During the campaign, mayoral candidate Bill Knight said he would like Greensboro to have more of a presence at the Piedmont Triad Partnerships meetings, and promised that as mayor he would travel to meet with Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines and High Point Mayor Becky Smothers.

My New Year's resolution is to actually take a bigger bite out of life and enjoy it to the richest and fullest of my stomach and taste buds capacity. I am unwrapping a copy of a new cookbook I bought for my wife (really for me) entitled, This Is Why You're Fat: Where Dreams Become Heart Attacks.

So let's get started: A recent offering from Wolfgang's Vault is the Rising Sons at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles in May 1965. That may not mean much to you, but the Rising Sons gave blues artists Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder their starts. The Ash Grove was a legendary folk club.

In the UK, Christmas rather than Halloween is associated with tales of spooks and goblins. The most famous Yuletide ghost story, Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol," ends on a note of redemption and cheer, but has its share of scariness.

You're gonna have Christmas music pumped into your ears every time you enter a store, pump gas or even ride in your car from now until New Year's Eve. Too bad most Christmas music sucks. But there are a few gems I look forward to hearing every year, starting with this one, John Lennon's paean to peace and togetherness in the face of the Vietnam War.

Looking to make a few extra bucks this holiday season? Well, loose cash is out there for the making during the holiday season, when Americans are conditioned to mindlessly spend and consume, often in memory of a poor carpenter from Nazareth who believed in helping the poor.

A branded line of mock turkey products, usually made from tofu (soy protein) or seitan (wheat protein), tofurkey serves as vegetarian alternative to the holiday staple. Tofurkey can be served as roast, with vegetarian stuffing and gravy.

The Barnes recruitment that ended last week was an anomaly for a litany of reasons. In the Age of Information, never has a 17-year-old with that kind of profile been so airtight on a college choice up until the final moment. With every scrap of info passing through Twitter, message boards, etc.

Derwin Montgomery, a 21-year-old Winston-Salem State University senior, defeated Democratic incumbent Joycelyn Johnson for the East Ward seat on the Winston-Salem City Council during the Democratic primary on Sept. 15. Montgomery garnered 530 votes or 57 percent of the votes cast in the East Ward.

The proximity between the dates of Halloween and Election Day are troubling if you put out a general-interest alternative weekly, but if you're going to a costume party with politically-minded folks - or, better yet, candidates themselves - it would...