My day job has been keeping me too busy to learn how to use Flagpole's new blogging system until now, but the news has been piling up, even sans comments (which will be coming back). Here's the what what.

Walker's has added late-night food from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday, a nice option considering how surprisingly good their menu is during the daytime hours. Homemade pretzel rolls sound tasty.

Watkinsville is getting an Eastern European restaurant, named either European Cousine or European Cuisine and focusing on Russian specialties, in mid-February. It'll open at 10D Barnett Shoals Rd., near where that artery dead-ends.

Cook-Out Restaurant, a North Carolina franchise serving burgers, hot dogs, chicken, BBQ, Cheerwine floats and a crazy array of milkshakes, is looking to locate on Epps Bridge Pkwy. at Jordan Road, by Kohl's.

Whitney Otawka, chef at Farm 255, will be participating in this year's Cochon 555, a sort-of porkfest cooking competition that builds up to a national fight for the title in Aspen.

Susan Puckett, author of Eat, Drink, Delta: A Hungry Traveler's Journey Through the Soul of the South, published by UGA Press and addressing such topics as Kool-Aid dills, will be signing at Avid Bookshop this Saturday, Jan. 26, from 4 to 5 p.m.

Los Coyotes is open on Mitchell Bridge Road.

The former Huddle House at 1815 Commerce Rd. is becoming Highway 441 Cafe, and Los Reyes Mexican Restaurant may or may not be open in or around the BP on Highway 29, near Athens Christian School. Another deli from the Battinelli family is in the works at the corner of Hawthorne and Oglethorpe.

Finally, if you haven't yet, please vote for your Flagpole Favorites by Feb. 6.