-- A former UA football player makes good with the Denver Broncos.

-- Another border tragedy takes lives.

-- Oil prices are totally hosed.

-- And finally, journalism gets another black eye.

-- So, wait a minute ... Gannett bought a college newspaper?!? THAT IS SO WRONG!

-- There's a "Joementum" joke here somewhere, I am sure, but it's too damn early on a Monday morning for me to find it.

-- And because I loooove mocking this idiot feature so ... in Saturday's Star, "Thorns and Flowers" took the edgy positions of giving kudos to someone in Flagstaff who sent a check to the police as pay for a motorcycle stolen almost four decades ago (gee, I guess nobody local did anything good for the Star to recognize); and a thorn to—I can't believe I am writing this—a dog. YES, THE STAR GAVE A THORN TO A FREAKIN' DOG. And what did this dog due to earn the Star's ire? It tore the head off of a teddy bear that belonged to Elvis.

Wow. I mean ... just wow. 

For those of you unitiated with the In-n-Out culture, here's a good article/obituary for Esther Snyder, the 86-year-old matriarch founder.

What we I-n-O fans hope never happens is that some big mediocre chain like Jack-in-the-Box or Carl's Jr buys the company.

Tucson's first In-n-Out will be at 3711 E. Broadway Blvd. (in front of Target at the El Con Mall) and claims to have a tentative fall opening.

Last night, my friend Marianne and I went out to dinner. I had been wanting to try this newish pizza place next to Bashas' at Swan and Camp Lowell roads. We parked in front of another restaurant that looked closed. Here's our conversation:

M: What's this?

K: It's Bonsai, a Japanese restaurant.

M: Why is it so dark inside? It looks closed.

K: It's black and blue inside.

We walked over to Vero Amore, which was naturally lit and very Calif-like with an industrial-chic look and had an awesomely delicious dinner with excellent service, fresh ingredients and extremely reasonable prices.

On the way back to our car, Marianne expressed an interest into looking inside Bonsai. We walked over to one door and the sign read: Please use other door. So we walked over to the other door and the sign read: Please use other door. At that point I thought we were on Candid Camera.

Putting our heads against the black window, we peered inside and saw people at the sushi bar (staring back at us), so they must've figured which door to enter.

Feeling pleasantly buzzed from the wine and satiated from our pizza experience, we decided to ignore the door dilemma and left.

Moral of the story: Who cares?

OK, blog readers, we have to have a little talk, OK?

Now ... I KNOW there's a fairly decent number of you. When the tech folks initially set up this blog, they didn't put a traffic counter on it (blond moment!), so I can't say exactly how many readers this blog has (we'll get a counter going soon, I promise). I do know that a LOT of you, however, are entering tucsonweekly.com proper through this blog, because tucsonweekly.com proper tracks referring Web sites. And by the transitive property, a lot of you must be READING this blog.

This leads to the question: WHERE IN THE HECK ARE THE COMMENTS?

There have been a few of you who have chimed in here and there, and of course, lots of Weekly people have been chiming in; if nothing else, this blog is helping strengthen the bonds between we Weekly writer folks. That's special.

But we want to hear from YOU, the public, the lovely and talented blog reader. I know you're out there and reading this, dammit. So COMMENT!

When Karyn asks about fave restaurant dishes, chime in! When Annie asks for articles regarding blogs and music labels, post! When I make some smart-ass comment, rip me a new one, or add your own smart-ass comment.

It'll be a LOT more fun that way, OK? DON'T MAKE ME TURN THIS BLOG AROUND AND GO HOME!

-- Tom DeLay's name has to stay on the ballot in Texas. This is fabulous news ... unless he somehow gets elected again. Gads.

-- Yet more layoffs are coming at AOL.

-- And finally: There's a flash flood watch, and heavy rain's falling in some areas. Please ... stay safe.

-- Am I the only one who thinks it's weird that most of the rest of the country has seemingly been hotter than Tucson during the last week or so?

-- Remember that other conflict in the Middle East?

-- The Weekly has an alternative newsweekly sister paper again. Welcome to the family, Anchorage!

-- So let's say you're, oh, I dunno, an editor. And someone calls you and leaves you a message, wanting to sell you professional services of some sort. And you call that person back ... and get a busy signal. And you call back a while later, and get another busy signal. The question: How many times do you have to try calling back this person before just throwing your arms in the air and saying, "Screw it!"?

-- Follow-up question: Since call waiting costs, like, four bucks a month or something, what kind of punishment should befall people who don't have it, yet expect you to do business with them?

-- And on an unrelated note: A new issue of the Weekly's here. Enjoy!

-- Um, what are they smoking down at the Citizen?

-- Here we go again. Aren't you delighted to NOT live in a hurricane zone?

-- Poor Mel Gibson (snicker).

This column by Chris Dahlen makes an interesting argument: "pop culture today is primarily a technology story. And we don't know how to write about technology." He's arguing that the reason why there is no Hunter S. Thompson or Lester Bangs of cultural journalism these days is because they got to write about drugs, which was the driving force behind pop culture in their time, and writing about drugs is easier than writing about technology.

But I don't know ... it seems to me that there are plenty of people at least thinking about what technology does to us, at least in academic fields. And, in fact, plenty of people are writing about what blogs are doing to the world of labels, our own Curtis McCrary included (and if you know of other articles, post 'em below!).

I think perhaps there is no Hunter S. Thomspon or Lester Bangs because there are so many music publications that it's hard to single out one or even two be-all, end-all sources, and hence, hard for one writer to emerge as a voice in those be-all, end-all sources. There are too many bands and too many magazines for one or two voices to rise above the din. And why do we need one or two voices to tell us what to think? We have loads of brilliant music writers who postulate and suggest and make us think about what we should think, which is always better.

And who's to say everyone thought Thompson and Bangs were so important when they were writing? Everybody always believes that things were better way back when.

And here concludes my deconstruction of a Pitchfork column. Go watch that Jaguar commerical with a Spoon song in it and be confused. Lord knows I am.