Bee TV critic Rick Bentley reads the tea leaves and sees possible imminent doom for Merced's Katie Gallagher on Survivor, whose early high popularity ratings at CBS.com have dwindled to a dangerous 37%. Almost everyone less popular than she is has already been voted off, Rick notes.

According to the "Who's Next?" poll on the site, viewers don't seem to overwhelmingly expect her to get voted off tonight. But that poll's had a pretty bad track record. Look, for example, at how long Angie stayed around (till last week!) after having skyrocketing "Who's Next?" numbers for the first two weeks. So it could all go down for Katie tonight. We'll have the scoop.

World-class comics guru Scott McCloud is leading a five-day class in comics and storytelling at Fresno State this summer. McCloud's the author of a host of books, most celebrated of which is the seminal Understanding Comics. If you have any interest in storytelling, the class is highly worth applying for. The deadline for applying is May 31st.

Don't miss Joan Obra's roundup of all the new restaurant ventures opening downtown from today's Life section. Joan also touches on some of the other downtown developments, like the upcoming Fulton Plaza Thursdays as well as some of the downtown housing plans.

SchoolMatters.com, a new Web site from financial information company Standard & Poor, puts a whole bunch of data on schools all over the country at your disposal, letting you check up on the school's academic progress, as well as how it stacks up against other schools in the same state or district. The site includes tons more information, and sorts it all out in a very attractive, easy-to-navigate form.

Some folks quoted in the Washington Post article about the site said it featured some wrong or misleading data, so tread carefully.

If you ever find yourself feeling down on your town, scroll through the trip diaries of this guy, the creator of San Francisco über-site Planet SOMA. In his words:

I love Fresno. ... From the amazing collection of roadside architecture to the cheesy queer bars to the semi-abandoned downtown, it's a great antidote to San Francisco.

He's chronicled several of his road trips to the city in words and pictures. You can also read the whole romantic story of his meeting the love of his life in Fresno.

As of this week, you can add your voice to every news article on FresnoBee.com. Just click on the link that says "Comments" in the resources box at the upper-right corner of each story. We hope you have many fulfilling discussions, but before you go too crazy, please review our user agreement, and keep in mind the following:

AccessHollywood put out a search for America's hottest housewives, and a Tulare trio -- the "Housewives of Holstein Lane" -- responded with this video. Turns out they won. Check out tonight's episode (KSEE-24 at 7:30 p.m.) to catch the snippet.

Or just click here.

Update: Read the coverage from FresnoBee.com.

Nine Inch Nails breezed through town a week ago, kicking off their tour right here in 'No-town. (That's right. 'No-town. Think it'll stick? We'll keep trying, Fresnologists.) But tickets to the show sold out before we could even get the story in The Bee. So there's a good chance you missed it.

In any case, we're not sure what the official word is from NIN Central on concert bootlegs, but the Fresno show's available online.

Take one week away from this place, and all sorts of crazy stuff happens. Last week:

• Some guy at a karaoke party in SE Fresno pulled out a 12" butcher knife and stabbed this other fellow for hogging the microphone.
• A 19-year-old man from Texas and a 31-year-old woman from San Fran went offroading in their 2004 Hummer and ended up sliding down the side of a mountain. They were found by state and county officials after a three-and-a-half hour search.
• Ron Jeremy came to town.

Fresno: We take our karaoke seriously.

... there was Robert Wendland.

After a 1993 traffic accident left the Stockton man unable to communicate, walk, eat or go to the bathroom, Wendland's wife, children, and brother tried to have his feeding tube removed and his life support disconnected, saying he would not have wanted to live on in his condition. His mother and sisters disagreed, and took to the courts to keep Wendland alive.

Sound familiar?

In January, we posted about Ethan Watters' book Urban Tribes, and wondered if there were any Fresno tribes around to represent. Well, Frank D, the new music director at KFSR, unwittingly took up the call a few weeks later and started UrbanTribeSix, a blog he's started to extend the conversations happening on Mindhub, the online watercooler for Fresno's creatives.

All this is just a roundabout way of saying there's a lot of good conversation around about how to achieve Fresnotopia. See also -- The Bee | Famous | FLYP | Creative Fresno. Drop any others in the comments.

Via Paul Scott, here's a Jeff Foxworthy-inspired, Fresno-flavored checklist of local quirkiness. A sampling:

You know you're from Fresno when ...

• ... you have to explain to friends from out of town what animal a "Tri-tip" comes from.
• ... you never knew how you managed before River Park.
• ... someone from out-of-town talks about how foggy it is and you tell them, "Just wait."

Something tells me this list could be expanded...

For the holiday, Famous snags a foreign correspondent. As per usual, the San Joaquin Valley Miata Club will be having their annual St. Patrick's Day Poker Run in Oakhurst on Saturday. All proceeds go to charity. (Fun Facts!! No actual human running takes place at this event, and it does not occur on St. Patrick's Day!) K-Jewel encourages viable blood donors to make their way to a Central California Blood Center until 8:00 this evening for a St. Patrick's Day blood drive. For the chill'uns, Ted C. Wills Community Center is hosting a St. Patty's Day party from 4 to 6 p.m. today.

And if you're a) single and b) doing the bar thing tonight, The Bee's Don Mayhew delivers tips from local (male) bartenders on finding romance at the bar.

In honor of the holiday, I'd like to blog a toast to one of my favorite spots in Fresno, a little pub at the corner of Marks and Herndon that I'm sure many of you know, The Body in the Bog. Note that the Google listing for the page does not mention the pub's hours. That's because there are no posted hours at The Body in the Bog. Just a sign with a message to the effect of, "When I'm here, we're open. When I'm not, we're not." That is so cool.

Monte Francis over at KSEE24 has been live-blogging the Marcus Wesson trial from the courthouse. Check it out for a morbidly detailed account of the proceedings.

ABC 30's also doing a daily brief. And of course, we provide new coverage almost every morning and afternoon.

The 2005 Kids Day fundraiser brought in a record amount of money for Children's Hospital Central California. Watch a special Kids Day multimedia feature, from the Beehive. Plus: Here's the special Kids Day edition of The Bee, in case you missed it. And if you missed Kids Day, but still want to donate to the hospital, go here.

Don't miss today's top business story, a peek behind the walls of Fresno's IRS center:

Today, one month from the tax filing deadline, about 2,000 employees are working two shifts at the campus; the only downtime is between midnight and 5:30 a.m. With a portion of pay based on productivity, there is little time to chat. The click-clack of keying mixes with the hum of the ventilation system. Wheeled carts stuffed with forms are pushed into position. Security guards keep watch on the building, which is surrounded by a barbed-wire fence.

And if the picture packaged with the article doesn't sate your curiosity about what the inside of the IRS looks like, we've blown it up for you (photo by Diana Baldrica / The Fresno Bee).

In noting the passing of developer Spalding Wathen, a Fresno institution, we'll add a tidbit from a 1989 article in The Bee:

Rededication ceremonies for the King Arthur Castle in Roeding Park's Storyland included naming the courtyard in honor of local building contractor Spalding Wathen, a long-time supporter of the children's entertainment center.

Approximately 150 Fresnans attended the ceremonies Saturday night. It was the first major restoration of the castle since Storyland opened in 1961.

So next time you're enjoying Storyland, give a thought to Mr. W. Thanks to Wendy Nugent for the tip.

Yesterday marked the long-awaited release of "Murder Most Fowl," the latest from local independent film outfit AMF Productions (that's pronounced "AMpf," not "Ay-em-eff"). This may be something you need a pending bachelor's degree and a Y-chromosome to appreciate, if the AMF crew reflects the AMF audience. Also, at 86 megs, it's a pretty hefty download. (No Torrent, fellows?) But it's independent film, and it's from Fresno. Go for the fight choreography and early-George-Lucas-era special effects, stay for Andrew Isaac's deadpan delivery of the line, "You're fried ... chicken."

Lifehacker this morning ticks off some of the best free software around for blocking and removing spyware from your computer. Last Monday, The Bee also offered some excellent tips for keeping your computer virus-free, my personal favorite of which is get Firefox.

On March 4, This American Life aired a re-broadcast of a 1999 episode called "Family Business," which includes what is probably one of the funniest radio pieces ever, by David Rakoff, called "Before and After Science." A sample:

It was dubbed the Summer of Annie by proclamation of the Head Office, in honor of the release of the musical film adaptation of the Broadway show. Franchisees across North America had been encouraged to invest in "Annie" ice cream, a special tie-in flavour. Annie ice cream was a noxious combination of strawberry and marshmallow of such a vile and diabetic coma-inducing nature that it was too cloying even for its target market of little girls. Seven and eight-year-old angels would skip into the store, all pigtails and horse-love, and the scales would fall from their eyes as they spied the pink-and-white tubs of Annie, seeing the concoction for what it was: insidious marketing; a pernicious inducement to submit to the patriarchy. These apple-cheeked youngsters became suddenly hardened and cynical. They took up smoking right there on line, laughing bitterly like baby Piafs, derisively ordering Futility Shakes and double scoops of Alienation Chip.

You can read the text of the Rakoff story here.

Bee critic Donald Munro has an article today pointing out some funny business with Fresno State's production of Neil Simon's "Rumors." The director, Edward EmanuEl, has set the late-'80s play in the present day, tweaked the dialogue and conflated a couple of characters, without asking the permission of Simon's publishing company.

This might not be such a big deal, except, as Donald points out, you don't rewrite Neil Simon:

Don't quite know what to make of this one, but it is nonetheless somehow fascinating, and a pretty quick read. According to her blog, Susan lived for five years in Fresno next to a psychopathic neighbor, and she's decided to write a chronicle of her misadventures. Now, in the five months of blogging Susan's done so far, we've got nothing to go on to back up her claims except a few fuzzy photos of some guy looking -- and occasionally wagging his finger -- into a camera. And quite a few of her accusations stretch the imagination. As a serialized short story with an unreliable narrator, though, "The Neighbor From Hell" is intriguing.

Graffiti is apparently the topic of the week in Fresno media. First stop is the newspaper, in which the top story in today's B section is about yesterday's volunteer graffiti-scrubbing excursion by First and Shields. This comes on the heels of Monday's top metro story describing Fresno County's new graffiti abatement program. On the graffiti flipside, our top story this week includes a chapter about the hiring of local graffiti artists to paint a mural on a West Fresno daycare. The centerpiece on Famous this week also looks at some local graffiti art, and talks to a few of the artists.

Update: The Bee's editorial board has some more words on graffiti.

Conversations about Famous People has the scoop on the forthcoming clothing line from K-Fed, known in some circles as "Cletus," known in others as "Kevin Federline":

Cletus will be creating a line of low crotched, extra baggy denim pants with a long hemline for folding or ripping. He will produce do rags which I hear he is making out of dirty, used wife beaters. ... His shoe assortment will include fat laces and velcro, both of which will come with directions on how to NOT fasten your shoes. He will be producing the footwear under his "What Up Fresno" brand name. An assortment of gold watches and thick braided necklaces will also be available as well as a cologne (reeking of Cheetos and Red Bull, yum!) and a variety of oversized sweatshirts.

Don't miss the accompanying photo spread.

Yellow Arrow is this crazy metropolitan metatagging scheme -- the folks behind it distribute tons of yellow arrow stickers, each imprinted with a phone number and unique code. You paste those stickers anywhere -- on walls, fire hydrants, small children -- and text the code to the phone number on the sticker, along with whatever message you'd like. When people happen upon that sticker in the future, they can text it and read whatever you wrote there -- e.g. "Here at the intersection of Maple and Nees, I uttered a brief-but-heartfelt prayer for Stacy Johnson-Klein," or more likely, "hot sngl 37yo m lkng 4 anon fun upstrs."

After decades away from the city they grew up in, the Easleys have returned to West Fresno to start a child care center, and they're seeking inspiration in the unlikeliest spots.

After almost six years off the road, Motley Crue's back on tour, and Fresno's on the roster. Catch the band that brought us Tommy Lee at the Save Mart Center on October 7. Thanks to Mike Osegueda for passing on the news.