Got home yesterday; photos from the southern-fried vacation will be coming soon. In the meantime, there are 10 camera-phone shots on Twitter. This will be a king-sized “catching-up-to-the-rest-of-the-world” edition:

1. Tim O’Reilly makes some big-picture arguments for Facebook.
2. The “toe of God.”
3. Janelle Monae fucking rules. YouTubage here. Check it out. The Archandroid came out while I was in the middle of Kentucky, sans computer. I have high hopes.
4. Thoughts on journalism, branding and the “nothing-based economy.”
5. The BP/Transocean oil spill could flow up the Atlantic coast. Opposition to offshore drilling, already pretty high in those states, would likely spike.
6. Bonus deepwater drilling story: there might not be much oil down there.
7. The mortgage crisis is still spreading, but might be slowing down.
8. Rand Paul got elected during my vacation, and if I’d been there last week, I could’ve told you it was coming. Didn’t see a single Grayson sign. Anyway, I’ll talk more about him later–for now, the Maddow blog corrects the NYT take on Paul’s interview.
9. Trudy Campbell/Annie from Community has a story to tell. It’s not even really sexy, the way she tells it.
10. The US might legalize online poker, but continue to ban sports betting, because their goal is to make gambling not fun.