The second-best column in the New York Times Magazine, next to The Ethicist, is Consumed. Written by Rob Walker, who claims to have created the term “murketing,” and noted by the “$ / ¢” stamp, Consumed explains in just a few hundred words each week why we spend the way we do. (This week he told you why you buy a certain snack, because you believe it to be healthy, when it isn’t really.) Walker’s out with a new book, Buying In — that we’ll file in on our Consumer Trend Books That Are Actually Interesting shelf next to titles like Maxed Out — which is like pages and pages of his excellent magazine column rolled into things called chapters and billed with the buzzworthy promise to take on a tour of the “consumer-persuasion industry.” Who knew it’d be such a suspense-thriller?

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It was only last week we were foolishly hoping for an end to studies about things we already know, where the results of such studies would reveal what is already believed to be true. Alas, progress: No study was required to find out that words like “secret,” “sex,” “green,” or “easy” catch the attention of Americans, and the news media. [NYT]

Need a place to cool off this summer? You could always visit one of those public pools, which are teaming with children’s pee and, worse, children. Or you could turn to Google Earth, which will helpfully identify your neighbor’s swimming pools courtesy satellites floating around the planet. Then, when you find one that’s deep enough for canon balls, you can alert your friends on Facebook that you’re planning a pool party at someone else’s home, like these jerks in Britain. The technology is also helpful for locating trampolines, bouncy houses, and Slip’N'Slides that don’t belong to you, too.

Michael Agger’s exercise in explaining how we read things online goes like this:

• Keep it short

• Put it in bullet-pointed list form

• Use bold when necessary, even when it’s not necessary

The drive-in movie theatre, an endangered species, turns 75 this year, so Wired compiled a handful of excellent photographs from readers remembering another era.

Now that the United States is allowing the sale of Absinthe goods, it was only a matter of time before the green fairy juice was transformed from a liquid-only embellishment into a more solid form. Namely, candy.

Enter Absinthe Gummi Bears, available at Tailor on Broome Street, says UrbanDaddy. “You’ll mostly taste licorice—it’s really the anise in the absinthe—but this gummi is smarter (and boozier) than the av-e-rage bear. It’s 85% absinthe, with just a touch of gelatin and sugar added to keep things solid.”

Yum. Please, Dylan Lauren, begin stocking these at your Candy Bar.

Like a mutating beast, New York’s ever-evolving. And the art scene’s no different.

With the opening of the new New Museum on the Bowery, our Lower East Side’s again becoming an epicenter for urban artistic activity. Gallerists Dennis Christie and Ken Tyburski couldn’t resist the pull and recently unveiled their DCKT Contemporary’s new location just down the famed road from the Museum.

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While “asshat” and “pathetic loser” are two favorite terms around Jossip HQ, even we must admit that one term has infiltrated our office door: “meh.” It’s the COOL blogger world term for “whatever”; a veritable “who cares” chopped down to three letters and one syllable. So just where did this brilliant, concise descriptor for your lackluster emotional response arise from?

The Simpsons, of course.

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Hats off to the Grey Lady on this wonderful Friday morning. Before we’d even had a chance to down our morning coffee and quaaludes – yeah, we’re old school – the Times already slammed us with an amusing Then vs. Now retrospective, with Bruce Handy offering glib social commentary disguised as actual humor. Don’t we have The Funny Pages for that?

Highlights include presidential jokes:

Seventy-fifth anniversary of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s election at the height of the Great Depression as the 32nd president of the United States (Nov. 8, 1932).

Today’s perspective: Nostalgia for era when presidents had big, bold, risky ideas that mostly worked out O.K.

Drug humor:

20th anniversary of Prozac’s introduction in the United States (Dec. 29, 1987).

Today’s perspective: Recent holiday gatherings went unusually well, don’t you think?

And even a sly little Britney Spears (or is it Paris Hilton?) reference:

10th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death in a Paris car crash (Aug. 31, 1997).

Today’s perspective: Continuing affection for princess who, despite being mercilessly hounded by paparazzi, always managed to keep her underwear on in public.

Of course, our personal favorite is the dramatic conlusion.

5th anniversary of President Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech (Jan. 29, 2002).

Today’s perspective: When Kim Jong-Il is brought before an international tribunal, no taunting him about his hair, O.K.?

Ahh, not even a full week after “You” leaked the tape of Saddam Hussein’s execution, and we’ve already moved on from lamenting the brutality of cruel and ruthless dictators to making fun of their ‘dos.

• Rudy Giuliani’s political playbook was stolen when thieves apparently mistook him for Jets’ coach Eric Mangini.

• A construction worker heroically jumped onto the tracks to save a stranger from being hit by an oncoming train; apathetic New Yorkers everywhere marvel.

• Prices for NYC apartments fell slightly last quarter, dropping from obscene to completely ridiculous.

• New York to West Coast: Make more movies like The Queen, less like Rocky Balboa.

• Global warming causes confused cherry trees to blossom early, enables annoying hipster “legging look” to endure through middle of Winter.

Sure, CollegeHumor.com co-founder and porn name recipient Ricky Van Veen may be bathing in C-notes ever since Barry Diller’s checkbook showed up, but that doesn’t mean he’s idling away like some Web 2.0 millionaires (who we’re quite envious of). Rather, he’s brewing up genius workout ideas while coming out of his tryptophan coma.

Like many of you, I was always the type of person who would buy a gym membership but rarely go. Not that I abhorred spending time at the gym, but there was no compelling reason to bring me back day after day - I always found something more interesting to do.
That was until I coupled my daily workout routine with the recent boom in captivating serialized network television.

In April I began a new diet I call The 24 Plan. By the beginning of July, with the help of the television show 24, I lost 30 lbs. You can too! If you follow this plan, I guarantee you will also lose weight or this blog entry is free.

All you need is a portable DVD player, a Netflix subscription, and a gym membership. Here’s what you do - it’s quite simple. Go to the gym with your portable DVD player and get on the elliptical machine. Put an episode of the television show into your DVD player and watch it while you’re on the machine. I used 24, but there are many other shows that work just as well (Lost, Grey’s, Prison Break, The Wire, etc). Before you know it the show will be over and you’ll have exercised for 44 whole minutes!

Just don’t watch any MTV shows on DVD, or you’ll be reduced to something like 32 minutes of workout time per hour-long episode. They’ve got mad commercial breaks. And those True Life episodes about anorexics and meth addicts will make you feel fatter than you were pre-workout.

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Always one to blur the lines between “gay men’s magazine” and “really gay men’s magazine,” Details submits its monthly offering for the New York Times Style section to rip off in six weeks time. The feature – appearing in the December issue, which hit New York newsstands yesteday – rounded up what appears to be Andy Samberg, Fonzworth Bentley, and Reichen Lehmkuhl all decked out in swag picked up at a gifting suite and disguised as three variations on yuppie. Silly Details: As any Bridgehampton Polo match attendee knows, there are only two authentic type of yuppie: the gay, and the gay’s “roommate.”

Thought you could avoid the New York Times‘ twice-weekly onslaught of their version of hip in the Style section? WRONG! The Grey Lady is entering the email newsletter foray, and this means more than just news alerts. Replacing the current Style email, Urbanite will be sent out each weekday morning as a subtle reminder that you’re not doing enough to stay ahead of (made up) trends or spending yourself into enough debt to affect your FICO score.

But finding out what’s hot and happening in New York? Just where have we (#) seen(#) this (#) before (#)?

• Sure, it may seem like just another modern dance show. But it’s actually more of a dastardly advertising plan by Steve Jobs. (Tues. 10/10) [Merce Cunningham Dance Company]

• Andrew Sullivan will be at a Barnes and Noble this Thursday. Bring your blogger friends and re-live the Jim Kelly memories. (Thurs. 10/12) [NYM]

• If you have ear plugs strong enough to drown out the screaming tots (or you’re that weird adult who reads children’s books) you should see this. (Fri. 10/13) [NYM]

• Jon Stewart and his boys invite you to a fun-filled night. He might even scream some blabber about a saint giving head or something. (Sun. 10/15) [Ticket Master]

• How do we say “cross” in this city? “Icon of the Attack on New York.” [NYT]

• Thankfully, the legend of the Hotel Chelsea will never, ever die. At least not as long as Ethan Hawke’s fan club is alive. [Gothamist]

• Since when are East Village hippies “sex-starved?” They don’t hook up at Niagra for three days and their famished? Give us a break. [VV]

• The First Lady came to New York and the only thing she said was “I love teachers.” Yet, it’s still more intelligent than anything her husband’s ever said. [NYP]

• Traffic: the reason why New Yorkers are so lonely all the time. And why Park Slope moms with a million kids and block parties life in a blissful bubble. [Curbed]