Good morning, readers, from a Phillyist on a plane, killing time on the way to Louisville via Chicago. Yeah, I know that's really out of the way. But then, so is Louisville. Air travel is generally hated by most people. Strangely, though, today's experience has been almost pleasant. Here's why: (1) Tuesday afternoons in December are apparently an awesome time to fly. Business travelers are out of town, going about their midweek business, and......

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we'll be posting events that are going on sale during the current week. This Tuesday post only collects the early announcements, so definitely check back on Thursday for the latest ticket news. Fiction Plane Chameleon Club, Lancaster Mon, 12/10/07, 6PM $8 On sale: Today, 10AM, Ticketmaster Howard Jones Dennis Flyer Memorial Theatre, Blackwood, NJ Fri, 1/18/08, 8PM $25 On sale: Today, 10AM, Ticketmaster August Burns Red Chameleon Club, Lancaster Fri, 12/28/07,......

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we'll be posting events that are going on sale during the current week. This Thursday post only collects the latest announcements, so definitely check the Tuesday post for any you may have missed. John Mellencamp w/Los Lobos Borgata Event Center, Atlantic City Fri, 12/14/07, 8PM Pre-sale: Today, 10AM - Fri, 10PM, Live Nation Abhijeet Caesars Atlantic City Sat, 11/10/07, 9PM $35-$150 On sale: Thu, 10AM, Ticketmaster Daughtry Sovereign Performing Arts Center,......

For our parents, it was the assassination of JFK. Ask any of them and they can remember exactly what they were doing at the time they found out JFK had been killed. I never understood that until September 11, 2001. Our generation can remember it like it was yesterday. For us, that moment, frozen in time, is and will always be 9/11. Back then I was in community journalism at a small paper in Bristol,......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. The Hip Hop Project - This documentary, produced by Bruce Willis and Queen Latifah, is about Kazi, a once-homeless teenager who now works with teenagers in New York City to craft hip hop songs from their personal lives as "a vehicle for self-development and personal discovery." Russel Simmons has helped to fund the Hip Hop Project, even, along with Bruce Willis, donating a recording studio......

The best of the internet, squirted out in flavorful neon globules, just for you. If you act quickly, you can download some free art by UK duo Gilbert and George. (Via Mid Atlantic Art News, Via Editor Jill) PopCap is giving it away free - to your Mom! By which we mean, in honor of Mother's Day, they're sending registration codes for Bejeweled Deluxe to new and existing subscribers of their newsletter starting today and......

Haven't heard of it? From the same form of racial profiling that results in people getting pulled over for Driving While Black, basically, if you're black and travelling by plane, the odds of having your luggage (or self) searched are significantly higher than the odds white travellers operate with. In 1999, Mos Def rapped about it on his album Black on Both Sides: Some folks get on a plane, go where they please, but......

The best of the internet, squirted out in flavorful neon globules, just for you. SwitchPlanet sounds like a pretty cool little idea. You create a free account, put together a list of things you'd like to trade (like used DVDs, CDs, and video games that you're done with), and then set up free trades with other people on the site. The idea is for people to get more of what they like without having to......

How about a little local celebrity gossip? WPVI's Monica Malpass is being sued by her former fiance (auto-parts entrepreneur Stephen Thorne) because she won't give him back the engagement ring, even though she supposedly agreed to do so, and he has requested her to numerous times. The casinos are apparently sending attorneys and private investigators to harrass people who signed those anti-casino petitions. Smooth, guys. Smooth. Meanwhile, a Bucks County judge has been appointed......

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we'll be posting events that are going on sale during the current week. This Thursday post only collects the latest announcements, so definitely check the Tuesday post for any you may have missed. Al Martino Resorts Atlantic City Sat, 3/31/07 - Thu, 4/5/07, many dates and times $40 On sale: Today, 10AM, Ticketmaster 2u w/Mini Kiss House of Blues Atlantic City Sat, 3/10/07, 8PM $10 On sale: Fri, 10AM, Ticketmaster Mushroomhead......

Just before landing at the airport, we shot this photo across the plane aisle and out someone else's window! Photo by author via SkyscraperSunset.com, May 17, 2005.......

Earlier this week, I celebrated Restaurant Week by hitting up Astral Plane with some Phillyists. My food was wonderful, and the dining room’s décor was comfy and adorable. But, trust you me, if there is one room in that place that truly reflects the restaurant’s name, the dining room it ain’t. The entrance to the bathroom is right off the dining room. The door has a big glass pane in it, but they’ve considerately......

Today marks the third day of Restaurant Week, and last night, three Phillyists headed over to Astral Plane for dinner. None of us had been there before, despite innumerable recommendations from assorted friends, but we fell in love with the place the moment we sat down. The food would have had to be terrible for us to change our minds. (Fortunately, it wasn't. More of that after the following digression...) A friend had mentioned earlier......

It was a urban photographer's dream. Having seen my Comcast Center construction documentation page, one of the men working on the skyscraper's construction invited me on site and up the elevators to improve the collection. So on January 2nd, this Phillyist was on the very raw 43rd floor of the Comcast Center for an ironworker's view of the construction progress and amazing views of Philadelphia. We began by climbing a few staircases and ladders to......

We don't know about you, but it's friggin cold out there. Well, not for some of you. It seems as though places that are supposed to be cold are warm and places that are supposed to be warm are cold. Or maybe that's just us. Either way, we're freezing. Austinist said goodbye to their co-editor (sell-out) and played rumor monger on the SXSW lineup. And when dozens of dead birds littered downtown Austin, it's......

Pilots know exactly what they're doing and always fly safely above any dangerous weather. Right? So, of course, there's no reason to expect that your air travel experiences will be anything less than perfect. Photo of plane landing at Philadelphia International is by author, via SkyscraperSunset.com, June 1, 2006.......

Dear Philadelphia: Never have I been so happy to be here, safely nestled in my unforgivably messy little one bedroom apartment in the Gayborhood. You see, for a while there, it didn’t look like I’d make it back. I was back home in El Paso, Texas visiting my family for the holidays, which was nice. What wasn’t nice is what happened when I tried to leave. I was running late, mostly because I couldn’t......

Dear Major Air Carrier That Was Responsible For My Transportation Over Thanksgiving Weekend: When I checked into my flight online, I was given the opportunity to upgrade my seats for $75 on each leg of my flight. For First Class, that'd be a steal. But this wasn't first class. This was something that, to protect your identity, I'll call "Coach Plus." Apparently, my $75 would have bought me five extra inches of leg room.......

No, we did not get a Wii this weekend. Yes, we are exceedingly depressed about it. Regardless, we're still going to bring you the best of the internet, chopped into tiny bits and grilled for your enjoyment. It's just not going to have anything to do with video games. Banksy the guerrilla street aritst sneaks into famous museums and installs his art pieces next to the "legitimate" ones, complete with explanatory plaques. We love this......

Another quick look at how the election turned out for the region: we've got 3 new Democratic members of the City Council, Philly voters overwhelmingly supported the 3 ballot questions (which means, in case you didn't understand them - and we wouldn't blame you - that Gulf War vets will get special payments; the city charter will be changed to promote disadvantaged businesses; and the children of firefighters and police who die on the......

Let's look back at a week in which no site in the -ist network adopted anyone from Africa... -Austinist reveled in the dumb antics of some U.T. law students and posted some great audio from former New Orleans natives who've decided to stay in Austin. But the best news for Austinist? They were voted Best Local Entertainment Web Site by the local Austin alt-weekly. Congrats, Austinist. -DCist gloried in being told their musical tastes made......

As our parent site, Gothamist, reported yesterday in a detailed and oft-updated news post, former Phillies pitcher (and more recently, Yankee player) Cory Lidle crashed his single-engine private plane into the 30th floor of a high-rise on East 72nd Street in New York yesterday afternoon. Lidle and his passenger - apparently flying instructor Tyler Stanger - both died in the crash. Thankfully the only other injuries - sustained by firefighters and some people within......

Good news for those of you planning on doing any air travel in the near future: starting tomorrow, the feds are finally easing their ban on carrying liquids and gels onto planes and returning to what the head of the TSA calls the "common sense" approach. That's good to hear - we thought they'd thrown common sense out the window ages ago. Anyway, you can now once again have most liquids or gels in your......

Monday Night Club: The Monday Night Club at Bar Noir (112 S. 18th Street) w/A.D. Amorosi Presents Nicole McEwan’s Circle Storytelling series from 8pm-10pm, followed by music from Elle Norwalks, Fifty Eight Fury And Kim Alexander and Scott Rodgers’s rootin’ totting Hank’s Cadillac w/special going away party for pedal steel hombre Joe Adams. 10pm-1-am Free Movie Monday at The Troc: Roadhouse Doors open at 6, the show starts at 7:30 and you must be......

A plane flying from Philadelphia to Houston was diverted to a Tennessee airport yesterday after a passenger showed the crew a threatening note he'd found on board. Sadly, the contents of the note have not been released. A Philadelphia official is the subject of an ethics review?? We can't imagine why. The latest real estate war in Philadelphia is over proposed plans for a 19-story residential tower at the New Market site between 2nd and......

A steaming hot pile of our favorite things from around the internets. Giant Monsters Attack Japan! No, that's not a real news headline; it's the title of an upcoming "man in suit" movie from Nickelodeon films, Matt Stone, and Trey Parker. Which is nearly as weird and unlikely-sounding, actually... These two guys had kind of a genius scam going: go into Wal-Mart, stuff some games down your pants, then go into the GameStop next door......

The Daily News tried to track down the people behind some T-shirts they'd seen that seem to glorify crime and violence. They didn't have much luck. We're personally a fan of the one that looks like the Warner Brothers logo, except it's been altered to read "If you see the cops coming...Warn a Brother." Besides freedom and democracy, we're also bringing soccer to the Iraqi people. A Marine who grew up in the Philly......

The best of the internet, chopped into tiny bits and grilled for your enjoyment. Well, Snakes on a Plane weekend has come and gone and the news around the blogosphere is...surprisingly good! (Well, in terms of quality, anyway; box office-wise the film seems to have done rather poorly.) Seriously, most people seem to like it more than they expected, although apparently it's better when seen with a large, excited crowd. As for us...well, we are......

What's new and/or interesting on TV this week. Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Tue; 11PM-11:30PM; Comedy Central) - This is already one of the greatest shows on TV, full of sharp, clever, hilarious satire of contemporary media and politics. But Tuesday's episode has all that, plus Samuel L. Jackson (who will come, no doubt, bearing clips from his upcoming movie, Snakes on a Plane), so you have to watch. (Link) Mythbusters (Wed; 9PM-10PM; Discovery) -......

God, we're so sick of Snakes on a Plane that we want to kill anyone and everyone that makes a "something on a something" joke. But then we realized that there was no way we could ever win this fight, and, hell, if you can't beat them, we might as well join them. And with that, you have the theme of this weeks' Gothamist network post. Austinist makes it easy for us, with Candidate on......