There are multiple, damn fine reasons this column is up so late today. One, it’s Christmastime-ish, still. I’m in Tulsa trying to sum up Dallas news and stuff my face with a third helping of Coney I-Lander chili dogs before I leave town.

Also, I’m trying to wade my way through all the “best of 2012” kudzu you find climbing the paywalls this week.

I really need some sort of relative velocity time dilation capsule to meet my deadlines this week, amirite?

Granted, many of the best of lists or predictions are fun to scan. I particularly got some chuckles out of Elaine Liner’s “83 Things We Learned in 2012” post at The Mixmaster. (“Don’t send email to your mistress.” NOTED.)

And I was pleased to see that Leslie Brenner bestowed the title of “Restaurant of the Year” on FT33, which offered the best meal I had in Dallas this year. But — and I know I railed against this yesterday, but hear me out — even that perfectly fine story got turned into a GD slideshow.

The Dallas Morning News is doing that with a bunch of its lists this week, even going so far as to create a “5 movies you should see this week” and “5 movies you should avoid this week” slideshow. (No, I’m not linking to them.) Sometimes I think the only reason they still actually write service pieces in non-slideshow form is because they’re still forced to put out a print product — or so people tell me.

Which is why I’m here to praise the annual feature that graces this week’s Dallas Observer cover, managing editor Patrick Williams’ “Year in Buzz.” (The headline is something else, but whatever. That’s the way I remember it.)

It’s my favorite year-end wrap-up for three reasons. One, Patrick (with whom I used to work but now only exchange e-mail about once every two years) really hates writing it. He starts dreading it and complaining about it and generally trying to schedule something else every chance he can. So knowing that he probably pulled an all-nighter to finish this thing over the weekend makes me giddy with schadenfreude.

Two, it’s not a mother-truckin’ slideshow.

Three, he does very well what I try to do in this space, with middling success: pull out the major themes from the news, those that are important or telling or simply fun to discuss, and give context to them. Highlight what makes them absurd, give you a sense of what is more important in the long run, and why. And he does so in a really entertaining fashion.

For example, he didn’t say Big Tex burning down was the most important story of the year; he said Rick Perry’s big meltdown was. Which is true — the idea that this idiot still runs our state should give us pause every day we live here. But he also writes about pig’s blood and dumb DJs and generally puts the year in context, in a manner that’s meant to be read, not clicked through. There’s still value in that, Patrick, so thanks for the all-nighter.

Elsewhere

Speaking of pig’s blood, the grand jury indictments are in.

Speaking of Big Tex, Big Bob Wilonsky tells us that the State Fair is now taking donations to help pay for his restoration. Big Tex’s, not Big Bob’s. The amount of carded wool or worsted yarn to make the number of flannel shirts needed to fully restore Big Bob would make that project cost prohibitive.

Retweets

Ahhh! Zombie Larry Hagman!

Pretty sure this will result in Shipp rocking back and forth, mumbling in a recursive loop for the next six to eight hours.