• A photo from an Utah beer takeover at World of Beer Tempe

Good news if you like beer (not so great news if you hate franchises, I suppose), as the nationwide chain World of Beer is opening a 3,150 square foot location in the Cadence property downtown. World of Beer already has a location on Mill Avenue in Tempe, which will inevitably lead to the "Downtown is turning in to Mill!" uproar that frequently pops up around here, for understandable reasons.

For what it's worth, the Tempe location has 50 beers on tap (and good ones), a ton of stuff in bottles, and you can buy a mixed six-pack to go, and it would stand to reason (although I haven't heard from the World of Beer marketing person yet) that those some qualities would be present at the new Tucson location, set to open in November. On the other hand, there are plenty of great beers on tap already at local establishments downtown and it would appear Tap & Bottle might actually be close to opening on the other end of the area soon.

Decide for yourself whether this is a good thing or not near the end of the year.

Big Lingerie can't be happy to hear this.

Frenchman and professor Jean-Denis Rouillon has come to the conclusion that bras end up making breasts saggy. No, really.

Rouillon came to this conclusion after an absurdly lengthy 15 year study, in which he used a slide rule and caliper to "carefully measure changes in the orientation of breasts belonging to hundreds of women," according to thelocal.fr:

"Medically, physiologically, anatomically - breasts gain no benefit from being denied gravity. On the contrary, they get saggier with a bra," Professor Rouillon told France Info radio on Wednesday.

...

All the women involved in the study were aged between 18 and 35, although the professor was keen to stress that the group were not a representative of the global population of females.

After regularly measuring women who were not wearing bras the scientists concluded that "on average their nipples lifted on average seven millimetres in one year in relation to the shoulders."

Rouillon did say that his study doesn't apply to everyone, noting that "it would be of no benefit to a 45-year-old mother to stop wearing a bra," apparently proving that if women want to retain perky breasts that they need to 1.) not have kids, and 2.) stop getting old.

Get right on that, ladies.

There's been some discussion on social media about our comics lately, especially the ones not by local authors, so I thought it might be time to find out what you, the reader, think about these strips in the first place.

You might notice that a few strips aren't included in the survey. The local strips (Hoopleville, Red Meat, Random Shots and K. Rat) will likely be in the Weekly as long as the authors keep creating them. In fact, we're definitely looking to add another local strip or two. Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World is so good, it feels like his strip is just an alt-weekly given at this point. Mild Abandon is still new and, frankly, I find it hilarious, so it's safe.

Also, I'd love to know what strips you enjoy that we're not currently running. Is there a particularly brilliant webcomic we've missed? Something another alt-weekly has that we don't? We'll leave the survey up for a month or so and see what we learn. Thanks in advance for your help.

Take the survey here!

Announced via a brief mention on KOLD's website, Chuck George is taking another leave of absence from his gig as chief meteorologist. In 2011, following an odd on-air segment where George slurred his words, he took a month and a half off. This will make his third seemingly-unplanned break from broadcasting.

Recently, George has had some less-prominent odd moments on air, including the one above, which was sent to us with the header "Drunk Weather?". Word is that George was having trouble on KMSB's 9 p.m. news on Friday the 5th, but when asked if these events were connected, KOLD General Manager Debbie Bush replied to Media Watch columnist John Schuster: "If you are planning on reporting that he had a problem that affected his performance on Friday night or March 13, that would not be an accurate statement."

However, George, a normally active social media user, has been absent from his public Twitter and Facebook profiles from that date.

This isn't exactly a huge deal, but it's cool nonetheless:

Comic genius/all-around funny guy Louis C.K. is currently doing an AMA (their version of a community question-and-answer session) on Reddit right now, in support of his new stand-up special "Oh My God," which was filmed in Phoenix and is running on HBO this weekend.

And now I know what I'm doing for the rest of the afternoon. Sorry, people who pay me money to do stuff.

Check out an outtake from his most recent special, Live at the Beacon Theatre below — and be warned, it's pretty NSFW.

From blastr.com:

Firefly fans are coming out of the woodwork, and they are hopping mad. Why? Turns out in the last few weeks many of them have received cease-and-desist letters or have simply been banned from Etsy for producing DIY Jayne Hats. This communal endeavor, it seems, is coming to a close, and fans of the show are asking themselves why. Isn't the whole point of the Jayne hat that it be homemade? Doesn't it mean anything that the hats are often auctioned off at charity events? After 10 years of nothing, isn't it unfair for Fox to suddenly force lifelong fans to cease production of something they love?

And the answer, for now, is that Fox owns the license and that's that. The fans who are mad that the hat was licensed for mass production are the ones who are closest to hitting the nail on the head. The fact is, Fox now has a legal obligation to its shareholders — they have to chase down anyone producing and selling a licensed product without permission. Ripple Junction holds the license [to produce the hat], the fans do not.

ThinkGeek, to their credit, has been cool about the situation:

We just wanted you to know that ThinkGeek has nothing to do with the C&D notices. The hat is licensed by a vendor with whom we have a relationship and while the hat is not an exclusive to ThinkGeek, we did have a hand in its development and answered the difficult questions like, "Are the earflaps long enough?" and "Is that man afraid of anything?" (Yes and no, respectively.)

Would the C&D have happened if we did not carry the hat on our site? We're not sure; we'll leave that question to sharper legal minds than ours. We're here to carry the shiniest of goods from 'round the 'verse, even maybe makin' them ourselves. We just want y'all to know that while we might not always aim to misbehave, we'll always be sure to get you the best stuff this side of the Eavesdown Docks.

They've also added that they'll be donating all profits from the sales of the hat to charities supporting Equality Now — at least 'til they run out of stock.

As for the rest of the fan-made hats, Firefly and Castle star Nathan Fillion has got fans' backs:

“@pirateknits:Captain, looking to unload illegal hats. twitter.com/PirateKnits/st…”You got a job? We'll do it. Don't much care what it is.

— Nathan Fillion (@NathanFillion) April 11, 2013

[h/t: TechDirt]

Proud of my senators @senjohnmccain & @jeffflake for voting yes to continued debate on reducing gun violence.Tucson deserves a vote.Thanks.
— Gabrielle Giffords (@GabbyGiffords) April 11, 2013

The U.S. Senate voted this morning to start debate on a bill that would expand background checks on gun sales. The bill that passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote would require background checks on nearly all gun sales, with some exceptions for family members and for temporary transfers for sporting and hunting events.

But a compromise brokered yesterday by Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia would instead require background checks at gun shows and with online sales.

The NRA announced yesterday that it was opposed to the background-check compromise.

I've got a look at the background-check battle in this week's print edition.

We're hopping on this bandwagon a bit late, but with the Tucson Padres entering their final season of being a Tucson-based team, we figure they need as much support as they can get — they deserve it, after all.

The T-Pads are offering their Facebook fans a chance to throw out the first pitch at the home opener tomorrow, April 12 at 7:05 p.m. The catch: you've got to comment your favorite memory of a T-Pads game on one of two posts for the contest, then have the greatest number of people liking your comment.

Oh, and one more thing: the contest ends at noon today.

From what it looks like, a gentleman by the name of Jason Brean is currently in the lead with 403 likes, so anyone starting now would have an uphill battle, but hey: if the Diamondbacks could beat the best closer of all time to win the World Series, then surely you drag 500+ people to click a link and get you to throw a ball, right?

Either way, AAA baseball is back in the Old Pueblo — and maybe for the final time. Head out to tomorrow's game (and every Thirsty Thursday, sponsored by Tucson Weekly!) and have some fun, folks.

• Jim Nintzel
• Democrat Fred DuVal.

Democrat Fred DuVal, who is running for governor in 2014, is expected to announce today that he's been endorsed by former Arizona governors Raul Castro, Rose Mofford and Bruce Babbitt.

The Babbitt endorsement isn't a huge surprise, given that DuVal worked in the Babbitt administration after helping run Babbitt's gubernatorial campaign. But the endorsements are another step in DuVal's campaign to nail down as much support as possible before any other Democrats get into the race and demonstrate that he has wide appeal across the many wings of the party.

We hear you can expect another announcement about an endorsement from Congressman Raul Grijalva in the coming days.

More on the endorsements that DuVal has picked up already here.

Tucson Weekly columnist/noted Popeye's Chicken aficionado Tom Danehy is a happily-married man, so this particular clip doesn't do him all that much good. However, if he were on the market, he might want to call up Christina who appeared on Steve Harvey's talk show to give a glimpse into how the spicy offerings of the Louisiana fast food chain affect her bedroom performance.