Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni's blog really steps it up a notch today, boldly going where no haute foodie has gone before: Hooters, everyone's favorite sports-and-boobs restaurant. Inside, he finds the buffalo wings to be tangy but the Philly cheesesteak to contain "assiduously minced" meat. Bruni also learns that doorgirls wear white shorts while waitresses wear orange, Swedish tourists love the joint, and that service is cheerful and funny.

We don't know what it is about this day in particular, but apparently today, Wednesday the 15th of February, is the preferred day for respectable newspapers to launch blogs. Perhaps it's the hangover from Valentine's Day self-loathing — we've found that depression and emotional darkness tend to lead to blogging. Whatever the case, both the Times and the Observer have launched new blogs today: Frank Bruni's Diner's Journal and the appropriately pink Bridal Blog, respectively.

Having ourselves spent a summer waiting tables, we absofuckinglutely love Frank Bruni's article in today's Times, in which the restaurant critic spends a week waiting tables in a busy Boston establishment. It's the sort of class reversal that makes the world a better place, really. And the idea of a beefy Bruni zipping between tables, demanding cooks prepare monkfish on the fly, is potentially hilarious (and optionable, ahem). The article also gives some insight into the sad reality of evil customers; on his first night following various servers, Bruni witnesses the following:

• Times foodie Frank Bruni's cutting investigation into restaurants discovers the unthinkable: you will spend money, often more than you originally intended. We're grabbing a Pulitzer nomination form right now. [NYT]
• Perhaps The Source should have gone looking for a new accounts manager before their landlord booted their broke asses. [MB]
• A very odd and possibly sad sighting of Radar's widower Maer Roshan. [PX This]
• Former councilwoman Margarita Lopez crowns Mayor Bloomberg an "honorary lesbian." We always knew he had a little bulldyke in him. [Politicker]
• Yet another theory on James Frey's FTBSITTTD tattoo, this one with as powerful a message as they come. [TMN]
• Our society has finally come to the point where a young, helpless woman will sacrifice her ladyflower for a fucking videogame system. Score one for those Left Behind-type freaks. [Craigslist]

Thanks for bearing with me today. I wasn't fully prepared when I agreed to take a stab at producing 12-odd items (I think "odd" turned into the operative word) but my stay here is a brief one. I swear I'll be using as many of the tips everyone has sent as possible, even if I have to space them out over several gigantic link-dump posts. Here are a few to hold you over.

We've asked our favorite media personalities what they're thankful for this year, and they've actually answered. Three from the Times, starting with Arts-y gal Ginia Bellafante:

• Is Judy Miller now a right-wing hero? Wait, what was she before the war, then? [NYM]
• Andrew Sullivan to move his blog to Time.com. Sellout! MSM! All those other things we're supposed to say! Yada yada yada. [NYP]
• Bob Schieffer to stay longer as CBS Evening News anchor. [NYT]
• Times to launch quarterly sports mag. [NYP]
• Esquire likes undulating apartments. [NYT]
• Google considers offering book rentals, sort of. [Reuters via Yahoo]
• Ruth Reichl reads The Bruni Digest. Bruni doesn't. Or so he says. [AP via Yahoo]

Frank Bruni eviscerates the swollen Tribeca eatery Ninja today (and rightfully so — having been there, we find it unimaginable that this venue is permitted to exist) and declares, "For a toddler with a trust fund and a yen for udon and maki, Ninja might be a valid alternative to the Jekyll and Hyde restaurant." Okay, so Frank's not a fan of the joint, either. But how much does he hate the "dreary subterranean labyrinth?" When describing the ninja servers' repetitive ninja catcalls, he writes:

• Many of you know CBS Early Show anchor Julie Chen as the wife of CBS showboat Les Moonves. But she has another talent: The ability to pull an insipid catchphrase out of her ass. [TVgasm]
• If you're desperate for freelance, check out the opportunities at the forthcoming men's mag, Cotton Tales. It's guaranteed to give Details and Men's Vogue a run for their big, gay money. [Craigslist]
• Trying to curb curse words in media? Good fucking luck. Asking us to stop swearing is like asking Graydon Carter to start wearing a patch. [NYT]
• Is getting an Extreme Makeover from the ABC reality show worth dying for? In the case of these remarkably fragile women, the show's rejection might lead to suicide. And by might, we mean has. [Defamer]
• Does Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni know the muffin man? And, if so, does he have a thing for him? [Bruni Digest]

Like our friends at Eater, we too noticed something was a bit funky with Timesman Frank Bruni's double-listed review(s) of Amy Sacco's new trough for the famous, Bette.