Oh, the Louis XIVTH cut of prime rib of beef, virtually indistinguishable from the regular cut, other than price.  Oh, the oven-roasted potatoes or french fries or rice pilaf.  Oh, the riverboat salad bar featuring the, oh my, glow-in-the-dark light green salad dressing.

Oh, the memories.

A rare night out — actually, a medium rare night out — for Extreme Mortman yesterday to join our New Media Strategies colleagues for the last meals and drinks served at Tom Sarris’ Orleans House in Rosslyn.  How could we miss the January 15 closing?  After all, the equal parts earnest and festive steak house was located right across the street from our glass-enclosed nerve center.  And it was home to so many personal moments.  You may not know this unless you’re a true collector of all Mortman biographical facts, but growing up in DC, many Mortman family special occasions were marked at the Orleans House, from the fun salad-infused glorious beginning right down to the annoying and painful conclusion of wondering where our check was.

But oh, the salad bar.  The saddest part of the salad bar shutting down with the restaurant?  All those poor cans of three-bean salad will now go homeless.  Ba-dum!  No, seriously, I swear those cherry tomatoes were first brought out during the Johnson administration — Andrew Johnson.  Ba-dum!  No, seriously, there’s good news — wondering what will happen to all the unused vats of green salad dressing?  Apparently they can fuel the new generation of hybrid SUVs.  Ba-dum!  No, seriously: if you ordered the salad with the green dressing on top, you just had to look at the waitress and say, “I’ll have the Chernobyl!”

For now, though, nothing but memories.  Sweet memories.  I’ll never be able to look at a bowl of stale croutons again without getting a wee bit misty-eyed for the glory days.

But one final happy thought: At least we were joined by Yasser Arafat and his bodyguards.

Please forgive us for breaking out of character for a moment, but a huge milestone was reached today for Extreme Mortman — we passed over a unique million visitors for the year.

We join you in wishing ourselves a hearty mazel tov.

We couldn’t have done it, of course, without you million-strong readers. And we also owe a huge debt of gratitude to the blog biggies for sending us so many visitors over the year, with links from Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, Huffington Post’s Media News, Hot Air, Inside Cable, Fishbowl, Wonkette, National Review’s Corner, Pajamas Media, Reason’s Hit & Run. Political Humor. And a special thank you to my employer, New Media Strategies.

To celebrate, let’s go in a different direction for a moment. For this one posting, let’s act like a typical blogger and talk about our new cell phone and what we had for breakfast.

1) Cell phone — Over the weekend, the Extreme Family got new cell phones. Wonderful new cell phones. We haven’t done anything new and trendy — in electronics or anything else in life — for years, if ever. But we’re really enjoying our new Samsung Juke phone. And I see that there’s a whole website devoted to it — with a round-up of favorable buzz. So let me see if I can get noticed by the good folks at Samsung Juke by saying this phone is so great, Ron Paul should buy one.

2) Breakfast. OK, let’s see. This morning I had some cereal and some juice and some coffee and my regular serving of fruit (banana). Then I shaved, brushed my teeth, had my morning bowel movement, then I got out of bed.

Thanks for a great year!

Our charming New Media Strategies colleague Patrick Ottenhoff posts this delightful item at his sensational blog The Electoral Map:

On this day in 1861, a late season hurricane slammed into a fleet of U.S. Navy warships assembled off the Georgia and Carolina coast.  It was the largest armada ever assembled to date and it had steam South to blockade Rebel ports as part of U.S. General Winfield Scott’s Anaconda Plan to snake around the Confederacy.  But the storm, which was named the “Expedition Hurricane” after the expeditionary force it nearly destroyed, scrambled Washington’s plans and saved the South (hat tip: Strange Maps).

Fast-forward to 2007.  Today, the White House brokered a deal between Alabama, Georgia and Florida, whose governors have been battling over precious water resources as their states fight through an epidemic drought.

It was Washington stepping in to assist the Southern governors afflicted by an act of God.  In 1861, it was an act of God that saved the Southern governors who were rebelling from Washington.  History sure does have a way of turning on itself.

A few things to plug here on a hot, hazy Friday afternoon:

1) One of my favorite charities, which I’ve mentioned repeatedly on this blog, is ThanksUSA. It raises funds for education scholarships for children and spouses of our troops through a national treasure hunt. It’s a great cause. The charity’s driving force Bob Okun recently wrote about it in the Washington Times. Check out the op-ed here.

2) Jon Eick, my gifted and multi-talented colleague at New Media Strategies, has launched a hilarious food blog called So Good. Check it out here. I particularly enjoyed his posting on Bacon Salt. Alas, the concept won’t work in Israel because of, ahem, Menachem Bacon.

3) If you hate Barry Bonds, or for that matter if you hate Extreme Mortman, you’ll get a kick out of this comment that was posted to my Politico piece on Barack Obama mishandling the Bonds homerun question:

Howard, I had written a more detailed comment, however, I scratched it. After giving it some thought - - of which this article displays that you have deficiencies. And that’s okay, everyone have deficiences, however, everyone is not allowed the opportunity of public display. I totally agree with RuthieM in regards to the article and Barack’s response to the question. There is one matter that is clear through the comments - - we all believe you need help. Hopefully, friends and family will manage some type of intervention for you. Sounds like a case of the deinstitualized mentally ill to me. Just to think that you would even try to comprehend and reason on the level of Barack Obama is obsurd based upon your rendition here. I pray that you are not given access to any weapons beyond a computer technology. The world would be in a lot of danger.

To which I can only point out, if you think I’m dangerous with a computer, you should start impounding transistor radios.

Advertising Age previews the upcoming CNN/YouTube debate in South Carolina:

The Time Warner-owned network is expected to make an announcement this week about the format of the first Democratic National Committee-sanctioned debate, asking users to upload their questions to YouTube with the promise that several of them will be put to the candidates that evening.
It’s the latest example of the digitizing of the 2008 elections, where campaigning includes not only YouTube but social-networking sites and even fringe technologies such as Twitter. …
“I don’t want to get hyperbolic about it, but it’s a good first step,” said Pete Snyder, a political pollster turned CEO of New Media Strategies, an Arlington, Va., online-marketing and word-of-mouth firm that recently was acquired by Meredith Corp. “The debate format, period, doesn’t work well. If injecting user-generated content into the mix makes it more lively or connects these politics and brings it down on a level to real people, it’ll work.”

My company New Media Strategies is now working with the Fred Thompson presidential campaign on online strategy.  I am directly involved in those efforts.
How will this affect the Extreme Mortman blog?  Simple.  I will continue to ridicule the first and third “Die Hard” movies, but “Die Hard II” is now off limits.

Today’s Washington Post:

… as the explosion of blogs, social networks and video-sharing sites has driven big companies to recognize the role of Internet image in protecting their bottom lines, traditional media companies and private investors are seeking to buy Web-savvy start-ups that have a toehold in cyberspace.

That’s what happened to New Media Strategies this month, when it was acquired — with two Los Angeles-based online marketing firms — by Meredith Corp., a Des Moines-based media company known for its sturdy lineup of traditional magazines such as Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies’ Home Journal.

Check out the full story — front-page Business section — on my company here.

An exciting, thrilling day for Extreme Mortman and our publisher New Media Strategies. As announced in today’s Wall Street Journal (free version click here) NMS, the new media/Web 2.0 industry pioneer in online intelligence, is being acquired by Meredith Corporation, one of the nation’s leading media and marketing companies with businesses centering on magazine (Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, Ladies’ Homes Journal, More) and book publishing, television broadcasting, integrated marketing and interactive media.

Traditional media pioneer meets new media pioneer. A great day for both.

Another day, another dozen or so top-shelf reporters headed to The Politico.

The really fun thing about these announcements?  They’ll all be working here, 1100 Wilson Boulevard in Rosslyn, the glass-enclosed nerve center of Extreme Mortman publisher New Media Strategies.

I must say, for everyone crowding into the 6th floor below, you’ve chosen an excellent right-to-work state to work out of.   I don’t care if, when they open the front door, all you Pulitzer Prize winners will come tumbling out like a scene from the Marx Brothers.  I’m glad to have you around.

May I offer a laurel and hardy handshake to the new neighbors?

First off, welcome to Rosslyn — which is the insidery shorthand way of saying Rosslyn Metro Station.

You may already know that this building is haunted.  It was constructed on the site of an old Indian burial ground.  No, I’m making that up.  Actually, USA Today used to be here.  Like Hamlet’s ghost, the ethereal remains of USA Today still occupy the place.  I’ve seen yellow old pie charts ride the elevators.  Once, around dusk, when no one else was around, I looked up and was encountered by this headline: “Seven Out Of Ten Of Us Want Quicker Routes To The Beach.”

A quick guide to what else to expect from this building:

The gym on the mezzanine level is pretty good.  I just joined it. But I must tell you how surprised I was to discover that the weights were so heavy.  As a courtesy to others using the gym, after I’m done with my towel I fold it up and put it back up on the shelf.  Help yourself.

Next to the gym is a dentist.  I use him.  Althought when I do, I tremble like a bunny because he’s armed, and I’m not.

And check out the florist nearby.  Pretty flowers.  You know how some kids get named after flowers, like Lilly and Daisy?  We love flowers so much, we almost named our child Snapdragon.  Snapdragon Mortman — woulda been great.

Downstairs, near your office, there’s a newstand which has the Mid-Atlantic region’s greatest collection of porn.  Or so I’m told.  I stopped reading National Review ages ago.

For lunch, you have a few choices.  Baja Fresh is an ideal place for you to conduct interviews about how immigration is changing America once your travel budget runs out.  There’s also a Chinese restaurant upstairs.  I recommend #7.  I think it’s the Peking Duck, but if you order it, you have to give the decoy 24 hours. Of course, I have a dim sum view of such things.  And there’s a restaurant down the main lobby hall which is perfect for those lunches for folks with expense accounts.  Nice place.  Let’s go there.  To show what a gentleman I am, I’ll carry your tray, too.

Cher?  Nope.  Its our New Media Strategies colleague Bill Beutler of Blog P.I. fame.  More than two months before Time ran this cover …

… Bill Beutler forecast this.