While the entire world watches the Olympics in Beijing, China, the real competition is to be found back here in America. It’s cut-throat and glorious - to be second best is to be disgraced, but to be the best is to win lots of cash for New York shopping. We’re talking about the LG National Texting Championship, of course.

The “Waterboard Thrill Ride,” by Steve Powers, is a stone’s throw from Coney Island’s famed Cyclone roller coaster and Nathan’s hot dog stand. For a dollar, visitors get to look through a barred window on a Guantanamo-like interrogation, enacted by animated robots. The hooded figure leans over a man in an orange jumpsuit, his face covered with a towel and his body tethered to a tilted plane. Lights come on and water pours into the man’s nose and mouth, producing convulsions for 15 seconds.

Source: NYT
It was one of the worst sweatshops that state inspectors have visited in years, they said, sometimes requiring its 100 employees to work seven days a week, sometimes for months in a row.

Location of Jin Shun factory? (guessed from Google Map, Street View)
The factory, Jin Shun, located in Queens, handed out instructions to its [...]

Clothing Optional Dinners are becoming popular in New York.
Source: UK Telegraph :
Humid summers have encouraged a nudity trend that is stretching to restaurants, yoga classes and even a stand-up comedy club.
About 50 diners, whose motto is “no hot soup”, regularly attend monthly naked meals held at a handful of restaurants in the city. They are [...]

Inquiring minds wanna know!
We wanna know!

A-Rod

Material Girl

Us Weekly reports that Madonna’s seven-year marriage to Guy Ritchie has stalled out – and the singer has been hosting late-night visits from New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez at her Central Park West apartment in New York City.

Madonna’s Apartment
Ritchie arrived in New York City from London yesterday (sans ring). [...]

You heard it right.
Source: CBS
A dwarf charged with prostituting an underage runaway will appear in Kings County, N.Y. Supreme Court on Monday. Jacqueline Green, a.k.a. ‘Shorty,’ due to her 3 foot 9 inch height, is charged with promoting prostitution and child endangerment for allegedly pimping a 15-year-old that ran away from a troubled home.
According to [...]

That’s what this guy’s art project was called.
Source: New York Times:
A Boston-born performance artist, Yazmany Arboleda, tried to set up a provocative art exhibition in a vacant storefront on West 40th Street in Midtown Manhattan with the title, “The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama,” in neatly stenciled letters on the plate glass [...]

Kim Kardashian recently hosted the Hamptons’ first white party of the season with boyfriend Reggie Bush. (P. Diddy is normally host at his house in East Hampton.)
Kardashian said in People Magazine: “White is actually one of my favorite colors. I have a white car. I love white.”

White House Night Club is located at 239 [...]

Here’s a Pic of Ashley Alexandra Dupre (Ashley Youmans/Kristen) from her high school yearbook, courtesy of Rankun.

Gawker has a gallery set up, too, with a few extra photos you might not have seen. This one is interesting:

It’s her mom, brother, and I’m guessing, grandfather.
The Wall Street Journal talks about “The Entrapment of Eliot” :
There [...]

Here are some images from the webpage of Emperor’s Club VIP (since taken down).

Alana

Anais

Samantha

Here’s The Roster: (click for full size!)

At least Eliot Spitzer had some taste, although his spending habits were extravagant. I mean, $5,000?
Any images featuring “Kristen” would be quite the awesome…
Update: Kristen Found!