The Friday Wrap

It was a busy week around here... put a lot of words through the old paragraph factory (although you won't see all of them until this weekend). Here's what I've been up to:

On the blog and in the paper

There's still a couple of days to take the poll there to the right... looks like the top three choices for Movie of the Year are "Inception," "Toy Story 3" and Other.

I came up with a reader project on the Panthers that turned out to be a total dud (not unlike the Panthers, I guess). Didn't get a single question, and you can see in the comments that several readers weren't fond of the whole idea. That happens sometimes! Failure is good! And either way, I'm glad to see Jerry Richardson speak to fans, at least a little.

Louis C.K. brought the funny.

Elizabeth Edwards led a fascinating life. (Note the anonymous comment at 7:35 a.m., and the discussion that followed... we deal with sketchy comments all the time, and I've always felt the best way to deal with it is to let commenters police themselves.)

I picked my reads of the year.

What's the deal with that photo? Y'all had some ideas.

Links from Twitter

Here's some stuff I flagged on my Twitter feed, @tommytomlinson:

Via many others: Unbelievably powerful WashPost story, told through Facebook updates. http://wapo.st/eOCLnm

This story has pretty much everything: Meth, a GED, mac and cheese. http://bit.ly/dMHMIt (via @MeckDeck)

Casting call in CLT for pilot of possible Showtime series starring Claire Danes. http://bit.ly/fhKkpb via @AddThis

Your thoughts to the Queen. Aretha reportedly has pancreatic cancer. http://bit.ly/emNOB9 (via @editormarilyn)

Sarah Palin, a fake hunter? Say it ain't so! http://bit.ly/gX9Moo

The great @gangrey comes through again: Jimmy Breslin on John Lennon. http://bit.ly/h2v4ej

Yep, Urban's gone. Wow. http://bit.ly/hbvsL8 #Florida #SEC

The great @edsbs (a Gator fan) has the proper, measured response: http://sbn.to/dRKYpO

Mr. @BenFolds said this was great stuff from the "Sing-Off." Always listen to Mr. @BenFolds. http://bit.ly/fjvkKS

Zombie killing is philosophically similar to reading and deleting 400 work e-mails on a Monday morning. @CKlosterman. http://nyti.ms/gI8Dpy

Coming up

Lord willing and the creek don't rise, I'll have a story in the paper on Sunday about a woman who got laid off and decided to chase her dream. It'll have a reader project attached to it so some of you can tell your own stories. Holler and let me know what you think. UPDATE: I should always wait until the Friday-afternoon meeting to post this thing. The story's holding, probably until next Sunday. I'm hoping it'll age like a fine wine, as opposed to, you know, skim milk or something.

Other stuff in the pipeline: A Christmas story from the vault, maybe something on Billy Graham, and my favorite stuff of the year. That started out as a top-10 list, but now I'm thinking it's going to be a top-20. It's been an interesting year.