Features

It’s your birthday. Friends and family take you to out to a celebration dinner, and the wait-staff joins in a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday” as they serve dessert.

Cheerful delivery or not, most servers would much rather be hustling hot food or topping off your coffee than serenading you.

It didn’t take long for Twitter users to make light of the shocking news that the NSA monitors social media sites, combing the billions of updates for data related to national security.

For example, Twitter user @mattdizwhitlock wrote “#NSACalledtoTellMe that after 4 trial memberships on eHarmony I probably should just give up.”

Beyond providing much-needed comic relief, the hashtag “NSA Called to Tell Me” points out just how much our online activities reveal about what we do and how activities can be pieced together to make conclusions that may be accurate or off-base.

Near Pier 70 on the eastern waterfront of San Francisco, stray dogs used to roam in search of discarded bits from the area’s meatpacking facilities. The canine scavengers were so numerous at the turn of the 20th century that the neighborhood became known as Dogpatch.

But today, the only pooch I see is a perfectly groomed golden Lab panting next to his owner, who’s biting into a beignet at a sidewalk cafe. And the only purveyor of meat around here is Olivier Cordier, a Frenchman whose gourmet butchery has found a cultlike following among foodies and restaurant owners.

The stars of TV Land’s “Hot in Cleveland” had a mix of reactions to news that they’ll be performing in a live episode of the sitcom, set for 11 p.m. Wednesday (June 19). TV Land executives announced the stunt in November, and in January a nervous anticipation had set in for some of the show’s leading actresses.

‘‘My first reaction was I’m absolutely so excited,” said Jane Leeves (“Frasier”). “And my second reaction is, ‘Oh, good God!’ I keep switching back and forth between fear and excitement.”

Has the prospect of seeing “Man of Steel” made you hungry for more Super-stories? Then read on, for the five essential Superman graphic novels, in reverse order of importance:

5. “Superman: Red Son” ($17.99) is a play on words; as every Super-fan knows, Kryptonians lose their superpowers under a red sun. But the title is also a reference to the book’s fascinating concept: What if baby Kal-El’s rocket ship landed in the Soviet Union instead of Kansas?

Written by the endlessly inventive Mark Millar, “Red Son” posits the eternal question of nature vs. nurture, while still telling a ripsnorter of a story. Here we see the Man of Steel raised as the right-hand man of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin (whose last name, incidentally, comes from the Russian word for “steel”). The story runs through the real events of the Cold War, and is peopled by many historical figures.

• Utah authors Sarah Langsdon and Melissa Johnson will discuss and sign copies of their history book “Legendary Locals of Ogden” (Arcadia Publishing, $21.99) 1-3 p.m. Saturday, and Utah author Lori Hess with co-author Montgomery Monette will discuss and sign copies of their novels in the From the Case Files of the Dead CIA series, “Lunar Secrets” (Xlibris Corporation, $19.99) and “Old Friends” (Xlibris Corporation, $15.99), 3-5 p.m. Saturday at Hastings, 340 E. 525 North, Ogden. Free.
• Miguel Santana will read from and sign “The Righteous and Very Real Housewives of Utah County” (Alligator Press, $14.95) at 7 p.m. Wednesday at The King’s English Bookshop, 1511 S. 1500 East, Salt Lake City.

PORTLAND, Ore. — In the last season of “Portlandia,” the mayor of this sustainability-obsessed city vanished in shame after he was singled out as Portland’s “No. 1 electricity hog,” Portland went into a blackout, cats barked, creepy music played, and a bizarre Australian who calls himself “Birdman” told guests at a bed and breakfast “there is no civilization.”

Carrie and Fred — about the only characters in “Portlandia” with any grip on reality — tracked down the mayor at a compound in the wilderness where he was leading a band of savages, a la Colonel Kurtz in “Apocalypse Now.”