Blogs

The Royals finally cut a deal that sent closer Octavio Dotel to Atlanta. The pitcher they got in exchange, Kyle Davies, really, truly, absolutely couldn’t be a better fit for the Royals. Why, you ask? Because the 23-year-old is another could’ve-been-great pitcher who burned out early. He’ll join a team that – in the David Glass era – has gotten used to such wasted talent.

Here’s a little recap of the Royals-style meltdown of Kyle Davies.

Oh God, look what Zach Van Benthusen is doing now. The unschooled prodigy's proud mommy, Jane Van Benthusen, sent out a mass e-mail boasting about her oldest son's latest modeling gig, appearing in an ad for CMT's Celebrity Bull Riding Challenge in this week's People magazine. Click on the image to get a close-up view of Zach, who's manning a camera on the left side. -- Justin Kendall

Before July fades, let’s not forget an important culinary anniversary that should have been celebrated all over Missouri this month but wasn’t. Well, not in Kansas City anyway.

Six months ago, Heidi Van Pelt and Taran Noah Smith eyed each other from opposite sides of the aisle at the Platte County Courthouse, ready to fight for control of a vegan cheese company they created during a short and stormy marriage. The battle over Playfood is far from over, but soon someone else may be in charge of the company.

Yes, the Fringe Festival is this weekend. Yes, there’s a lot going on. Why not learn about the weekend’s public arts events at the official Web site of the Kansas City Fringe Festival? Because you’re not going to learn about it here. For information on other subjects not covered by this blog, check out the television in your living room. Television has a lot to offer by way of Axe Body Spray commercials, market updates and uplifting news programs about pedophile entrapment. Have you watched television today?

How much do you love freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies, cute puppies and sex? That’s how much we loooove leaked corporate documents. This missive from Embarq Senior Vice President of Human Resources Ned Holland was sent “To all employees” today. (That’s always ominous.) We transcribed it as it was read over the phone by our source. It says that the phone company, which was spun off from Sprint, is cutting health coverage and life insurance for Medicare-eligible retirees. Because, when it comes time to cut costs, the old people always get it first.

To all employees:

Today we are announcing changes to our retiree benefits program designed to better balance the needs of Embarq retirees, employees, shareholders, customers and other stakeholders. Maintaining our strength in a fiercely competitive, perpetually changing industry such as ours never has been tougher than it is today. Outside competition, outdated regulatory policies, and out of control health care costs force us to challenge the status quo. Staying competitive sometimes requires that we make important choices. The changes being implemented will affect our retirees in three areas: Medical benefits for Medicare-eligible individuals and Medicare-eligible dependents, company-provided life insurance, and the Embarq matching gift program [which matches Embarq employees donations to nonprofits and alma maters].

The Hill, a D.C. newspaper that usually covers Congress, announced its fourth-annual list of the “50 Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill.” The write-ups make for entertaining reading, thanks to The Hill’s vapid, breathless writing.

The hotness is broken down into a top 10, plus “40 more.” In case you care, “tall, dark and handsome” Indiana Rep. Brad Ellsworth took top honors. The paper's “Most Beautiful Office” (gag) award went to Rep. Mary Bono’s whitebread (and one Hispanic) group.

I scoured the list to see if anyone from here is on it. Sure enough, we Midwesterners are pretty, too! Not top-10 pretty, but at least runner-up attractive.

One of the biggest Kansas City restaurant mysteries of the last year has been: Will any local restaurateur be brave enough to take over the ancient venue abandoned by Nichols Lunch 10 months ago? The legendary Nichols Lunch wasn’t just one of the last independently owned, 24-hour diners left in midtown. But at 85 years old, it was one of the oldest continually-operating restaurants in the city when it locked up the doors September 24.

Yesterday, “Mama” Jan Imber and Ira Auerbach, owners of the 10-year-old Bell Street Mama’s diner at 1726 West 39th Street, confirmed that they had signed a lease on the Nichols Lunch location at 39th Street and Southwest Trafficway and had already started renovation on the space.

We recently ran across this video on YouTube, which baffled us. Using a Sopranos-like logo, its plotline involves mafia-type sales reps in The Kansas City Star’s advertising department yelling obscenities into the phone and blackmailing clients with naughty pictures of adulterous encounters with Bazooka's Showgirls.

Even though Kansas City's urban center is hot, the tax-break-granting Planned Industrial Expansion Authority continues to treat developers there like pioneers. The city agency on Wednesday abated taxes on a property being redeveloped within toddling distance of the new downtown arena and entertainment district.

One out of every three women in the U.S. will be assaulted in her lifetime, according to the Web site for Pepperface. The owners of Sugar Hill, a boutique in Overland Park, recently sent word that they’re now stocking the line of Swarovski-crystal-encrusted vials of pepper spray. Sugar Hill’s press release claims that Pepperface is carried by the likes of Kelly Ripa and Paris Hilton.

Regardless of whatever important news might be in this morning's Kansas City Star, the only thing I remember after reading it front-to-back is FYI columnist Jeneé Osterheldt complaining about her mosquito bites and lamenting her inability to operate a tube of Benadryl. I shit you not. -- C.J. Janovy

What had it been, a month or more that The Kansas City Star had Harry Potter either on the front page or the top of the FYI section? Finally, Potter's big release came and went, and Star readers could hope they could find some other event to write about, like, say, something local.

Well, Harry's back today, on the top of the FYI and splashed on the section's back page. Why, you ask? That's easy.

The release of the final installment of the Harry Potter series has baseball writer Rany Jazayerli thinking about the parallels between Hogwarts and Kauffman Stadium. -- David Martin

It’s almost officially the weekend. Unless you’re one of those lucky bastards who are already off work, in which case it’s already the weekend and you’ve got your feet propped up on the coffee table, a Bud Light in your fist. Well, don’t get too comfortable, buddy. There’s plenty to do tonight besides watch a 20/20 investigation.