Some days I skip the news and start right in on the Daily Break. All right, most days.

That’s where the funnies are, and the crossword puzzle, and the anachronistic sew-it-yourself fashion disaster suggestions. Makes for a nice appetizer to the paper when you’re not yet ready to start chewing the main course. There’s no conflict in the Daily Break, just light-hearted distraction. Here are a couple tidbits for you, before we jump to the heavy stuff.

Slime mold is beautiful

Local jewelry designer Tracey Wilder hit the big-time, or somewhere close to it, when her body-wrapping “snake-chain-and-wire body art” adorned a model on a runway in Lincoln Center during New York Fashion Week. Wilder, a graduate of Cox High School and the Governor’s School, went on to Rhode Island School of Design. Her work features a series of interconnected pieces that attach to the wearer’s head, arm and torso. She says she was inspired by slime mold. For a photo, read the story.

Local is cool

If you see this, you're not at Applebees.

Restaurants that are listed in the Hampton Roads Buy Fresh Buy Local food guide have been given a “Virginia Grown” foods sign to hang on their doors. This is like a coded message broadcast to foodies, letting them know that the food in these restaurants is purchased fresh from local sources, not shipped in frozen from a central dispensary (think Applebees).

The story features quotes from Jerry Weihbrecht of Zoës in Virginia Beach and David Hausmann of The Boot in Norfolk, both of which go to great lengths to form direct relationships with local farms to source their ingredients. I’ve started growing collards on my front lawn… maybe they’ll buy from me.

Do the Hokie pokie, with half a finger

I’m determined to remain distracted today, so when I turned to the front page I headed straight to this story. It made me squirm. That’s because it’s about a Hokie football player who tore off a “chunk” of his finger in an opponent’s face mask, taped up his hand and finished the game last Saturday (the Hokies won). His finger part was later discovered swimming in blood inside his glove. I’m getting woozy writing this. The chunk was successfully reattached after the game. The player, Greg Nosal, is currently riding the wave of fame that inevitably accompanies such a feat of mutilation. So, happy endings all around. I have to lie down now.

Show me the Money (Point)

Scott Harper, intrepid eco-journalist, visited the waters of Money Point in the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River. He and Joe Reiger, a senior scientist for the Elizabeth River Project, were checking on progress at the site, a year after the first major cleanup work was completed, and the results are encouraging. Where before almost no living things could be found, “now there are at least 17 species of fish and shellfish milling about – eels, flounder, oysters, speckled trout, shad, spot, croaker, among others.” ERP has made Money Point one of its flagship cleanup sites, and success there speaks well for the potential to keep cleaning and repairing the damaged Elizabeth River.

If you haven’t heard of this group, you should go check out the Elizabeth River Project now.

Dramatis Personae

Things got interesting at the opera house on Sunday. After the final local performance of Rigoletto, Eddie Harrison, the woman for whom the building is named, took the stage and addressed the audience. “There’s a small group of people working in secret to remove our Peter Mark…You need to speak out and stop these few people and save the opera.” Gasp! Shock! Horror!

Harrison and Mark have been partners in the Virginia Opera since its inception in 1975. Peter Mark has been artistic director the whole time. He’s credited with achieving great things, but his personal style seems to rub some people the wrong way–the opera board has declared they are done with him and won’t be renewing his contract, which expires in 2012. Normally this action would be behind-the-scenes, but Mark’s friend and colleague decided she couldn’t sit back and let his happen, hence her appearance in front of the curtain and her public call to arms.

The answers are blowing in the wind

Even while our governor is promoting Virginia as an energy capital that relies heavily on coal and supports offshore drilling, another, more enlightened vision for future power on the East Coast has emerged. In this vision, which has recently received an influx of real investment money, Norfolk sits at the southern end of an underwater transmission line designed to carry electricity from offshore wind turbines. The goal of the project is to solve one of the nagging problems of offshore wind–how do you get the power from the turbine to the cities? Dubbed the Atlantic Wind Connection, this system represents the kind of serious infrastructure investment we should be making to steer our electrical production future toward cleaner, sustainable sources. Pay attention, Mr. McDonnell.