Elsewhere in the Ist-a-verse

Photo by Anthony Macaluso/AnimalNY

• Gothamist was shocked when someone scaled the 52-story New York Times building's exterior on Thursday. And then Gothamist was shocked again when a second person scaled the building six hours later.

• Shanghaiist was amused by a wild and wacky publicity stunt by a Chinese acupuncturist who stuck 2,008 needles in his head to welcome the Olympics.

• Torontoist featured dozens of dramatic photos from Newmindspace's downtown pillow fight.
• Phillyist encouraged its readers to foster kitten litters and their mothers during kitten season. Insert LOL here.
• Chicagoist caught Olympic fever with a downtown celebration...and surprise guest Barack Obama.
• SFist reported on a fine dining establishment set to host the "First-Ever Single Cougars Party."
• LAist finally made it over to the Playboy Mansion for a Spike TV Bash, and it was everything everyone thought it would be.
• Londonist abandoned trying to taunt their New York counterparts into a live Teletroscope dance-off, opting instead to send one of their expat American contributors to gawk in realtime at her Brooklyn-based brother. The end result was rather sweet, by all accounts.
• DCist checked out local reporters being hassled by Union Station security.
• Seattlest watched in awe (and made light of the moment) as Mariners' manager John McLaren had a post-loss meltdown.
• Bostonist talked to Lewis Black about his lack of faith, and learned how to make a perfect Boston movie from Paul Sherman.