Someone sent me Marilyn Hagerty’s column about the Olive Garden opening in Grand Forks, N.D. about 10-ish Thursday morning. By late afternoon, the story was everywhere and, hence, played. And so the bristling pace of the Internet’s snark cycle leaves me sucking hind tailpipe once again.

But just in case you didn’t see it, here it is, a little masterpiece of business reporting:

The place is impressive. It’s fashioned in Tuscan farmhouse style with a welcoming entryway. There is seating for those who are waiting.

My booth was near the kitchen, and I watched the waiters in white shirts, ties, black trousers and aprons adorned with gold-colored towels. They were busy at midday, punching in orders and carrying out bread and pasta.

Some years back, Alan was contacted by a journalism headhunter who asked if he’d be interested in a department head-level position in Fargo. The answer: No. Grand Forks was once part of the Knight-Ridder family, so I guess that might have beem an option, too. The answer was still no. But as the tireless, steroidal snarkers at Gawker demonstrate, this is not a North Dakota thing, it’s an Olive Garden thing; the OG appears in newspaper restaurant reviews over and over. And all I have to say about that is what Hagerty herself told the Village Voice — I told you this thing went viral — today:

If you were going to review the fine dining here, you’d be done in three weeks–there’s only about three places you could call “fine dining.”

But while we’re on the subject, let’s skip to another exemplar of North Dakota journalism, the amusingly named Jon Flatland:

Jon Flatland, a columnist, a former president of the North Dakota Newspaper Association and one-time newspaper owner, has been exposed as a serial plagiarist.

When confronted with the evidence gathered by humor writer Dave Fox, Flatland abruptly resigned from his position as interim managing editor of the Times in Blooming Prairie, Minnesota and “quickly and quietly left town,” according to the paper’s publisher.

In a profile last month of Jon Flatland and his wife, whom he met online, the Minnesota native said, “Don’t try to be someone you’re not, because if and when you do meet someone through a service like eHarmony, they’re going to find out pretty quickly you weren’t being honest. Just be yourself.” It’s unclear how many humor columns of Flatland’s included stolen material, but it appears to go back many years and involves work taken from a variety of columnists.

This guy makes Tim Goeglein look like a piker. Having seen a few clips from the papers that were running him — links in the piece — I bet I know what happened: This guy thought he might as well have been stationed on Mars, and even Google doesn’t reach that far. His mistake: Once Olive Garden gets there, Google is right behind.

But what I really want to talk about today was this little moment from earlier this week, as detailed by Jonathan Chait:

Earlier this week, a pretty interesting and telling exchange took place at a Mitt Romney town hall meeting. A student asked Romney what he would do to make college more affordable for students who struggle to pay for it. Romney’s reply was jarring:

“It would be popular for me to stand up and say I’m going to give you government money to pay for your college, but I’m not going to promise that,” he said, to sustained applause from the crowd at a high-tech metals assembly factory here. “Don’t just go to one that has the highest price. Go to one that has a little lower price where you can get a good education. And hopefully you’ll find that. And don’t expect the government to forgive the debt that you take on.”

Wow. This is the candidate who has promised to keep the pillows plumped for everyone now over 55, but if you had the misfortune of being born later (even by a year or two, like, um, me), too bad. And if you have, oh, children on the other side of the line? What then? Find a nice community college, sucka. Too bad you weren’t born rich, like my kids! This sort of redefines cynicism, doesn’t it? What country can long survive betting against its youngest members?

Ed Kilgore at Washington Monthly has more.

Boy, am I not looking forward to this campaign. Maybe we need some levity.

Shit girls say to gay guys.

And if you don’t like that, the Northern lights over Lake Superior, night before last. I’m sure if you were there, it made the cell-phone interference totally worth it.

Great weekend, all!

Googling the Black Keys the other day, I came across this year-old, sadly appalling essay by Denise Grollmus, who if you don’t know the name is the former Mrs. Patrick Carney, and he is one-half of the Black Keys. A key, if you will.

They married young and divorced only a little older, and if you think the story of their breakup is worth wading through for the special insights she will bring to the tale, something about love and commitment and fame and Grammys, you’re not going to get that. If you think it’ll be worth it because there’s lots of dirty dirt about backstage cheating and groupies and whether Mick Jagger’s equipment is really the tiny todger Keith Richards says it is, you won’t get that, either. Which is why I finished it irritated. It’s not a short piece, and frankly, the most interesting part of it was this bit from the comments:

Patrick Carney has to be screened for Marfan Syndrome, if he hasn’t already. I’m struck by his physical features and how, like many I know, fit the MFS profile. His height, lanky frame and long limbs and face and glasses.

OK, no, that wasn’t the most interesting part. This was:

I started going to therapy, where I was diagnosed with alcohol-induced mood disorder, a diagnosis that I quickly dismissed because I thought I knew better.

This is an actual diagnosis? Alcohol-induced mood disorder? Where I come from, honey, we call that “being drunk,” and a disordered mood is sort of the point. But OK, I get it: You married your sweet rocker boyfriend, you were happy for a time, and then you weren’t, and you got a divorce. If you’re really the master’s level creative nonfiction writer your website says you are, you ought to be able to do a lot better.

Why do couples do this? I guess it’s natural for a writer to seek revenge in writing — lord knows I’ve tried often enough. But this sort of thing is just squicky. No greater lessons are learned, no grand conclusions drawn, no attempt made to justify the intrusion into a couple’s intimate life with a bigger truth about our frail human hearts. It’s one of those things for which the kids have a word: FAIL.

So.

Has anyone noticed I’ve been silent on the Rush Limbaugh affair? I have. I’m just sitting here, watching the pinball bounce around the machine, only really I’m thinking about “Angry Birds,” which isn’t pinball. I had finished all levels of the game and was on the verge of deleting it from my iPad when I launched it one last time and discovered a new level, and a new bird. It’s orange. Its trick is, after it lands, it inflates like a balloon for a few seconds, then deflates and fizzles off into the ether. It’s a tricky one; if you can’t wedge it into a place where its inflation will knock a few pigs loose, it’s not much use to you.

Anyway, I’ve been wondering if Rush is the orange bird, inflated but just about to start hissing air out and flying around the room for a few final seconds. And even as the advertisers jump off his sinking ship, I don’t see this ending any way other than well for the fat man. His bunker is too well-padded with money, and there will always be someone to advertise their crap on his show. Every photo I see of him, he’s with some other old white man, who’s frequently laughing maniacally at something Rush said, mouth gaping open and double chins a-quiver. He’s yesterday. Sandra Fluke — and Denise Grollmus — are the future.

Although who knows? Maybe he’s going off his rocker. I’m told she was Tuesday’s target, a Michigan woman who’s written a book about food. And no, I can’t figure out why he was upset, either. But it’ll be good for book sales, I’m sure.

A little bloggage:

Hey, basketball fans: Amy Welborn’s son edited this. (NOTE: Link fixed.)He works for Turner Broadcasting. Discussing this with J.C., who also worked there, I wondered if Amy’s son might have ever seen three enormous Ampex 2-inch videotape decks that used to be there, each wearing an engraved name tag — Jill, Kelly and Sabrina. (The original Charlie’s Angels, for you youngsters.) J.C. said of course not, those decks were long gone, but here’s a bit of super-ultra-obscure broadcast trivia: They were originally called Larry, Curly and Moe, the names written with Magic Marker on index cards. They were sent out for service, back to Ampex, and Ampex returned them with the new names, and the fancy tags. A little joke between the company and a good customer. Their decks were angels, not stooges.

It’s been a long day. I think I’m going to bed.

What a weekend. Lurched into it with book club Friday, at which I had .2 glasses of wine too many, enough to require me to air many opinions about George Clooney in an outside voice. (I say so many things in my outside voice. It’s one thing about myself I really wish I could change.) It so happened many other members of the club had been drinking wine as well, perhaps not as enthusiastically as me, and many had opinions on Clooney, too. We shared and shared, and then I looked at the sole male member of the club, who did not appear to be having fun.

Sorry about that, Mike.

The book was Ann Patchett’s “State of Wonder.” Liked it very much. It had nothing to do with George Clooney. If you’ve been to a book club, you know how this can happen. Unless you have one of those non-drinking book clubs, in which case I ask: Why bother?

By the way, I’m changing the On the Nightstand book to this. I’ve finished the book, but I’m tired of looking at the Odor Eaters over there on the sidebar. Laziness, thy name is Nance.

Then, Saturday, off to the Black Keys at the Joe. I haven’t been to an arena show in years. I can’t say it’s my favorite venue, but there’s something about a sold-out crowd rising a considerable distance to the ceiling, all on their feet and dancing to “Lonely Boy,” that carries a jolt of energy. It was a good show. Two guys on a great big stage, making a shitload of noise — that’s entertainment.

And after another mild tease, the cold weather returned, although it’ll be yielding in a few days. The Tigers are playing in Florida, and spring is in the air. Here’s hoping we get a proper one, and that winter doesn’t pay us back for not being quite so tough this year by staying a little longer.

So, bloggage? Sure…

For a man who has literally made a fortune off of death, Mitch Albom remains ever-surprised by it:

Davy Jones died.

I didn’t think that was possible.

No comment.

Thirty years since John Belushi was found dead of a speedball overdose? Yep. Michael Heaton weighs in with a personal remembrance that’s worth your time (and with a lesson for journalists):

…I had to ask Aykroyd one question: Of all the media in the world — the print folks, the TV people who had been hounding him for an interview since Belushi’s death — why did he choose me, a lowly, unknown freelancer for People magazine?

“You were the only one who called,” he said.

I have no sexy memory like this, but my takeaway from the Belushi death was the reaction to “Wired,” Bob Woodward’s tone-deaf, yet exhaustive, account of his brief life. His Hollywood friends were astonished and appalled that the book wasn’t a wet kiss for their pal the comic genius, but a straightforward story of what happens when you get too much money too fast, and the wet kisses are all applied to your ass. Judy Belushi actually gave an interview admitting she thought she was talking to the character played by Robert Redford in “All the President’s Men.” An early lesson that maybe the people upon whom money and power is bestowed aren’t as smart as they pretend to be.

Until I read Roy’s short piece about it, I had no idea this was happening — the Kochs trying to buy the Cato Institute. This is what I get for trying to pay less attention to politics. I won’t be making that mistake again. Too funny.

I gotta admit: I was encouraged by the centurions.

When Madonna made her Super Bowl halftime entrance on a stage being towed by an army of Roman soldiers, I thought perhaps a miracle had happened, and she had developed a sense of humor about herself. It was a witty comment on the field as the arena of gladiatorial battle; of herself, as a man-eater who could only be satisfied by an army of ’em; of, I dunno, the episode of “Rome” where Cleopatra travels about in a giant house being toted by a few dozen Nubians, while their princess lolls inside, smoking opium.

And then the show started, and oh well.

The sound was bad, but that happens in fast-changing live shows. The dancing was robotic, but that happens when everyone is hired for their robotic nature, so as not to distract from the star. And the music! Madonna’s greatest hits. Sure, of course. Because what she’s really promoting is her new movie, which no one wants to see. Madonna has been looking for her post-pop career for longer than she was fully present as a pop star, but she always ends up having to add the pop-star thing, contribute a song to the soundtrack so at least it’ll be eligible for one little award. And now, to get people to see “W.E.,” she’ll do the Super Bowl halftime show and give some interviews.

I read one the other day. She was asked about Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII’s Nazi sympathies. She denied they had any. Oh? How did she figure that? “Research,” she flatly stated. There’s not one substantive piece of evidence to prove they were Hitler-lovers, so that’s that.

Well, there’s that famous photo, and her friends’ and contemporaries’ accounts of her belief that Herr Hitler would put things right, and make her queen, once he got Europe under his boot. But of course Madge would be a Wallis fan, because they’re both such rebels! They don’t care what society thinks! They’re headstrong, too tempestuous to tame! And so on. Which is why I don’t have much hope for whatever she does next. Because she takes herself so, so seriously, with the Grande Ladye faux-British accent and always referring to herself as an “ah-tist.”

What she needs is a sitdown with Bette Midler. They’ll get along, and Bette will set her straight. Bette puts her background singers in mermaid tails and does a wheelchair dance routine. Bruce Vilanch writes her material. I’ve loved Bette since…well, since I first laid eyes on her, but especially since she came to sing at a Rolling Stone anniversary thing, maybe the 10-year party, and did what she does best: Walk into a place taking itself far too seriously and get them to stop. I remember she sang a song and then looked down at Sonny and Cher, sitting ringside. “What’s the matter, Sonny?” she asked. “Never seen a woman with bazooms before?”

Bette is about 66 now, still killing it (when she wants to), and is perfectly positioned to be Madonna’s life coach, and last best hope to find a career doing anything other than another lip-synched medley of greatest hits. If the first piece of advice she offers is “hire Bruce Vilanch,” we can at least thank her for that.

Other than that, it was a good Super Bowl, I guess. Liked the Chevy Silverado commercial best, but thought the rest were mostly meh. Clint Eastwood did his little Chrysler sermonette; I think that campaign is now officially played. You have the bookends now; let’s let it go. By next year, we’ll either have a new president (who thinks Chrysler would be better off lying dead on the ground, some private-equity vultures picking over its parts) or four more years of Obama. The case for the bailout has been made. Stop making it.

What did you think? Of all of it?

Kate’s band had a gig last night. It was a Groundhog Day Eve event at one of the city parks. It was the usual clusterbump — the organizer thought “a PA system” referred to the one with speakers in the ceiling. Scott thought he could use the music school’s electronic drums, and he could, but we had to go fetch them. And then we got set up, and looked around. They thought it would be like the elementary school ice-cream social they played last spring, but it turned out to be even younger kids and a table of developmentally disabled adults. They were the final act, after the nature presentation on groundhogs.

“I feel like we’re in a Seinfeld episode,” Kate said.

“More like a Fellini movie,” I corrected.

But they did fine, even it was a little strange, their alt-rock repertoire with the little kids and the adults and the guy in the groundhog suit. But there was cake — how bad could it be? They finished the show with three verses of “I’m a Little Groundhog.” You don’t know that one?

I’m a little groundhog, furry and round
I’m coming out to look around
If I see my shadow, down I go
Six more weeks of winter, oh no!

I have it on video. I’ve been warned that if I put it on the internet, I will never be forgiven. Can’t really blame her.

So, happy groundhog day. Six more weeks of winter? We haven’t had six weeks of winter, period. Another ridonkulous day of above-40s temperatures, and the daffodils are now a full inch above ground. I’m thinking this is maybe it.

So, some bloggage?

Is there anything to say other than this? Don Cornelius is dead. One more line dance, for old time’s sake:

Happy Thursday, whether your groundhog sees its shadow or not.

Today was one of those days I was, as the kids say, so not looking forward to — breaking news happening in Grosse Pointe at a time when I can’t cover it, because I work for someone else now. However, when God gives you a job, he also opens a window, and through it can crawl a great student who, when you text him Breaking news. Call me, sets your phone a-jingling in about 60 seconds and then, when you explain that a local resident has been found dead in her car in Detroit, says, “I’ll brush my teeth, and then I’ll head down there.”

All of which makes me say: I am SO glad you’re here.

Seriously. It’s a tragedy, but when you have a competent person to help you carry the load, that’s all you can say. Journalists have to write a lot of stories we wish hadn’t happened. The good ones can get it down with minimal trauma to all.

Journo-peeps? If you have an internship to offer, you could do worse than Dustin Blitchok. He gets it.

Yeesh, what a day. Homicide, class and a full day for the Center. I don’t know about you, but when night fell, I dropped Kate at her Wednesday-night music lesson and went directly to the jazz club/restaurant a few blocks away, ordered steak and eggs and had a wonderful dinner all by my lonesome.

Eating alone with something to read: One of the great pleasures of my adult life. I’m such an eavesdropper.

So, a pic for today? How about Michigan, as seen from space?

Did you know Michigan has more coastline than California? It’s true.

The bad news: It’s frequently heaped with snow. Still.

Bloggage:

It’s sad when a famous person goes crazy, but when an obnoxious famous person goes crazy and refuses to shut up, that’s en-ter-tain-ment:

Victoria Jackson doesn’t want to meet at her house. “The Nation of Islam wants to kill me,” she explains apologetically in her inimitable shrill voice. Instead, she picks up a reporter at a Miami-area strip mall. Her weathered Honda Civic is adorned with “Nobama,” Marco Rubio, and Tea Party bumper stickers, and inside, it smells like it’s been fumigated with sweet incense.

She hurtles through intersections and down side streets, holding a Flip cam to her face with her left hand. Steering with elbows and the occasional pinkie, she opens a Bible inscribed with her name and quotes Scripture. Then she turns the camera on a reporter riding shotgun, whom she suspects is a socialist. “Don’t you think that some people are on welfare from cradle to grave,” she demands, ploddingly, “because the government is encouraging them never to work?”

Why did I ever take Lifehacker off my bookmarks? They know everything.

Farewell to the anonymous internet. Oh, Google. Why?

Happy Thursday to all.

Pix ‘n’ linx on a night when it’s so windy I regret that I live under tall trees. Only on nights like this, but they happen often enough that I pass an uneasy night every few months. We are paying for yet another April-in-January morning — nearly 50 today. And now the warmth must be banished. In 35 mph gusts.

So let’s ask Flickr for “wind” in the Creative Commons area. This is nice:

Thanks, Richard White. That’s a lovely country you have there. (England.)

Now, some linkage:

New York magazine, in what we all hope is hyperbole, promises us the slimiest campaign season ever. It probably isn’t hyperbole. Oh, I can’t wait.

If you want to feel better, though, here’s Gabrielle Giffords finishing the town meeting she started a little over a year ago, and didn’t finish. I love her bad-guys-don’t-get-to-win spirit. This is a great country.

Duff McKagan — yes, that one — on the SOPA affair:

The legislation’s meant to combat theft of creative works like movies and music from overseas web sites. But when I turned to the Twitter and Facebook, I saw an overwhelming dog pile of support against the bills. Excuse me, but where were you all when piracy started to decimate the music industry? Why didn’t you take a stand against that? Those free records felt good, huh?

The fury from the Internet class is that the broad language in the pieces of legislation will be bad for start-ups, might prevent the next YouTube, or give the government the ability to take down a whole site because of one link to copyrighted works. In short, they’re opposed to the legislation because they think it will be bad for the Internet business.

Bad for business. Anti-piracy legislation could be bad for the Internet business. It almost takes my breath away. Internet piracy has claimed half of the recorded music business, and made the prospect of making a living as a musician harder for artists of all rank and file. Why didn’t Google, or Facebook, or Wikipedia ever stand in solidarity with musicians, actors, and writers – most of whom have never known fame and fortune – as their works were stolen with no recourse on their sites?

You gotta admit, the guy has a point. Barn doors and horses and all that, but someone needs to say it.

And now it’s, what? Tuesday? Is that all? Seemed like a long Monday. Let’s hope it speeds by.

I think I’m starting to lose my perspective on media criticism. Have I been away too long? Am I cynical to the point of…cynicism? I need a reality check. Watch this, and tell me I’m crazy to think it’s — what’s the word I’m looking for? — vile:

It’s a long piece, and I’m sorry to ask you for 11 whole minutes of your time. Asking someone to watch Charlie LeDuff is a little like asking them to watch Morton Downey Jr., c. 1982. Is this a new thing? Is this what TV news people do now? Pose dramatically, do stupid visualizations of their narrative, and build an 11-minute piece out of the fact one’s grandfather was a “mulatto,” whatever that meant in the American South at early midcentury, and then have the nerve to call their piece about it — wait for it — “Black Like Me?”

You people who do genealogy research (Alex?) and are familiar with the racial issues it sometimes brings up (Alex!) are going to have to calibrate me a little. Because this is chapping my ass. I’m starting to believe I have found the next Albom. And that’s saying something.

I had a work-at-home day, and what a perfect day it was: Take Kate to school just as the sky was lowering, work near a window through a lovely, brief snowstorm, then watch it clear off and get all sparkly while the high pressure moved in with the cold air. A red-tailed hawk landed on my garage roof, and that cleared off the crowd at the bird feeder for a good long while. I rooted for the predator to find lunch somewhere, if not at our feeder.

And now it’s Thursday night, and I’m about to shut down the internet, because I understand Newt Gingrich is thundering at some CNN sap, and the only thing that can fix that is some “Project Runway.” But before I do, a little bloggage:

I’m late posting this from Charles Pierce, his account of How The Greatest Health-Care System In The World Works, an account of something that happens to someone, and likely many someones, every single day in this country:

I mention all of this because, tomorrow night, the five remaining Republican candidates will get up on stage and they will promise to repeal even the tepid, insurance-friendly reform of the way we do health-care in this country. Willard Romney will do this even though the tepid, insurance-friendly reform is one he virtually invented. They will have nothing to replace it. They will argue for “market-based” solutions. The above — that is a “market-based solution.” And, by the way, this is the kind of thing that zombie-eyed granny starver Paul Ryan wants to put elderly people through in place of Medicare. Phone trees. Automated voices. Hours of their dwindling lives on hold, waiting for purportedly live persons who won’t be able to help them. And zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan is considered by people in my business to be a serious thinker on these matters.

Every single one of these Republicans will make the argument that, because of the entire morning I spent dealing with the preposterous way we do health-care in this country, that I am a “freer” person than are the people in Canada, or New Zealand, or Germany, or Finland. That I had to spend an entire morning mired in bureaucratic absurdity means I have retained my “freedom” as an American.

I’m not up on Paula Deen, you guys. I don’t watch cooking shows for the most part, but I pay at least some attention to pop culture, and I knew she was known for buttery, sugary, over-the-top, borderline-white-trashy food. I didn’t really have many thoughts on her diabetes diagnosis other than to say that it’s too bad, until I saw this and fell to the floor, insensate. Bacon-wrapped, deep-fried macaroni and cheese? Oh-kay.

Finally, thanks to Paddyo, what it’s like to have a rabbit in your life, and apparently, no limit on what you’ll spend on vet care. Sweet, but crazy.

Oh, it’s so nice to watch “Project Runway” again, in real time. Lifetime has done its best to ruin it, but it’s still worth your time, if you don’t mind all those promos for “Dance Moms” along the way. Tonight’s challenge is to make a ball gown suitable for opening night at the opera. The winner was one of two or three that deserved it (Austin). Now here comes the boot. I’m thinking it’s going to be Sweet P. And yes! I’m right. I knew she was toast. Her dress looked like something you’d wear to a beach party, not the opera.

Reality television. It’s not my thing, but sometimes, it’s my thing.

Every so often I think about what the next new thing’s going to be, in any field. Not long ago we were talking about R.E.M., which broke up after 30 years. The Beatles were together for, what, seven? When was the last real new thing in pop music? Hip-hop, I figure — something no one had ever heard before, that enough people flipped over (and the right people hated) that it took its place in the parade. Same with TV. Reality TV made its first big splash with “Survivor.” A friend told me it wouldn’t last. “Reality TV is OVER,” he was always declaring. The last time he did, it was 2002.

Reality TV. Not over.

How about some bloggage?

A very oldie, but something I hadn’t read before, until someone unearthed it for the New Hampshire primary — Henry Allen on New Hampshire. Cruel and unfair, but it feels right to me. The place sounds like northern Michigan.

Six things I love about Detroit, by some Internet guy I should know more about, but don’t.

Matty Moroun’s terrible, awful, no-good, very bad week. And one that made applause break out in the courtroom.

I’m going to bed.

So this is it, then? Winter solstice? It doesn’t exactly feel like it — too warm — but given that it’s 8 a.m. and barely light, and that it’s raining and looks like it will be doing so for a while, then I guess this must be the place. Today the corner is turned. (Technically, not until 12:30 a.m. tomorrow, in my time zone, anyway.) Enjoy it, Argentina. Because we’re coming for that light. Starts now.

That last link is a sound clip, and somewhat NSFW, depending on your office. From one of my favorite movies-nobody-else-saw: “The Limey.” Roger Ebert gave it three stars, or a half-star less than what he gave “Horrible Bosses,” which was so bad I couldn’t even last through the DVD, and that’s saying something. It was amazingly crude, and do you know what it takes for me to say that? I, who once worked in newsrooms? How did we get to this point? One minute you’re laughing at the semen-as-hair-gel gag in “There’s Something About Mary,” the next a character in a Judd Apatow movie is dressing down another for shaving his balls in the bathroom and leaving the hair in the toilet, so that “my shit looked like a stuffed animal.” This was in “Knocked Up,” which later took a tonal shift to suggest the main character is positively changed by the presence of a child in his life. In other words, they girlied it up to make it suitable date-night fare, which suggests there are women out there who sat through the turd conversation en route to the baby-picture montage over the closing credits, and were pleased. What a world.

Although I hope “Bad Santa” comes around on one of the cable channels in the next few days. Because that was one that did crudity right. More or less.

Excuse me, we have a correction: Technically the winter solstice is at 12:30 a.m. tomorrow, I’m told. In my time zone anyway.

I’m still waiting for the coffee to kick in, so how about a picture I stole from a total stranger’s Facebook?

That’s our own MMJeff on the left. I guess he brought the gold to the infant Jesus, although think, Jeff: If you were traveling by donkey, preparing for the flight into Egypt, would a ginormous candlestick be a practical gift? Still, nice that you played your part in the living Nativity — you really are a Boy Scout, aren’t you? There was one last weekend at the church next to my Kroger store. The camel-wrangler wore the traditional burnoose over jeans and sneakers, and took a few calls on his cell phone while children petted his dromedary. If the wise men lived at this latitude, they would most definitely wear sweatshirts beneath their kingly finery.

Shoes are always the Achilles heel of the period costume. At how many renaissance faires have I watched knights and ladies touring the grounds in Tevas? The Johnny Appleseed Festival in Fort Wayne featured electricity-free carnival rides — I always liked the wind-up spinning thing — run by people wearing Nikes. The true non-farb Civil War re-enactor pays through the nose for a pair of true Civil War-era reproduction boots, which did not come in left-right configurations until afterward.

So, speaking of movies: Alan and I have finally accepted the inevitable, and are doing the years-overdue adult chore of writing our wills. We had the signing at the lawyer’s office yesterday. Without going into too much none-of-anyone’s-business detail, I was delighted to learn that the living trust we’ve set up features a “stuff” section, designed to dispose of particular valuables and/or personal possessions, should that be important to us. We can hand-write our wishes there, amend and cross them out, which strikes me as a very cinematic thing to have in one’s safe-deposit box. The first person I knew in life who had a significant relative die came back from the funeral with the disappointing news that wills aren’t all they’re cracked up to be in the movies. There was no dramatic reading in a lawyer’s office with the women all dressed in black, clutching hankies in their grief. There was no itemized list of goodies, with flowery legal instructions about their disposition, just some version of “I leave all my stuff to X, Y and Z,” and they can sort things out.”

I may, just for laffs, fill out this section with a list of identical distributions, all but the last one crossed out, to suggest a mercurial temperament I simply don’t have.

OK, so, bloggage:

The tea party takes the reins of power: The queer-bashin’ Troy mayor’s path through public service continues to be rocky, and this time it has nothing to do with her I-heart-NY tote bag. She and her confederates defeated a long-planned transit hub in that city earlier this week, by a 4-3 vote, bucking the wishes of the business community, which turned on her with a vengeance this week. The project came with $8 million in federal aid, but they reasoned that with the government drowning in debt, they must do their part, and said no thanks. The Chamber of Commerce was furious — do you know how hard it is for a suburban mayor in Oakland County to piss off a chamber of commerce? — and yesterday a remarkable letter leaked from a government-affairs manager from a major automotive supplier, saying he would put the word out in the business community that they “no longer consider the City of Troy for future site considerations, expansions or new job creation.” Wow.

The mayor, for her part, claims she’s heard “nothing but congratulations and accolades.”

Cathy Cambridge falls out in a black evening dress, looks smashing. I kind of wish she’d put her hair up for events like this, however, if only so we can ogle the rocks.

Perhaps some of you followed the link to the latest story about embarrassing College Republicans yesterday; I think Cooz posted something in comments. A roundup here, at Romenesko’s site. A student tweeted something offensive about the president: My president is black, he snorts a lot of crack. Holla. #2012 #Obama. You know what bugs me most about that? That stupid holla. Y’know: I’m a racist, but I still want to use hip-hop slang.

OK, the Great Christmas Cleaning Project begins. Holla!