Photographer Nigel Cook of the Daytona Beach News-Journal seems to have a signature nighttime shuttle launch shot: here’s Discovery’s arc over a marina, and here’s Atlantis over a lighthouse. Pretty!

Throughout the saga of the search for the missing Kim family, I found that the local news media had more details and more accurate coverage. This wasn’t surprising. News gets more filtered the farther away it is from the action, even if a reporter is on the scene. Wrap-up articles are now coming to press. The Oregonian’s version adds the perspective of Josephine County Undersheriff Brian Anderson. Ready to move on to another job, he had been hoping for a quiet last few days when he read the report of a lost family. A week later, Anderson’s last official statement for Josephine County was the ending that no one wanted to hear.

It’s happening all over again! “Seattle police say this weekend’s filming of a movie based in the 1999 WTO riots will have ‘minimal’ impact on commuters and shoppers. Of course, they said the same thing seven years ago before the anti-globalization protests erupted into full-scale, tear-gas-choked riots.” Filming will be this Saturday and Sunday, closing several streets.

TVGuide.com has an interview with Joss Whedon about Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8. No, don’t get too excited, it’s not going to be on TV, it’s in comic book form. But it’s still neat news for Buffy fans. The plot begins several months after the end of the final TV episode, with all the newly minted slayers. A different company owns the comic book rights for the spin-off Angel series so there won’t be much Angel and Spike crossover, but he promises there will be some old faces. And there won’t be any of that comic book outlandish depiction of the female chest area; as Joss puts it: “All the people I work with draw actual women.”

I hate opening toys. The packaging is usually a nightmare of cardboard, plastic, and tens of twisties twisted thousands of times. And meanwhile the baby/toddler is sitting right there ready to eat or impale himself on the bits of detritus flying about, so you better get the guts freed soon. Very occasionally the box is more interesting than the toy itself, a phenomenon I previously thought was limited to felines. (via kathryn)

The Givenchy Breakfast at Tiffany’s dress I posted about earlier went for £467,200 (including fees), well beyond its auction estimate. There’s speculation that Victoria ‘Posh Spice’ Beckham picked it up (a “European” phone bidder prevailed) since she’s a big Audrey Hepburn fan, but we may never know.

Kennedy Center Honors this year went to Andrew Lloyd Webber, Zubin Mehta, Dolly Parton, Smokey Robinson, and Steven Spielberg. Paying tribute to the honorees were Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, Jessica Simpson (you may have already read about her 9-5 fiasco), Tom Hanks, Liam Neeson, Reese Witherspoon, Corey Glover, John Williams, Itzhak Perlman, Sarah Brightman, Christine Ebersole, and Elena Roger. As usual, CBS will broadcast the gala the day after Christmas.

Symphony Silicon Valley, which rose from the ashes of the bankrupt San Jose Symphony, has a business model worthy of its techie startup environment. After five seasons the orchestra is surviving with a rather outrageous arrangement. It has no permanent musical director. Each program has a guest conductor, saving the group a hefty yearly conductor’s salary (Michael Tilson Thomas up in San Francisco costs that symphony over $1 million), and bringing them a fresh musical perspective each time. Audiences are enjoying the variety, as are the musicians who don’t seem to be suffering from the lack of a musical figurehead. The guest conductor model is common in Europe, but perhaps could become more typical in the U.S. as other struggling groups try to find new ways to keep making music.

After the additional dredging of 39,000 cubic yards of mud to free the hull and propellers, the USS Intrepid finally escaped its Hudson River pier on Tuesday. The first attempt to move the 36,000 tons of aircraft carrier failed a month ago. This time around it got stuck at the same point, but some clever tugboat maneuvering freed it for its journey to dry dock in New Jersey. The Intrepid is scheduled to return to Pier 86 in November 2008.

Target has the Hello Kitty toaster and waffle maker on sale for $15 each. I wonder what her face would look like on a bagel. I’m just sayin’.