We finished photography on our student film Saturday. It was 27 degrees, and we all stood around blowing on our fingers to keep blood circulating for the last shots. Our batteries kept failing in the cold, and at one point I took a near-dead one and stuck it in my bra on the chance a little warmth might bring it back to life. When we needed it later, it had miraculously recovered to near-full capacity. Make of that what you will, but I feel justified in claiming my breasts can now generate electricity. I think I’ll put it on my resume.

Good thing we finished, though, because this was Sunday’s weather:

You need a day like this every so often, an excuse to stay inside and gather linkage for your stupid blog. Let’s make it an all-bloggage Monday morning, because it’s winter break and I’m not fully awake yet.

Sunday’s fields were rich and fruitful, starting with a story that got barely briefed in the local fishwrap but, thankfully, much wider coverage in the WashPost — the horrific multiple fatal in Prince George’s County, Maryland. The Fast and the Furious meets … reality, I guess. People have been illegally racing cars as long as there have been cars, but when I started reading the story, I assumed it was an out-of-control racer who spun into the crowd, not a bunch of people standing in the middle of the road, neatly screened by tire smoke. What a nightmare.

There seems to be a bit of this going around — illegal racing ending in multiple funerals, that is. I was never a gearhead, and the only place I ever saw this sort of drag-racing happen was on a freshly paved but still unopened part of a new freeway in Columbus, just days away from its ribbon-cutting. (Ohio readers? It was Rt. 315, and now you know the truth: my middle name is Methuselah.) It was motorcycles, and I’m not even sure anyone was racing, just winding it out in a convenient place. Still: shudder.

The WashPost also provides a wonderful, funny summation of the Detroit mayoral scandal, by ex-Freeper Neely Tucker. He reprints a number of the text messages in question, and now seems as good a time as any to point out what’s bugged me about this since the beginning: How complete they are. With the exception of the inescapable LOLs, even figuring the parties had devices with QWERTY keyboards, they don’t sound like the way two people who know one another well — exceptionally well, in this case — actually text-chat with one another:

CB: “I’m feeling like I want another night like the most recent Saturday at the Residence Inn! You made me feel so damn good that night.”

Somehow, she neglected to give the street address. It’s like bad expository dialogue in a movie.

Which is a good transition to Gene Weingarten’s column, yes, also in the WashPost (my new favorite Sunday paper), written entirely on his cell phone:

on the few occasions i do text message, the only concession i make is that i dont use capitals or apostrophes or question marks or hyphens because they take an extra keystroke and when one is typing with ones thumbs one wants to conserve keystrokes. it pains me to realize that mankinds signature anatomical adaptation, the one that distinguishes us from the lowly beasts, has been pressed into service for such a moronic chore. its like using a stradivarius to hammer a nail.

so, texting is stupid. but do you want to know what is stupider. to get this column published, i have to email it to myself every 30 words.

A man I could love (and who bears a striking resemblance to Detroit’s mayor, at least in that hat), Patrice O’Neal, says he likes to eat like Caligula:

I made thigh-meat gumbo with some kielbasa. For some reason, when the recipe calls for chicken breast, I use thigh. I’m a thigh-meat dude. Thigh is just the best meat — I don’t get chicken breast. I think it’s a publicity stunt that we’ve convinced people it’s delicious. Chicken is legs and thighs — they’re juicy.

Are you listening, James Lileks? Unlikely.

Barack Obama made me a mixtape. What has Barack Obama done for you lately? HT: Eric Zorn. Keep reloading for endless fun.

Finally, a housekeeping note: I’m getting spam-bombed. At least two dozen spam comments a day are slipping the main net and landing in the moderation queue, which is not a huge headache, but since they come to me as e-mail first, it’s just a pain. So we’re going to start closing comments after one or two weeks, since the vast majority of the spam attempts are sent to old threads. This means approximately nothing to 99 percent of you, but if you’re the sort who likes to catch up every six months, you may not be able to join the conversation. Send an e-mail instead.

Go commence the week. I need about a million cups of coffee first.

Like many who plan to vote Democratic in the fall, I’m not an enthusiastic Hillary Clinton supporter. If she’s nominated, she has my support, but as I’ve stated before, I’d vote for a Paris Hilton-Wilmer Valderrama ticket over anyone the Republicans could possibly put up to the job. Just to, you know, send a message.

But speaking of messages, I’m also aware of what constitutes fair criticism of her, and what doesn’t. Like the black person who fails to be cheered by being called “articulate,” I know what hits me in the frontal lobes, and what’s tickling the medulla oblongata. I have a sense of humor, and I don’t think I’m overly sensitive. But to tell the truth, some of this shit is just getting on my last nerve. To make things easier and keep the tone light, let’s let Stephen Colbert ring ’em up:

That On Notice generator is fun to play with. As most of them are.

I have three days of work to do in two, so I’m letting you folks carry the conversation today. I will make a small announcement: Kate and I will be in Fort Wayne the 22nd, that is, a week from tomorrow. Kate will be off with her posse, but I’ll be at liberty that night, staying with Alex out in beautiful suburban Leo. He suggested we hold an open-table meetup “somewhere we can smoke,” although, to be sure, I’d rather it be somewhere we can’t smoke, but I’m flexible. Anyone interested? I favor Henry’s (can’t smoke) or Beamers (can smoke), but what the hell — maybe we should go all out and rent an Eagles hall. Make it a real Hoosier evening.

A short bit of bloggage: My ex-colleague Mike Harden did a moving column many years ago about a kid who needed human growth hormone injections to overcome a pituitary problem and give him something approaching normal height by adulthood. I recall that, at the time, HGH had to be gathered from cadavers, making it scarce and dear. The injections were very painful, and the kid fought them like a tiger. Now it’s synthetically grown in labs, much more available and less expensive. And now people like Debbie Clemens allegedly take it, to look good in a bikini. Is this a great country, or what?

OK, time to shut down the browser and get some real work done. Carry on.

Welcome to any new readers we might have today. NN.C got a little old-media pub Thursday, in Ben Burns’ column in the Grosse Pointe News. He did not let slip our secret that we’re really Not the Right Sort to be Pointers, but did get a quip in:

Nancy Nall Derringer, who has a last name that sounds like a 1930’s bank robber, freelances for a variety of local magazines and publications both on the Internet and beyond. And her lance is always sharp.

When I leave my name with secretaries and receptionists, I sometimes say “Derringer, like the gun.” As tiny two-round pistols that can be tucked into a lady’s garter have ceded their popularity to MAC-10 machine pistols, only a few pick up on the reference. The rest say, “OK, Miss Dillinger,” and leave it at that. Nice to know my married name is still ringing the old bells.

I’d link to the story, but you have to be a subscriber to the dead-tree paper to read the website. And I suspect hardly anyone here is. But welcome to any newbies it scared up. Feel free to join our raucous discussions in the comments. First-time commenters go to a holding pen, but once I’m satisfied you’re not a spammer, you’re approved forever after.

Anyway, that story wasn’t the most interesting thing in the paper yesterday. This was, a display ad in the classified section:

I am requesting your assistance in recovering a GOLD FABERGE EGG ENCRUSTED WITH JEWELS approximately 8 inches tall, attached to a wooden base, valued at over $6,000. The aforementioned egg was taken from a home on Lake Shore Drive, during an underage house party. The subjects that stole the egg along with other jewelry, stated that the ‘egg was thrown from a car window,’ while at a stop sign at southbound Wedgewood at Roslyn, November 12, 2007.

If you have any information, please call…

If I were the editor, I’d hand this ad to my best reporter and tell him or her to go fetch me a story, but I’ve given up expecting such initiative from the local press. Nevertheless, I appreciate their publicity.

In case you’re wondering, we got a few inches of snow overnight, making a search of the Wedgewood/Roslyn intersection problematic today. Anyway, I’m sure it’s long gone. What a thing to find on your dog-walking route. Life imitates “Risky Business.”

(It goes without saying that this was a Faberge-style egg, but that’s just a quibble. There are only about 60 authentic Faberge eggs extant in the world today, and their individual value is in the millions, not six grand.)

It’s still snowing, but no day off for Grosse Pointe schoolchildren, who, like the mayor of Detroit, generally get to school in chauffeured late-model SUVs. It’s a good day for shooting some video, as was yesterday, when the storm was coming. Early afternoon, it was very cold and very clear, so I went for a walk down by the lake and found the ice at our city park as solid as my kitchen floor, making wonderful groaning noises farther out. I had my video camera, so I crept out as far as I dared and tried to capture it. The crews cutting limbs at the Ford estate took a short break, so there was no chain saw noise to ruin the effect. I was thinking of shooting something like the last five minutes on “CBS Sunday Morning,” but once I got out far enough, the groaning stopped. Dammit. So I looked at some swans, trespassed a little on the Ford grounds, and turned back.

The bad news: The water level in the lake is as low as it was in the fall. Maybe lower. We could get three feet of snow today, and it wouldn’t be enough.

So what’s going on out in the big world? It seems the wind is changing. Isn’t it funny, how one day you just wake up in August and realize that fall is nearly here? Today…well, let’s call it Strange New Respect Day. Republicans are reconciling themselves to McCain. Hillary and Obama are making nice to one another. The next phase has begun, and it’s only Feb. 1. The race for the nomination will be effectively over after Tuesday (I suspect), and then we can start focusing on November.

By the way, if there was any doubt Stephen Colbert was a comic genius, it was gone when he pegged Mitt Romney to Guy Smiley:

I mean: Perfect.

(“Sesame Street” is so far past its peak it’s not even worth discussing, but it’s useful to remember the early years, when Jim Henson’s genius still infused the Muppet troupe. From Muppet Wiki: When Count von Count introduced himself in a Beat the Time sketch in his traditional way, “They call me the Count because I love to count things,” Guy responded with, “Well, I’m Guy Smiley. They call me Guy Smiley because I changed my name from Bernie Liederkrantz.”

Bloggage: I’ve always wondered how the downturn in newspapers’ fortunes is playing out in Europe, particularly the U.K., which publishes the liveliest papers in the English-speaking world. Give a smart writer a simple assignment — a general piece on men’s underwear — and watch her run:

Come the Renaissance, as the chausses became tight hose, the braies got shorter and were fitted with a convenient flap for urinating through. That buttoned or tied flap – the earliest codpiece – wasn’t actually covered by outer layers, so Henry VIII, never one for modesty, began to pad his. Historians have suggested that beneath Henry’s appendage may have been hidden the medication-soaked bandages needed to relieve the symptoms of his syphilis. Men free of venereal disease, meanwhile, used the tumescent codpieces as a handy pocket. (“New World cigarette?” “Ah, not for me, my lord, no.”)

Among the things I learned from that article, besides the disgusting one about Henry VIII’s syphilis: Brit slang for undies includes “smalls,” “y-fronts” and just plain “pants” (distinguished from trousers). Also, “there is one delicate area of pant advancement where men are not yet ready to go – universal package sizing.” Because no man wants to go into a department store and be spotted buying the masculine equivalent of a 32A.

What Gannett is Doing to the Free Press is a standard small-talk discussion among Detroit journalists since the paper’s sale two years ago, but to me, it all comes down to the Tips Box, the Gannett trademark, you-are-too-stupid-to-live-your-life feature tacked on to too many stories. With a big winter storm overnight, there’s a huge Tips feature in today’s paper. Among the tips: Protect your lungs from extremely cold air by covering your mouth when outdoors. Try not to speak unless absolutely necessary. Roger that, sir!

It seems a fitting note to shove off for the weekend on. Try not to speak unless absolutely necessary.

Remember that line in “Witness” before Harrison Ford witnesses the touching purity of Amish neighborliness, and makes lots of eyes at Kelly McGillis? The old Amish man, witnessing the tumult of the barn-raising threatening to fall into just another day of socializing, barks out:

“We’ve a barn to build and a day to do it!”

Well, I have 2,500 words to write before noon today. Not quite a barn, but not quite a whole day, either. So enjoy yourself an open thread, and I’ll see what I can dig up this afternoon.

Conversation starter: If you’re counting on a Democrat being elected president in November, and it doesn’t happen — never underestimate the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory — could you live with President John McCain? Why or why not? (My take, in a nutshell: Sure. If I could live with George W. Bush, I could live with anyone. But, you know, I’m a crazy dreamer.)

Or: Discuss the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field. Every time one of those guys came down hard on that cement decorated with dead grass masquerading as turf, one of my ribs cracked in sympathy.

Now, off to the mines for me.

Iowa means nothing. Pat Buchanan won the Iowa caucuses, remember. Iowa means everything. A black man, in a rural state, virtually unknown until four years ago? That’s something.

As for Huckabee, ha ha ha ha ha. It appears the GOP meltdown still has legs. Buy more popcorn. This could be good.

And that, I’m afraid, is about all I have to say about that. Years of living in an irrelevant state (Indiana, widely ignored by candidates from across the political spectrum) taught me not to waste hard-drive space thinking about political candidates who will be forgotten by the time I got a chance to cast my ballot (Steve Forbes, anyone?). The Michigan primary is in two weeks, but apart from a Romney ad that runs on the local news, I’ve seen little evidence of a campaign here. Of course, we’re being punished by the DNC, for daring to want a say in things. Takes a little of the wind out of the sails.

I admit to being a bit excited. Man, Obama. (I truly wish Chris Matthews would stop calling him a “son of Kenya,” however.) At this point, the Democrats could nominate a Hannibal Lecter/Britney Spears ticket, and I’d vote for it, so discontented am I with the status quo. The GOP has lost any claim on leading the country. In many ways, it’s just that simple.

Sorry no posts yesterday. I was tired. About once every week or 10 days, the collected weight of sleep deprivation collapses on my wee head, and there’s nothing to do for it but submit. That didn’t stop many of you from getting chatty in the comments, about architects, of all things. I love you guys. (P.S. I’ve never had to hire an architect in my life. Maybe that should be my goal for the second half of my life: Do something that requires an architect. Use NN.C commenters as consultants. I could use a new kitchen.)

One housekeeping note before we go further: Someone mentioned, in the comments, having to boycott this site until “The Wire” runs its course, but that won’t be necessary — all my Wireblogging will take place over at The New Package, with no mention here other than the customary link-whoring. The New Package is up and running, by the way, with a nice look at the numeric themes in season four, by our blogmistress, Virgotex.

And now, a shower. More later. Discuss Iowa, if you like.

This was the plan: To celebrate Christmas with my family in Columbus on Saturday, head for Defiance on Sunday and celebrate with Alan’s family then. It was all going according to plan and we were en route to northern Ohio Sunday when Alan’s sister called with the news that his mother had fallen and was being taken to the ER with a goose egg rising rapidly on her forehead.

This was no surprise, in that Alan’s mom is 89, has had a series of strokes and was generally weak as a kitten. Also not surprising, though upsetting, was that the blow to the head was now a “significant” subdural hematoma, bleeding in the brain, the only treatment for which was invasive surgery. What was more surprising were the preposterous hassles all this touched off, even after her children made the difficult decision that this injury was not survivable in any meaningful way and that she be given comfort care only in the final days of her life, but, well, life begins in pain and ends the same way.

Alan’s mom, Marian Derringer, died Thursday afternoon in a hospice in Defiance. As you can imagine, this will preoccupy us for a while. We thank you in advance for your condolences, and we’re doing fine. Once all the hoops had been jumped early in the week — did you know you have to be in a facility where you can have brain surgery before you can refuse brain surgery? Visit beautiful Toledo! — the last few days were about as peaceful as can be expected. The hospice movement has been a great comfort to many families going through a difficult time. I expect that’s because after a long interaction with the medical profession, it’s pleasant to interact with nurses who speak plain English, move at a leisurely pace and let you have a dog in the room.

That’s what we did Wednesday — had our family Christmas at the hospice, with the dog. It was a nice afternoon.

There’s a lot going on in the world this week, and I’ve been jotting notes everywhere. (Heard there was a big to-do in Pakistan; you might want to check the papers.) But for now, I’m laying that stuff aside, closing the laptop and stepping out for a bit. Be back…let’s say New Year’s Day. You’ve been a great audience, and we’ll see you then.

Because the true lesson of middle age is to never say, “Things couldn’t get any worse” — because there’s always a way for anything to get worse — a warning that my presence may be scarce around here the next couple days. We’re preoccupied with a family situation. Nothing for you folks to worry about; we’re all healthy and safe. But others aren’t, and we’ll be traveling today, and out of touch.

But that’s OK, because we have a truly fabulous photo from Julie Robinson, who writes: For the holdiays at the Robinson household, we like to encourage our children to engage in cross-dressing. This is our son in his Madrigals tunic and tights. He doesn’t understand how girls can wear such short skirts. Carefully, said Mom, very carefully.

She doesn’t tell us the young man’s name. Let’s call him…Ashley.

On day one of Kwanzaa, I wish you all umoja. Let’s try this again tomorrow.

Sometimes, here, we talk about Ashley, our valued reader and commenter. That’s Ashley Morris, Warren Zevon fan, New Orleans radical. Professor of computer science at DePaul University. (Yes, in Chicago. It’s a very long commute.)

When we talk about Ashley here, sometimes someone will say, “Who does this Ashley Morris think she is?”

It happened again this week, in a private e-mail. I already straightened my correspondent out, but just to state for the record…

This is Ashley Morris, the NN.C reader:

He’s the one in the Devils jersey. The woman in the picture is Mrs. Ashley Morris, whom you don’t want to mess with, either, as she’s six feet tall six feet two and currently on the Big Easy Rollergirls’ DL.

This is Ashley Morris, the actress:

(As you might expect, Our Ashley says of his namesake, “I’d hit it.”)

As to how Ashley got a girl’s name, all I can say is, haven’t any of you people seen “Gone With the Wind?”

That is all. Carry on.

Not much today, friends, but you’re free to play like kittens in the comments. Just to get you started…

Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to be Mitch Albom, to get up every morning, look in the mirror and say, “I am worth every penny.” Think he does that? Or does he, like so many other successful people, secretly believe he has pulled off an illusion worthy of Ricky Jay, and tremble inwardly at what will happen when the audience finds out? I dunno. All I know is, I have never been a sportswriter and everything I know about baseball could fit in a shoebox, and I could have written a better column about the Mitchell Report than this. In fact, if you’d given me the Mitchell Report as a challenge, and asked me to write something about it, something suitable for a daily newspaper, I would have turned in something very much like Albom’s column. Watch me as I reveal the mysteries of punditry:

First, state facts already in evidence:

… the report was not earth-shattering, only because we already have suspected much of what it contained. Sure, many more names were thrown on the bonfire, including All-Stars such as Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Miguel Tejada, and as you read this, analysts and fans are screaming over how to view their careers.

Then, ask a lot of rhetorical questions:

So now what? … And if they had nothing to hide, why didn’t any of them talk? …Or will the net result be, as many suspect, a big fat nothing?

Sign off with that time-tested waffler:

Where we go next is anyone’s guess.

Cash check.

Michael Rosenberg, the other Freep sports columnist, does a better job. Not hugely better, but better. Writing a first-day column about a big event expected to have wide repercussions someday, but not today, is always an exercise in thumb-twiddling. But some twiddle better than others. For instruction on how to do it well, I recommend Thomas Boswell and Harvey Araton.

For the scores of you keeping track at home, let me report the dog’s health has taken a dramatic turn for the better on his new food. Within 24 hours, his energy improved, his tucked-in skinny flanks began to fill out and he stopped looking like a sick dog, and more like a very healthy one. There was a trip to the groomer in there for a bath and haircut, which helped, but you can’t fake weight gain. He goes back next week for another blood test, and unless my eyes deceive me, the results will be good.

Something to think about for later this month. Last year we spent that down week between the holidays posting pictures submitted by you folks. Because we have so many regular commenters here, it’s nice to get a closer look at one another when there’s not much else going on. So send in some holiday pictures, and we’ll fill the waning days of the year sharing them here.

So have a great weekend. Mine will be exhausting. Hope yours isn’t.

As should be obvious from my remarks here and there, my video-camera problem has been solved. My dear friend J.C. Burns sent me his Canon GL1 on extended loan-with-option-to-buy, and my new Flip, aka “the second unit,” can go places the Canon can’t. So I’m hoping to have some video up here within a few weeks, as soon as I can suss out the complexities of getting everyone talking to everyone else, as well as the new version of iMovie, which is a pain in the ass.

However, it appears the real genius piece of gear in all of this is my new Gorillapod, which I strongly recommend to anyone who likes to fool around with cameras. Yesterday I used a long drive to Northville (a distant suburb that was, frankly, not worth the tire rubber) to do some video note-taking for an upcoming feature, working title “Let’s Go Drivin’ in the D with Nance.” I splayed the Gorillapod on the dashboard, affixed the Flip, and prepared for the usual freeway mayhem. The disappointment was that motorists were unusually well-behaved; I was only passed on the right at 85 mph by one or two cell-phone yakkers. But the G’pod was a revelation. It shifted not a millimeter, stayed steady on corners and exit ramps, and together with the Flip took up no more space than a dash-mounted GPS system, which is what it looked like.

Trust me: It’s the best $20 you’ll spend for good pictures. There’s even a Flickr group dedicated to its wonders.

After the Virginia Tech shooting, in which a few bold conservatives took a new step down the yea-guns road by blaming the victims for their own death (because they failed to “rush the guy” while he was reloading), I could hardly wait to see what would be said in the bullshitosphere after the next mass shooting — the brush had been cleared, after all. It didn’t take long: now Instapundit, who declares himself a libertarian, is suggesting that properties that declare themselves gun-free should be held personally liable for violence that occurs there: Perhaps we need legislation. If it saves just one life, it’s worth it.

Roy Edroso points out what you might suspect: That the rootin’, tootin’ western state of Nebraska has no effective restraints on long-barreled firearms, although it does restrict carrying concealed weapons. You need a permit to purchase a handgun, but not to own one. The “gun-free zone” that the right-wingers are all up in arms about is likely the legal opt-out that private-property owners employ these days. When I was in Minnesota a few years back, you saw signs everywhere declaring this or that building gun-free. It wasn’t enforced with metal detectors or anything; I suspect it was a liability dodge, or maybe a corporate bumper sticker, or something. So the mall in Omaha had these signs, and now a leading libertarian is suggesting some legislation to, what? Outlaw gun-free zones? Allow victims to sue?

I have a libertarian proposition for you: Let some savvy, pistol-packin’ real-estate developer open the OK Corral Mall down the street from this one. Go ahead and scratch up some tenants, and proudly display a sign: Everyone’s packin’ a peacemaker. Enter at your own risk. Let’s let the market sort it out!

Just speaking for myself, having a heavily armed populace just next door in Detroit makes me feel extra-safe there.

It occurs to me from my recent linkage there, some might think Roy’s is the only blog I read. If only. But I am trying to cut down, at least on the political stuff. Roy’s niche is arts, culture and calling out wingnuts. Works for me. But if you’re wondering, I also read TBogg; Lawyers, Guns and Money and a few others. Lately I’ve been reading more non-politics sites, like Bossy and, of course, the Fug Girls, even though they were way too tough on Beyoncé this week, if you ask me. That green dress does make her look a little like one of the guppies in my fish tank, but a very sexy one.

I’m adding a new tag here: Metro mayhem, for stories like this. Why do men beat their wives? (Answer, at least in this case: Because he was drunk.) Bonus: Two 911 recordings that demonstrate just how horrible 911 operators are around here.

OK, paying work awaits. Have a great day.