When I first heard of Blavod, the black-colored vodka, it somehow put me in mind of Blacula.

Scream, black vodka, scream!

Turns out I’m not the only one with African bloodsucker on the brain: Take some Blavod and some Bloody Mary mix, and you’ve got yourself a Blackula. I can totally see the likes of Jay-Z and Ludacris downing these.

Google Earth, with all its satellite-photo fun, is creating such a buzz that expanding upon the idea was only natural.

So the search giant went for the next-closest celestial body. Google Moon lets you scour the lunar surface, perhaps to scout out locations for setting up a satellite office (get it?). I’d opt for a site next door to Google’s lunar offices.

Just don’t zoom in too close, especially if you’re lactose-intolerant.

I recall that the recent CreativeTampaBay workshop I attended cited the abundance of festivals as one of the robust features of Tampa Bay’s socio-cultural stew.

Here’s a new one: Megaveraneo 2005, celebrating Hispanic music, food and atmosphere, this weekend at Vinoy Park in St. Petersburg.

Ten bucks admission for a free-for-all like this seems a bit much. But it is something to experience, so maybe it’d be worth it. And it’ll feature some rockin’ reggaeton, which I’ve reviewed here before.

Could the new emergence of the Coyote Democrat have yielded Presidential timber so quickly? Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer is getting some early buzz as a Democratic contender for the White House in 2008.

It could be due to his colorful quipping:

He recently compared President Bush’s pitch for changing Social Security to a livestock auction selling bum beef, and he said this of the way the nation’s capital works: “If I stay in Washington for more than 72 hours, I have to bathe myself in the same stuff I use when my dog gets into a fight with a skunk.”

The built-in joke is that the Democrats are in such disarray that they have to look in the most outlandish places for viable national candidates…