rogers Roasters opened up a joint right outside his bedroom window. The affliction for Northeastern University residents in the proposed building wouldn't be the sleepless nights, apartment trading, and addiction to rotisserie chicken, rather perverse Village People nightmares as the YMCA sign flashes into the evening. If approved, the GrandMarc, a proposed 34 story......

On a day in which some genuine environmental innovation took place in Boston (see below), our local papers were fixated upon one celebrity's solution for environmental waste. Singer Sheryl Crow said that people should use only one square of toilet paper when going to the bathroom. And, yes, the sh*t hit the fan. (We use the asterisk because we don't want the city Wi-Fi blocking us, too!) The Fox Morning News crew latched onto this......

The tale of Tufts history professor Felipe Fernandez-Armesto getting roughed up for jaywalking in Atlanta has gone global. The BBC is doing a "those nutty Americans" story on it, headlined "What Every Brit Should Know About Jaywalking." Another interesting fact emerged in the BBC story. The Hotlanta PD "confiscated his box of peppermints." The police took his peppermints! This whole incident is sounding more and more like a lost episode of Seinfeld. Most stories......

Who says Boston doesn't have any celebrities? Since Norm and Cliff don't grace our Thursday night televisions and heralding Good Will Hunting has become passé a lot of people are talking about how we don’t have much celeb power here in the Hub. Forbes Magazine takes a break from rating the richest people in America and the world to take focus on the 100 hottest celebrities – based on both influence and on their annual......

Bostonist is more familiar with Kramer filling in for MovieFone service on Seinfeld than we are with the service itself. The line "Why don't you just tell me the movie you'd like to see?" in Kramer's computer voice is indelible. But today some bots took over our Instant Messenger client. We've never been able to get all our friends together on one service so we're running GAIM. It's open source and runs our AIM, MSN,......

Bostonist has it on good authority that Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone and his wife Nancy have welcomed the newest member of the Curtatone clan. Yesterday at 3:34 P.M., Mrs. Curtatone gave birth to a 6-pound, 12-ounce baby boy at Melrose Wakefield Hospital (why not the Somerville Hospital, we wonder). Unfortunately for the baby's older brother, Cosmo, he won't have anyone to commiserate with when he's made fun of on the elementary school playgound. It seems......

Last night on ABC Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) took his last drink. Well, figurative, of course. For the last decade Andy’s been that "sex symbol" Bostonist couldn’t quite grasp. Like the now departed Detective Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) Sipowisz was an alcoholic cop, he tried his best to stay away from the liquor. Unlike the Briscoesque tongue-in-cheek comments about his drinking, the bottle, and staying sober for Sipowicz the battle to stay away from the booze......