WEEK IN REVIEW: The Pioneer Press launched a tweak of their design last week. Looks like they ditched the left-side rail but added promos to the bottom of the page. I think their new front page is an improvement. Meanwhile at the St. Pete Times, they just launched a youth tab called TBT. It's headed up by Anne Glover, who I worked for when I was interning there. They've got a pretty slick Web site and they seem to have hopped on the Griffith Gothic train along with the Merc, Red Streak, the Denver Post... yeesh. Is Griffith the new Interstate? Hurricane Ivan slammed into the Gulf Coast. There were some fantastic photos from the aftermath but my favorite came before the storm hit. It was taken in the French Quarter by Bill Haber of the Associated Press. Check it out. And lastly, the Rocky had my favorite Assault Weapons Ban front page. BACK IN BLACK: Jeffy and I went to see Lewis Black at the Improv in San Jose on Thursday. He took the stage carrying a bottle of water and a copy of Thursday's Mercury News. Among his observations, as best as I can reconstruct them: ON THE MERC: "What's this? You've got a story on traffic? On the front page? Where's the news? I know there's fucking traffic here! I don't even live here! I don't need a newspaper to tell me that. Imagine you're some guy getting up in the morning. You have your coffee, you look at this story about all the traffic and think to yourself, 'Fuck! I'm going back to bed.' " ON SAN JOSE: "You know why you have so much traffic? Too many fucking people. Too many. Fucking. People. There was a big boom and you all moved here because you were making tons of money. Then that went away so you figured you'd leave. But then you couldn't. Because there were no jobs. And now you're all stuck here. Everytime I come here they're building more stuff. Right down the street they're building another, well, another of what passes for a skyscraper in this town. It's probably more apartments. You people have more apartments than any town I've ever seen. Here's an idea: Build a fucking store. Build. A fucking. Store. You've got all these empty storefronts here and all these people moving into apartments. You know what that is? A riot waiting to happen." ON THE ELECTION: "Lot of important issues. Lot of important issues. The economy. Iraq. Health care. Terrorism. President Bush keeps telling us that he's made us safer. Meanwhile he lets the assault weapons ban lapse. What? I mean, those terrorists... they're crafty sons of bitches. But now we're just letting them buy assault weapons on the street? What, did they need a leg-up? Lot of important issues. Meanwhile your newspaper has a story about a shark. But I guess that's understandable. They're ferocious." Nice that he could bring the whole thing back to ripping on my job.