Quickies: Trenton tea party

• The Inquirer, clearly, has laid off its entire design staff and is using the Designbot 5283 version 1.2 beta 1, since today’s front page layout (at left) is the same exact one as yesterday. The story’s decent, too. [Inky]

• It’s an all-around bad day for doughnuts: “Time to make the donuts” actor Michael Vale is dead at 83. [AP via CNN.com]

• If you read one column headline this year, make it this one: Don’t shortchange historic importance of tea. [Trentonian]

• A fun, nice, holiday story: Man stabs friend on Christmas Eve. Aww. [Trenton Times]

• Some housekeeping: I wrote up a whole year-in-Philly recap and it really only works as one piece, so I’m just going to tighten it up and run it sometime tomorrow or Friday. Youse all okay with that? Good.

Everything must go (including the customers)

For a long while, perhaps the only Krispy Kreme north of the Mason-Dixon Line was just outside of Philadelphia on U.S. Route 1 in Bensalem. It closed its doors years ago, but the Southern doughnut franchise eventually expanded into Philadelphia, promising 16 stores when it said it was coming into town in 2001. The Daily News wrote about 100 advertisements feature stories about the company, people lined up at 5 a.m. at the Roosevelt Mall location and Krispy Kreme was a sensation.

Fast forward to 2005, and all Krispy Kreme locations in Philadelphia have been closed. The company’s been in a dire financial situation for a while now, and the subsidiary that runs the Philly stores just filed for Chapter 11, citing $24.1 million in debts.

Usually when stores close, though, they have going out of business sales or they close during off hours. Yesterday, the Krispy Kreme location on Cottman Avenue closed while customers were waiting in line to buy doughnuts. Writes the Philadelphia Business Journal:

But a customer, Shanti Bacari of Philadelphia, said she was at one of the locations, 2327 Cottman Ave. in Northeast Philadelphia, at about 12:30 p.m. Monday when it closed abruptly.

About a dozen customers were trying to get inside and people waiting in the drive-thru line were turned away, she said.

Inside, customers continued to make purchases as it appeared a group of employees were holding a meeting, said Bacari, who was among those turned away.

With corporate strategy like this, somehow I’m not surprised Krispy Kreme’s Philly subsidiary has $24 million in debt.

Krispy Kreme down to zero Philadelphia stores [PBJ]

Red storm for bowl game

A story in the Inquirer today highlights a man who might be the craziest sports fan on the planet: A die-hard, crazed Rutgers fan. Until this season, Rutgers hadn’t been to a bowl game since 1978, which means Temple had been to a bowl more recently than the Scarlet Knights. And that’s bad.

But that didn’t matter to Jeffrey Oldt, a Rutgers grad and season ticket holder who — after deciding he couldn’t afford to attend the game — had a giant party at his own place, complete with stolen bleachers, a Rutgers motorcycle, a new TV in front of a roaring fireplace, Jell-O shots, etc. And everything was red, the school’s color. (At this point, I’d like to nominate this man as Best Rutgers Fan Ever.)

All of this for Rutgers. The Inky story doesn’t say it, but — of course — the Scarlet Knights lost last night. Alas.

Rutgers fan brings bowl scene to his front lawn [Inky]
Arizona State 45, Rutgers 40 [AP via Yahoo!]

Abridged Daily News columnists

Just one today, folks. But that’s one more than yesterday!

Rotan Lee: Aww, come on — cracker isn’t that bad of a racial slur! And Carl Singley apologized, pretty pretty please let him have his job with the school district back!

It’s the season for marketing backlash!

We just passed the holiday devoted to the celebration of commercialism in this country, conveniently placed on a day when a carpenter many consider to be the Christ was born over 2,000 years ago. And, during the run up to this big ol’ commercialism holiday, there are plenty of ads. Too many to really attract everyone’s attention.

And so the ad wizards at big companies come up with these pseudo-underground campaigns that try to be all hip and edgy and, of course, fail. Sony recently launched a campaign for the PSP, the portable video game console, that uses graffiti art, like the image at left (which I took with my camera phone at Good Dog, I think).

Once the pseudo-underground campaign launches, there’s the oh-so-predictable backlash. It seems silly to me. It’s like when someone in the media makes fun of bloggers and every third person with a blog has to weigh in about how the media doesn’t respect this more pure form of “citizen journalism” and blah blah blah. (It’s no surprise that bloggers have been bashing this.) Who really cares if Sony is using an art form usually done by people just for fun to promote their product? If you really hate it, just ignore it. Or, you know, deface it. That’s kinda funny, at least.

Either way, the backlash has extended past the usual “corporation infringing on our counter-culture” argument. The Society Created To Reduce Urban Blight called the ads “very arrogant and very disrespectful.” And the city’s managing director accused Sony of encouraging graffiti. All well and good, I guess. But the real graffiti artists are only going to find Sony’s ads stupid at best. And anyone inspired to tag somewhere else by an ad for a PSP is, well — there’s not really much to be done with someone that receptive to messages.

So don’t worry. These stupid ads will disappear in a few weeks and we can all move back to complaining about more important things — namely, the Eagles.

Sony ads draw public ire [Inky]

Optimus Prime was #34

Geeze. Even the year-end awards specials are stretching it this year. This might be the slowest week in the history of man.

The 50 Best Robots Ever [Wired]

Also: Baby teeth usually fall out

Yep. There is no news going on this week.

Pediatricians: Most kids outgrow bedwetting [Reuters via CNN.com]

Slow jams, all week on Philadelphia Will Do

Some announcements: As you may have noticed — or haven’t, since you’re not here — things are slow this week. (Very, very slow. And there aren’t as many people at work to visit blogs to waste time, even.)

The week between Christmas and New Year’s is the slowest time on earth for news organizations (and news-ish blogs like this one). This is why end-of-year features are so popular: there’s nothing else to write about!

I am no exception to this general malaise toward work on this darkest of weeks. And so, everything’s going to be a little slow for the next few days.

But fear not! Tomorrow, the first of a three-part year-in-Philly wrap as well more stupid headlines, horrible one-liners, fake Metro editions — and maybe some puppies, if everyone behaves.

Blogicized: Puppets for all

• Apparently, Rick Mariano and John Dougherty are “puppet and master.” The mental images I’m getting from this? Sickening. [America's Hometown]

• This is the greatest submission to Overheard in Philly yet. I don’t even care if it’s made up. [Overheard in Philly]

• Who won the war on Christmas? I think this is a battle that nobody won, except for maybe pundits with nothing of real substance to say. [TommyWonk]

• Here’s how to save all that money you got from your relatives. [Phillyist]

Lede of the Week, Franklin Mills edition

The opening two graphs of Inky staff writer Thomas Ginsberg’s article today about the post-Holiday rush:

As shoppers snapped back into action yesterday, one self-described Scrooge sat alone in Franklin Mills Mall, surveying and scorning the scene.

“A bunch of idiots!” said Bill Lawn, 74, a Philadelphia retiree calmly sipping coffee and reading a newspaper at Gloria Jean’s Coffee. “People allow their religious beliefs to be so commercialized that they don’t even know what Christmas means anymore.”

You know what they say: Out of the mouths of babes — or, rather, the exact opposite of that.

Now bearing gift cards, shoppers traverse afar [Inky]