Philadelphia made its way onto a Top 10 list that didn’t have anything to do with overweight citizens or crappy sports teams. According to Forbes.com, Philadelphia is the 4th Best City to Buy a Home: The City of Brotherly Love has a tight housing market—just 1.9% vacancy—reflecting the lure of a charming and historic American city. Steeped in tradition, this city is priced well, with a median home price of $234,900, up from $215,000 in......

In about a week and a half, singer/songwriter Johnathan Rice is going to be down at Stubb's in Austin, supporting no less a band than R.E.M. at South by Southwest. But luckily for those of us who live up here in Philly and won't be able to make it to the big party in Austin, Rice is currently touring with Matt Costa, and will be a little closer to us tomorrow night, at the First......

Warning: This whole review is basically a spoiler. Despite its infamy, there are apparently people out there who are still surprised by the "twist" at the end of M. Butterfly, currently being produced by the Philadelphia Theatre Company. These are the same people who are confused by Ru Paul. Please proceed with caution. Let's just get this out of the way, folks. Butterfly in David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, just like Dil in The Crying......

Photograph of memorial outside Heath Ledger's NYC apartment Gothamist learned that actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his SoHo apartment, cause of death unknown so far (but apparently the masseuse who found him called Mary-Kate Olsen before 911).Bostonist considered sending a link about the Super Bowl, but damn! The New Kids are reuniting!Although Sylvester Stallone is a native of New York City, his Rocky character lets many Philadelphians consider him a native son......

Photograph of the Trump Soho by Riccardo Sinti Gothamist went to the scene of the Trump Soho construction collapse, which left one construction worker dead and others injured (an indirect culprit - Manhattan's hot real estate market, causing rushed construction jobs).Shanghaiist is confused by media reports as to whether Playboy will be available in China during the year of the Olympics.LAist got fugged in an interview with the Go Fug Yourself girls.Torontoist set hearts......

Every weekday of December (except for December 25, that is), Phillyist will be counting down to 2008 with our highlights from the past year and our predictions for the next. If you have a list you'd like to submit, let us know! Quite a few of my favorite concert memories came from festivals that weren't in Philly—Austin City Limits and Virgin Fest—but next year, it looks like we might have our own sick festival to......

Go across the Walt Whitman Bridge and take the North-South Freeway to Route 55. Travel South on Route 55 for about 25 miles, and you'll find yourself in Vineland, New Jersey. (Insert wisecrack about Vineland's awesomely bad municipal website here.) Why would you go to Vineland? Well, at the moment, you probably wouldn't. But next summer, you might have a reason to. Paste Magazine is reporting that C3 Presents—the force behind Lollapalooza and the......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Phillyist. AMEX Urban Adventures, because big cities are full of little adventures. UWISHUNU, because you wish you knew. NYC Visit, where you can find out all about things to during November in NYC. PRAVDA, because nobody likes an aftertaste in their vodka. Austin City Limits, which will feature The Arcade Fire. Busted Tees, where they've thrown their weight behind Hillary in '08.......

Oh, man. Did you see that Rick Santorum is writing an opinion column for the Inquirer now? Ugh. In vaguely related news, John Street's post-mayoral employment, beginning in January, will be at Temple University as a professor of urban politics and policy. Governor Rendell, who himself is an adjunct at U. Penn, encouraged Street to make the move. Officials responding to a report of a fire at a home in Upper Darby yesterday discovered......

Remember your first job? Was it cutting lawns around the neighborhood, or doing an internship at a non-profit? Phillyist admits to doing time at the local Aeropostale, which is funny considering our complete lack of "fashion sense." Whatever job it was, you no doubt remember as we do that those initial forays into the working week weren’t always smooth sailing. Although most of us have probably gotten used to the job seeking circuit by now,......

Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,......

While SFist cringed at the fatal dose of crime littering the Bay Area, it found solace in Hillary Clinton's San Francisco campaign headquarters opening, which featured loads of exposed mammary glands. In other news, SF Taxi Commission ruled that Satan's cab must keep its (in)famous medallion number, 666; and in an un-fashion-forward frenzy, San Francisco Fashion Week (chortle) bars bloggers from covering and getting smashed at their shows and parties, respectively. Also, they found a......

LAist was comped front row seats by the Dodgers due to Malingering being struck by a foul ball last week, and she came back with some great photos, and earlier made fun of 4th of July on Venice Beach. But the biggest stories of the week was that the Mayor's Hot Tamale was revealed, and that a Kwik-E-Mart was erected in Burbank. Phillyist was busy doing the Fourth of July up right, exercising their......

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. In Gothamist's neck of the woods, they found out that many things are possible: A man caught a 40+ pound fish off the Rockaways and took it home on the subway. Graffiti......

Seattlest has a talk with the photographer from last week's "Segway Mom" and then experiences some dissension in the ranks over the question of wine vs. beer. It's not West Side Story, but about as close as they'll get. They're also still waiting on some inbox relief after a spammer is arrested. As Chicagoist counts down the days to its third anniversary party, they found all-organic pizza to be underwhelming amidst the hoopla, tried......

A tall, icy glass of our favorite internet junk, just for you. It's a list, and one about Star Wars, even, so there's no way we could not post for you Star Wars: Top 20 Moments. And as it turns out, it's also quite a good list, with some really good selections. The only one we might quarrel with is number 7: Vader gets a new wardrobe. The scene where Anakin finally goes into the......

It's always nice when someone takes a play that you really like and produces it well. That's what the Luna Theater Company has done with their production of Sam Shepard's True West. They have taken a great work and, defying what is, unfortunately, sometimes the status quo, uphold its integrity as not only a great piece of drama, but also a great piece of writing. Shepard's characters speak like real people speak and they......

LAist is experimenting with blogging dates from J-Date, but finds the best men are found offline. Some date vicariously online and that is one reason why porn is big -- really freaking big -- so they ask if they should cover XXX since the heart of it lays in the city's San Fernando Valley. A writer grapples with her food porn photography obsession, another gets censored on Flickr, one gets scooped by the LA......

Last night's show at the Electric Factory highlighted two different kinds of punk. First up was Be Your Own Pet's sloppy, messy, disorganized punk. Lots of slamming and banging and screaming and talking, but not a lot of structure or melody or diversity. And not, sadly enough, much that was all that interesting. They're fun, but they don't have a lot of substance. Their lyrics are generally silly fluff about going on adventures in the......

I think my fascination with Orson Welles started when I was really young and Tiny Toon Adventures did a Citizen Kane spoof. Not long thereafter, I read an abridged-for-kids version of The War of the Worlds, and my grandparents told me about Orson Welles' radioplay of the work—of how people who tuned in late thought that New Jersey really had been set upon by aliens. By the time I was in middle school, I'd already......

Abra Moore...

The shapeless dough of the internet, formed into tasty pellets and baked to perfection, just for you. Hee hee. For a bit of NSFW video game humor, click here. Mike Myers says he wants to make another Austin Powers movie, and it will probably be from Doctor Evil's perspective, which sounds good to us; he was always our favorite character anyway. We know at least one person in the area who was disappointed with the......

Kate Havnevik ...

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. Most Likely to Rule: Into Great Silence - A documentary about the remote Grande Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps, on the occasion of its opening its doors to the public for the first time since being founded by St. Bruno in 1084. The director adapted himself to the ascetic lifestyle of the monks and captured their lives here without voice-over, musical score, interviews, or archival......

With all that went down this week, we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs. It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions this week at DCist. Like the rest of country, we were floored by the news of so many dead coming out of Virginia Tech, and with so many of the victims and their relatives from the D.C. area, we felt it important to pay tribute to those......

I was sitting in the audience at Mum, and I realized I've never actually seen a production of The Fantasticks. I knew most of the music, so I just kind of took for granted that I'd actually seen the show. But I was wrong, so somehow, my first-ever viewing of the longest-running musical in history was performed by puppets. And there's the fear that, when you're seeing an experimental staging of a traditional show, you're......

We don't know about where you are, but it seems like spring can't decide whether or not to happen. Some days are warm, some days are cold, and sometimes you aren't sure which. Baseball may have started up (and soccer/football winding down) but it still seems cold out there. Unless it's not. Anyways, onto the -ists. Austinist happily anticipated fall's Austin City Limits, even though they're not fully recovered from South By Southwest. In other......

What's new and/or interesting on TV this week. House (Tue, 9PM-10PM, Fox) - Woah. Is this show taking a weird, supernatural turn? A new patient - who's a veteran of the Iraq war complaining of Gulf War syndrome, and a nephew of a big hospital donor - is familiar to House, because he saw the man in a nightmare the night before! In lesser news, House is having trouble going to the bathroom, and Cameron......

On the one hand, we can really appreciate that the Office of Homeland Security is doing their best to keep suspected terrorists as far away from us as possible. On the other hand, we worry that they may not be doing their research. Having grown up within sight of Mexico, this Phillyist can attest that a name like Rodrigo Sanchez is by no means uncommon in the country. Which probably means that there are dozens,......

This is going to be a short update for the weekly blog roundup. Why? It's because everyone and their mother is at South by Southwest, drunker than Ted Kennedy on nickel night. Oh and most bloggers are writing about who they met and how drunk they got, not about the music (isn't the music the POINT of going in the first place?) Jim McGuinn and XPN are doing a good job though with their web......