As you've heard on every single news outlet and from people on the East Coast complaining on Facebook, Snowpocalypse 2010 is in full effect. While it's a little challenging to get too involved in the snow-created inconveniences of others, it has been interesting to read the Twitter feed of Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker, who hit the streets with a shovel responding to the social-media calls of his snowed in constituents.

Mayor Booker is certainly giving the shoveling his all, considering the time between his last tweet on the streets Monday and his first one this morning was only five hours.

• Jesus watches over the tip jar at the mighty El Chivo de Oro.

Ignore the locals as they stare at the stranger with his head in a basket of tortillas. Breathe.

El Chivo de Oro serves breakfast with three kinds of salsa—two red, and one green. The head tacos, birria, soups and tortas are fresh and good; the dining area is spartan, yet shaded; and the place is open from about sunrise until the wee hours of the evening.

El Chivo de Oro is located in a vacant lot on the corner of 11th Avenue and Irvington Road. Go eat there. You won’t be disappointed.

• The breakfast plate comes with three miraculous tortillas.

PopEater reports:

Now that Bristol Palin has left Alaska for Arizona, where she has just purchased a $172.000 five-bedroom home for cash, friends of the family are asking how much longer momma Sarah will call the great state home?

"Sarah has been looking at homes in Arizona, too," an insider tells me. "She wants to be close to her daughter and only grandchild."

Read the whole thing here.

The National Weather Service says snow might be in store for Southern Arizona this week. From the forecast on the organization’s website:

2010 WILL END WET ... COLD AND SNOWY AS A STRONG PACIFIC STORM SYSTEM MOVES INTO THE WESTERN STATES LATER THIS WEEK. A COLD FRONT WILL MOVE ACROSS THE AREA ON WEDNESDAY PRODUCING WIDESPREAD VALLEY RAIN AND MOUNTAIN SNOW. SHOWER ACTIVITY WILL CONTINUE ON THURSDAY BEFORE ENDING ON FRIDAY. WITH COLDER AIR PUSHING IN BEHIND THE COLD FRONT SNOW LEVELS WILL LOWER TO THE VALLEY FLOOR THURSDAY INTO FRIDAY. SNOW AMOUNTS IN THE MOUNTAINS ARE FORECAST TO RANGE FROM 4 TO 12 INCHES ... WITH THE HIGHEST AMOUNTS ABOVE 7000 FEET. SNOW SHOWERS ARE ALSO POSSIBLE DOWN TO THE VALLEY FLOORS WITH LITTLE ACCUMULATION EXPECTED.

This is just a reminder that the Tucson Weekly’s New Year’s guide was in last week's issue—and an updated version will be in this week's issue.

Also, an online version is just waiting for you to peruse it right here.

Events take place all over the city and range from a theatrical karaoke dinner to a daytime party at the World Famous Golden Nugget.

Have fun!

Wilco (The Dog) is in hot pursuit of a mysterious sleigh.

Season's Greetings from Flagstaff!

It’s a cold day at the North Pole when we stop believing in Santa Claus.

• Photo Ryn Gargulinski
• Santa Claus is one cool dude.

Santa symbolizes the warm, cozy spirit of the season’s generosity. He is the magical man with big hugs and an even bigger toy sack. He’s our early white knight in shining armor, the one who secrets us away from the worldly woes to a place we can sit around all day eating bonbons.

We later yen to marry such a person, especially since it would mean we could quit our day job.

When we learn Santa is merely a myth, a piece of our innocence dies.

My revelation came around age 10, when I noted the handwriting on Santa’s thank you for the cookies note was suspiciously similar to my dad’s. My cousin confirmed my suspicions by later admitting his Santa wrote like my aunt.

If my cousin said it, it had to be true. He was always the crafty one who knew where grandpa kept the beer and where his mom hid her cigarettes.

Although my cousin and I got over the Santa blow fairly quickly — we were fine as long as we still got our gifts — some kids don’t take it as smoothly.

Some react with rage, Psych Central warns, livid that Mom and Dad lied to them all those years. Others become crushed and weepy. Some run to the playground to share the news, often getting beat up by kids who still want to believe.

Still others express relief. “They needed to have their perceptions of reality confirmed,” Psych Central says.

Those kids are probably pretty boring.

Confirming reality is nothing we need to rush. It’ll confirm itself on its own in a really big way with really big bills and even bigger headaches.

Santa lets us linger in a fantasy world, one where magic and goodness still freely exist. This is provided, of course, we stick with the cheery version of St. Nick and not some of the scary Santas of late.

This was unexpected.

Then again, based on when the 700 Club airs, there are probably quite a few people watching it while high, so maybe he's just playing to his audience.

An interesting new café that will eventually feature a 40-seat theater and a serene, swamp-cooled patio is opening soon at 3067 N. Campbell Ave.

The Just Add Water Café will sell beverages of all sorts—including affordable beer and wine, when the liquor license comes through—baked goods and the mixes to make those baked goods. A few soups, sandwiches, salmon plates, salads and other items will round out the offerings.

Alex Kollar—who recently opened the adjacent upscale resale shop Options — says the café is expected to open in mid-January. It will feature a living-room atmosphere in the front room with plump couches and designer chairs. Table and chair seating, a patio with an outdoor fireplace and swamp-cooling and more enclosed patio seating around the side fill out the rest of the space.

A refrigerated area will be stocked with produce from local gardeners. Kollar also has plans to make the café a pick-up point for customers interested in picking up their monthly community-supported agriculture shares there. Her neighbor is the retail store for Native Seeds/SEARCH, and she plans to sell baked goods and foods made from their ultra-local offerings.

The theater in the back of the café will seat about 40 and double as a community area she hopes will be put to use by nonprofit or other groups. Live music will also be featured (Lisa Otey is a personal friend and played at the resale shop’s grand opening), and a piano is already available for anyone who cares to play it.

Kollar started the Borderlands Trading Company and spent years traveling in Mexico before heading off on adventures in real estate and other pursuits. What she has done with the spaces both at the shop and in the café is quite beautiful. There’s a $12,000 couch in the bridal wear area. A lovely fountain bubbles in the courtyard. Everything is orderly, yet comfortable.

We can’t wait to try the food when they open next month.

Despite the fact that several of us at the Weekly enjoy sports, that particular subset of the news doesn't get much coverage in the paper or here on the Range. In an attempt to create slightly more balance, here is a YouTube video of the Clippers' Blake Griffin jumping very high last night. Look for the next post in this series in a few weeks or so.