The lo-cal news twit just informed me that today is National Donut Day, reigniting the eternal controversy: “donuts” or “doughnuts.” I’ll go with ‘donuts,’ since it’s almost 35% easier to type (and ‘doenuts’ would be a contradiction in terms). Plus I’m pretty sure it’s how Homer would spell it. But, even without Donut Day, this would still be a big weekend up here in the hinterland.

For one thing, it’s the annual “Taste of Syracuse” celebration, with this year’s big ticket item (well, it’s actually free, so there aren’t any tickets, but anyways…) being the Saturday evening performance by the band “Modern West,” led by Kevin Costner. I have no idea what kind of music they play (I’m thinking some sort of Country/Western thing, based on the name), but, as you may have heard, Kevin Costner is a very famous person, so lots of folks will no doubt be going out to look at him (plus, did I mention, it’s free).

As part of TOS, tonight is the annual Syracuse Area Music (aka SAMMY) Awards, and this year’s SAMMY Hall of Fame inductees are Donna Colton, The Dean Brothers, Otis Smith, Mike Greenstein and Carrie Pardee. Never heard of them? Well, too bad for you. Besides, Libba Cotten was inducted years ago, and they had to pick somebody.

As if that wasn’t enough, party girl and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will be coming to nearby Auburn to participate in the annual Founders’ Day celebration. Lock up your sons (and maybe your daughters, too 😉 ), CNY’ers, Sarah’s comin’!

The esteemed Governor and wolf murderer will be meetin’ and greetin’ and paradin’ and stuff. And if you’ve got $250 (seems kind of cheap – not unlike the Governor herself – don’t it?), on Saturday afternoon you can have your pitcher takin’ with her at the William H Seward House library, and then go and set a spell with her at a garden party reception. Well, except you better already have your ticket, ‘cuz they’re all sold out (to be fair, there were only 125 of them to begin with, so that wasn’t too tough). But the event is raising $31 grand for the Seward museum, so I reckon that’s a good thing.

But wait, there’s more! It’s also “Oz-Stravaganza!” weekend in Chittenango, birthplace of L. Frank Baum (women’s suffrage advocate, supporter of ‘Redskin’ extirmination [sic] – at least in two editorials he wrote for the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer – and author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – the first of something like 40 ‘Oz’ books, and possibly one of the 12,853 books Dubya read – or had read to him – while pretending to be president). It’s also the 70th anniversary of the release of the movie, and the 100th anniversary of the publication of the fifth book in the series, “The Road to Oz” (where Dorothy meets the Shaggy Man, and while trying to find the road to Butterfield, they get lost on an enchanted road) so this should be quite an affair. Oh, there’ll be parades (we love our parades, here in the provinces) and munchkins (well, the widow of a munchkin, anyway; I don’t know if the others will make the trip this year. Sadly, our favorite munchkin – Clarence Swensen – passed away in February, leaving us with only 8 of the original 124) and all sorts of yellow brick road type of stuff, and the whole darn town of Chittenango will be abuzz.

Oh, go ahead and make fun of us yokels, but I guarantee this would never happen here. They’d have towed the sucker after the first couple tickets.

Denise Richards has apparently fessed up to have three boob jobs. I didn’t actually read the story (and I’m not real clear on who she is, though I gather she’s famous), so I don’t know if she had her boobs done three times, or if she has three boobs. Is this her?

Time to make the donuts.