How does the national media love the man Eugeneans voted Best Bartender? I'll spare you from counting the ways; you can check the press page of his website for that. I just want to mention the two latest, er, mentions:

• Last week, The Wall Street Journal did a story on Repeal Day, the growing-in-popularity sorta-holiday that celebrates the end of Prohibition:

The demise of Prohibition, 75 years ago this coming Friday, is something of a cause for celebration, and it will be treated as such with Repeal Day parties in Washington, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, New York and elsewhere. The trend got started a couple of years ago, when Oregon bartender and blogger Jeffrey Morgenthaler promoted the anniversary as an informal holiday suitable for quaffing.

Pretty nifty, right? Keep in mind that that is THIS Friday we're talking about — the fifth of December. Which is also the night of the First Friday Artwalk, the Meet Your Maker craft fair, the Downtown Holiday Party and other things too numerous for me to remember off the top of my tired head. Be sure to raise a glass of free artwalk wine (or other beverage of choice) in honor of the 75th anniversary of once again being able to legally raise a glass.

• Yesterday, a The New York Times story appeared discussing what the writer calls eight new bartending philosophies. Oregonians in general make a strong showing here — the other two included are Kevin Ludwig from Clyde Common and Daniel Shoemaker at the Teardrop Lounge, both in Portland. Morgenthaler turns up under "Home Brewers," and to absolutely no one's surprise (this drink also turned up in our online Best Of Eugene Staff Picks), the writer highlights his gin and tonics, "made with his own recipe for agave-sweetened quinine syrup."

It's worth noting that the majority of the other bars and bartenders — bars on the edge, the story calls them — included in this piece are in big cities: New York, Seattle, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta. How long, we worry, until Morgenthaler ditches us for the big leagues? Maybe you should drink up while you can. I mean, since it's legal and all.

I can't get enough of this preview clip for Vol. 3 of the Found Footage Festival, coming to Eugene Sunday. Maybe it's the song in the background ... who is that?! Doobie Brothers? Kenny Loggins? Journey?

Never-before-seen TV commercials for obscure toys? Instructional videos on how to handle sexual harassment at the workplace, made at the height of said plague, the early ‘90s? Long-forgotten home videos featuring daredevil stunts? If this all sounds familiar, that’s because we’ve seen it all before on YouTube. Or so we think. Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher have been co-curating the Found Footage Festival for the past four years and somehow always manage to come up with gems that no search on YouTube will reveal. In addition to the collection of oddities (mostly made by unselfconscious filmmakers from the ‘80s and ‘90s), Pickett and Prueher provide colorful commentary and stand-up routines (both are veterans of The Onion and The Colbert Report). 7:30 pm Sunday, Dec. 7, Bijou Cinemas. $10.

Word has it that International Rock Gods, Art Brut, are set to cut a new record in Oregon with Rock God (and erstwhile Eugene resident) Frank Black (of The Pixies) as producer. Art Brut will be in our neck of the woods starting Thursday. This transmission comes via Art Brut's bandleader Eddie Argos's blog (which was subsequently posted to P4K). No word on where in Oregon they will record, but if it's, like, out in the suburbs of Eugene at Frank's house, how will that affect Art Brut's pop-wash sound? Will they incorporate the midnight wail of nutria? And will you give a shit?

Props to RR&TFB for the incredible instrumental cover of Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin"!

About eight years ago camera crews from the Cascadia Media Collective caught protests, logging, police violence, civil unrest and a whole lot of people banding together to try to save the world. The film features footage from the WTO protests to Bush's inauguration, and according to Understory Productions "There will be something in this film to offend and inspire almost anyone."

Watching this film just may remind you that just because Barack Obama's the next president, doesn't mean that there won't be another Bush-like regime down the road someday.

So once you've rested up after your Thanksgiving Tofurkey, head on over to Cozmic Pizza this Sunday at 7:30 to see A Year in the Streets. Free.

Last year the energetic staff and volunteers at Save the Pets set a goal of finding homes for 100 pets during the holiday season. They met that goal, and this year together with West Coast Dog and Cat Rescue they plan to find homes for the holidays for 250 animals.

The groups, together with a plethora of other rescues around town, will be at Johnson Brothers Greenhouses in Coburg every Saturday and Sunday at from 11-3. You can find your dream dog or cat in all shapes, colors and sizes. There will also be arts and crafts, wreaths, special appearances and other nonprofits you can check out.

For more info or event updates go to http://www.northwestgardenplants.com or call Lori Smith (savethepetseugene@gmail.com) Save the Pets 686-2467 or Julie McDonnell, (lilly2beans@yahoo.com) West Coast Dog & Cat Rescue 337-2157.

If you want to support animal rescue but aren't ready to bring a Fido or a Fluffy home just yet, head on over to Lane County Animal Services' (LCAS) Laughs for Lassie benefit for LCAS at the Hult Center at 7 pm on Dec. 5. Tickets at the Hult Center office, $26.

There has been lots of talk and much grumbling over at MySpace Music, but perhaps the largest concern is the disappearance of the feature that allows you to download songs (by artists who authorize the download option) so you don't have to use MySpace's shitty media player. MySpace vows that this option will return at some point in the future. Meaning: In the year 2018, when the handful of remaining corporate record labels finally "get it," MySpace will again let artists give away their music for free if they so choose.

In the meantime, head over to DownloadHelper and download the free application, then add the extension to your Mozilla Firefox web browser. I repeat: This add-on only works with Mozilla Firefox at this time. When you go to a band's MySpace page the little DownloadHelper icon is activated if any of the tracks are available for streaming/downloading. This also works on YouTube (so you can download the song and not the damn static video) and a host of other sites. You just have to rename the tracks once downloaded. Sweet!

Still confused? Check out a helpful tutorial from a dude with a drawl who just loves his local hard rock bands:

First, The NYT made me laugh as I read the one-sentence descriptions of books on the best-seller lists (I *know* there's an intern who will be Very Happy when she reads that yes, people read her sentences ... and find them amusing), my favorite being

DESTINY KILLS, by Keri Arthur. (Dell Spectra, $6.99). A woman and a man with superhuman powers flee dangerous killers from Scotland.

Och, aye, bairns! Gang aft agly! (Or something like that.)

OK, admittedly, Trainspotting's language is intimidating, but if one has superhuman powers, should one have to flee "dangerous killers from Scotland"?

That was from an old NYT Book Review, by the way. Today's top description, or rather top mass-market paperback, is "THE DARKEST EVENING OF THE YEAR, by Dean Koontz. (Bantam, $7.99.) A woman who rescues golden retrievers is shadowed by an evil stranger."

I bet the doggies do some doggie saving business, don't you?

The most noticeable phenomenon on the mass-market list comes in a whopping dose of vampire comedy/mysteries by Charlaine Harris, with six, count 'em, six books on the 20-book list. That's not even counting #19, Kerrelyn Sparks' All I Want for Christmas Is a Vampire, all of which leads me to kind of lose my faith in human intelligence. (Because the front page of the paper apparently isn't painful enough to cause that to happen.)

Anyway, the real reason I began this post was the Correction section of "Weddings/Celebrations," which, yes, I read because I want to see teh gays getting married, and by the way, could the august paper possibly feature some female same-sex couples sometime, please? Or do women just not get married?

ANYWAY anyway, here are the correx:

A report last Sunday about the marriage of Anne-Cecilie Engell and Rob Speyer misspelled one of two names she uses as her hyphenated middle name. She is Lisbet Bastrup-Birk Engell, not Bastrub-Birk.

The Vows column last Sunday, about the marriage of Gillian Laub and Tahl Raz, reversed a phrase that the couple borrowed from the 1998 film "Shakespeare in Love" and used in their vows. It should have read, "come ruin or rapture," not "come rapture or ruin."

Let me get the first one, er, straight: The woman's name is Anne-Cecilie Lisbet Bastrup-Birk Engell?

Or, delicious thought, did the paper screw up again, and will it have to issue a correction next week saying, "A correction last Sunday about the marriage of Anne-Cecilie Engell and Rob Speyer contained an incorrect first name for Ms. Engell. She is Anne-Cecilie Bastrup-Birk Engell, not Lisbet Bastrup-Birk Engell"?

And the second one, well. Hee. I guess it's more euphonious, or it sounds more luck-inducing, to end on the upward trend of rapture.

Snotty Newspaper Moment: Guess what? This kind of stuff is only possible with the print edition. Online, I would never have seen these things out of the corner of my eye (or in the center, as it so happens with the best-seller lists).

So off, amusedly, to sleep.