Do you remember that one time that first lady Dawn Gibbons banned alcohol from the governor’s mansion in Carson City? (We even hear that a sign designating the “Lou Ruvo Room” was painted over, since he’s the main man over at Southern Wine and Spirits, which has brought so much joy into the lives of so many here in Las Vegas.

Anyway, you’ll never guess where the first lady is going to be on Friday. That’s right: She’ll be at the Yard House, the newest incarnation of the California chain famous for serving more than 100 beers, all on draft. The Las Vegas Yard House is located in the Town Square shopping center on Las Vegas Boulevard near Sunset Road.

No, Gibbons won’t be boozing it up (at least that we know about). She’ll instead be presenting a proclamation for a group called 9-1-1 For Kids, which teaches youngsters how to dial 9-1-1 in case of an emergency. Henderson resident Gerardo Sanchez, 10, is being honored for dialing 9-1-1 in December to help his mother, who was having heart problems.

Anyway, the invite says the media is welcome to stay for lunch, and we can tell you from personal experience that the Yard House food is D-lish. (That’s how the young people say it, or so we understand.) So if Dawn Gibbons decides to stay, who says she might not quaff some delicious ale? At the very least, we know she’s not averse to standing near alcohol, all for a good cause.

Alas, the public can’t get in to the Yard House until Sunday.

“You got a tattoo of a nurse?” Bob said.

Jim finished his Coors tallboy, crushed the can and threw it out the window of the truck. “Ain’t no nurse.”

“That’s a nurse.”

“No. She’s a medical professional, and she’s wild and she’s free and no one can ever cage her or chain her or control her,” Jim said, his eyes brightening. “She’s … largely unregulated in who knows how many health clinics in Nevada. And by God that’s beautiful.”

“I like her mouth,” said Bob.

Now on sale at unbeatable prices — two-ride tickets! Ten-ride tickets! One-day passes! Three-day passes! Plus VIP club passes! Drink cards! Buffet coupons! Please! I beg you! IS ANYONE LISTENING?!?!?

Frustrated by the glacial (pardon the pun) pace of efforts to stop global warming, one prickly group of crochet artists is raising awareness of man’s effects on the environments by re-creating the Great Barrier Reef - through crochet. Their efforts are getting attention and gaining support from Australia to Harlem.

More pictures here.

Oh, Gypsy Kings, I have loved thee ever since I heard your astounding version of “Hotel Califonia” in The Big Lebowski. I HATED that song with a passion generally reserved for people who almost run me off the road while jabbering on a cell phone. Yet somehow, your light-handed treatment drew me back in, and made me reconsider. For that alone, you are one of the best bands ever.

Gypsy Kings
8p. $65. The Joint

If for some reason you’re vehemently opposed to the beauty of world music, here are two additional options:

“Rattle, Rumble & Roll Cruise-in” with local punkabilly faves The Holy Smokes.
7p-11p. 21+. Free. Hogs & Heifers

The only nightclub I bother to frequent offers up “Live Revolution” every Tuesday with my vinyl-slingin’ buds The Bargain DJ Collective paired with bands. This week’s edition features Totally Radd!! and The Human Value.
10p. 21+. $10. The Beatles Revolution Lounge, Mirage

7. Officer McNulty

6. Bret Michaels

5. Christian Siriano

4. That guy with the calm, authoritative yet reassuring voice who narrates the “Frontline” specials on PBS

3. The Keno twins from “Antiques Roadshow”

2. The Cloverfield Monster

1. Chewbacca

That’s what CityLife columnist Josh Ellis hypothesizes about the would-be anarchist with a thing for ricin. Snip from this week’s column:

… minus the apocalyptic poison, Roger Von Bergendorff sounds like any of the sad fuckers who come to this city every day, trying to start over. You see them everywhere you go: the middle-aged white dudes with feathered hair in thrift store casino T-shirts and tacky short-shorts that went out of fashion around the time Rick Astley was topping the pop charts; guys with skinny hairy legs and tanned, leathery faces and eyes that seem perpetually confused, like they can’t figure out how they ended up here, working some shitty under-the-table job all day and spending all night in the deep end of a local’s casino, milking the nickel slots and the free drinks for all they’re worth until some combination of well whiskey and self-loathing sends them stumbling back into their darkened rooms at the Extended Stay America or The Suites or just some flophouse shithole off Fremont Street.

You see them at the bus stop or in line at Wal-Mart at three in the morning, buying generic smokes and endless tallboys of cheap Midwestern beer, time travelers from 1982.

And they all end up here, sooner or later, because Las Vegas is designed to be a pitcher plant that lures these people in and and nourishes itself on their nickels and their addictions and their desperation. They are Lost Boys, and this is their Never-Never Land. And we could not live without them.

Is Roger Von Bergendorff one of these sort of men, these ghosts that endlessly haunt the residential motels and the neighborhood bars of this city? I can’t say. I never met the man. But I wouldn’t be surprised.

Read more Ellis at his website zenarchery.com.

But really how could you miss it? The first-person war zone reportage of state Sen. Joe Heck was all over the Nevada section of Monday’s Review-Journal. And it was the centerpiece of the newspaper’s website for the entire day.

Yes, we get it, R-J. You love Joe Heck. Joe Heck hates taxes and supports war. And so does the R-J. Thus, ready-made political mailers printed on Bonanza Road (without, of course, the tiny little notation that Heck is running for re-election in November; that would spoil the mood).

But just in case you did miss it (after all, about 75 percent of the valley doesn’t read the R-J, under the most generous of readership stats), the Nevada Republican Party sent out a helpful reminder Monday, under the subject line, “In case you missed it.”

Campaigns do this all the time of course, sending supporters and reporters material that they think will be helpful to their efforts. And if Heck wasn’t a sure thing for re-election before, the R-J seems to be doing its level best to ensure he is now.

There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. Agenda journalism often gets a bad rap. We at Various Things & Stuff almost always write with a point of view.

The difference? We don’t pretend to be objective. They do.