Another thought I had about this MLGW situation: They say that death and taxes are unavoidable. But utility bills ... well, that's a different story, isn't it?

Looking for a silver lining in this MLGW mess?

It could just be that Gale Jones Carson, who recently "retired" from a city job to go back to work for the city-owned utility company, will actually get a chance to earn her comfortable paycheck if she's able to effectively manage what has become a public relations nightmare.

Then again, by the time this is over, Carson may be ready for a real, honest-to-gosh "get me to a rocking chair retirement," as opposed to one that allows her to collect pension checks from City Hall while she continues to work somewhere else.

In a surprising development, Toyota is announcing today that it plans to pick Tupelo, Miss. over Marion, Ark. and Chattanooga as the site of the company's next North American manufacturing plant.

The scuttlebutt is that Marion, with its close proximity to Memphis, and Chattanooga were both hurt by their air quality problems.

Hmmm. So maybe that $6.3 million worth of air quality improvement grant money that the feds decided to withhold from Memphis as a penalty for Memphis scamming them over the FedExForum parking garage doesn't seem so insignificant after all, does it?

Here's the photo that convinced Lindsay Melvin to give Bikram yoga a try. (You might know it as hot yoga.) Lindsay usually covers education for The Commercial Appeal, but we overheard her describing a recent class and convinced her to explain why she's become a regular.

So, read Lindsay's account of how she learned to love combining heat, humidity and exercise. Then send us your story about what you do to stay fit and how your stay motivated.

Here's Lindsay:
A photo in The Commercial Appeal of hands clasping a foot, dripping with a thin stream of sweat

The Memphis-made "Black Snake Moan" seems to be making an impression. It doesn't even open until Friday, yet it was spoofed this past weekend on "Saturday Night Live," with Kenan Thompson as a "crazy old African-American bluesman" and Rainn Wilson in the Christina Ricci role. (It may not be a Justin Timberlake-in-"D*ck in a Box" phenom, but as of Tuesday morning, this skit had been viewed almost 65,000 times on YouTube.)

Craig Brewer, whose next movie, "Black Snake Moan," opens Friday, told Michael Donahue today that he felt "comfortable" showing his movie in Memphis ... he's among friends. It looked like lots of the friends who were in the movie were at the party. My favorite picture was Brewer connecting with Knox Phillips, sort of a one generation meets the next kind of thing. Also in Donahue's column today, Staxtacular '07, a benefit for LeBonheur and a chef's party at Encore. Click on the slide show, right, for more pictures.

Just a random thought left over from Sunday night's Oscars ceremony: Exactly how many of those little statues has George Bush won?