DJ AM, 1973-2009: DJ AM -- celebrity DJ, erstwhile Nicole Richie paramour, and tabloid veteran, all relatedly, I guess -- died today. My first thought was that a guy who cheated death twice, climbing out of both a rock-bottom crack habit and a fiery, deadly plane crash, ought to have been able to cheat it again. That's not the way it works, of course, and the stories today of his struggles to wean himself from painkillers after the crash make his end sound sadly inevitable. The needs of a burn victim and a recovering drug addict are woefully incompatible, so I think I'll see this as a delayed casualty of the crash.

THAT ACTUALLY TOOK A WHILE. I HAD TO PUT MORE AND MORE NICKELS INTO HIS HANDSET UNTIL HE GOT USED TO THE WEIGHT, AND THEN I JUST TOOK THEM ALL OUT: Fans of the sadly-defunct Fametracker.com recall its occasional When Stars Mate feature (and its counterpart, When Stars Split), which existed "to determine who in current celeb/celeb pairings has gained by the relationship, who has lost, and how the balance of power could be altered."

In that context, I ask you to evaluate the news that John Krasinski and Emily Blunt are now engaged.

TOM BO LI DE SAY DE MOI YA, YEAH, JUMBO JUMBO: I'm not sure if it tops the Macalester students (and others) who've attempted to replicate Lionel Ritchie's "Hello" bust, but Conan O'Brien's bust has now been sculpted using 300 pounds of white chocolate and five pounds of bacon.

NO, PLEASE, TELL ME ABOUT THE BURIED CANNON AGAIN: According to a recent NYT article, many college tour guides are no longer walking backwards "to facilitate more natural conversations, as well as to soothe the anxieties of mothers in particular, who tend to worry about their guides falling over curbs or toppling over signs that weren’t there the day before."

It's Friday. Tell us something neat we should know about your college campus -- like that Amherst's has a 15-story steeple from a church which no longer exists.

BUTTERFLY IN THE SKY, I CAN GO TWICE AS HIGH: Reading Rainbow will end its 26-year run on Public Broadcasting today as the third longest-running kids' show in PBS history, behind only Sesame Street and Mister Rogers. As the linked story points out, while other PBS shows like Sesame Street and Electric Company emphasized the tools of reading, Rainbow took a different approach, emphasizing the joy of reading, as the original theme sequence illustrates. The official site has a list of every book featured on the show, and I'm guessing we have fond memories of many of them.

MY BELOVED OCCASIONAL COMMONWEALTH: In various research projects over the past few months, I've come across two gems in the Massachusetts General Laws:

• Mass. Gen. Laws. ch. 89, § 3: "No person shall travel on a way with a sleigh or sled drawn by a horse, unless there are at least three bells attached to some part of the harness."
• Mass. Gen. Laws. ch. 272, § 33: "Whoever exhibits for hire an albino person, a minor or mentally ill person who is deformed or a person who has an appearance of deformity produced by artificial means shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars."

[I discussed the latter with a libertarian lawprof at UCLA who shall remain nameless; he agreed that this was unconstitutional as to albinos, but constitutional as to minors or the mentally ill on the grounds of consent, which raises the question of whether we'll ever see a Little People, Big World prosecution.] And this is still on the books: "Whoever wilfully blasphemes the holy name of God by denying, cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, his creation, government or final judging of the world, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching Jesus Christ or the Holy Ghost, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching or exposing to contempt and ridicule, the holy word of God contained in the holy scriptures shall be punished by imprisonment in jail for not more than one year or by a fine of not more than three hundred dollars, and may also be bound to good behavior."

WE COULD HAVE BROUGHT ANYONE INTO THIS SHOW: JANET JACKSON, PAULA ABDUL ... NOMI MALONE IS WHAT LAS VEGAS IS ALL ABOUT! SHE'S DAZZLING, SHE'S EXCITING, AND VERY, VERY SEXY: Oh, I love it when real life imitates Showgirls -- Paula Abdul "is reportedly fully committed to putting together a Las Vegas song-and-dance show that's she's been developing for several years."

Please, let it include the volcano scene, the leather-biker scene, the wedding scene with the marbles ... and absolutely no nudity whatsoever. [Seriously, has anyone ever tried to stitch together the plot of Goddess?]