Obama offered up a Hyde Park eatery called Dixie Kitchen. And though the 15-year-old restaurant didn't benefit from any free publicity years ago, it no doubt will wind up on the radar screen of a lot of restaurant patrons when the lost episode finally airs twice on WTTW on Jan. 16, again Jan. 18 and once more at 4 a.m. Jan. 20, the day Obama is sworn in as president.

In case you're wondering, a WTTW spokeswoman couldn't tell us exactly why the "Check, Please!" episode with Obama never aired. But for its belated debut this month, the show's producers have apparently re-edited the episode and added more existing Obama footage to enhance the show's appeal just a bit more.

Once they are on the mircosite visitors can shop for electronics such as big-screen TVs, Obama-decorated ties or a life-size cardboard cutout of the President-elect and books on presidential history. The inauguration store also features a countdown to the event and a community forum where visitors can start a discussion or add to an existing one.

"A lot of people will be participating in the upcoming inauguration, whether they are planning to attend or host a party at home," says an Amazon spokesman. "We want to make it as easy as possible for customers to prepare for the historic event."

The President, Mrs. Bush, Barbara, and Jenna are deeply saddened by the passing of their cat India ("Willie"). The 18 year-old female black American Shorthair died Sunday, January 4, 2009 at home at the White House.

When Barbara was nine years old, she named India after the former Texas Ranger baseball player, Ruben Sierra, who was called "El Indio." When Barbara and Jenna moved away to college, India, affectionately called "Kitty" by the family, stayed at the White House with the President and Mrs. Bush.

India was a beloved member of the Bush family for almost two decades. She will be greatly missed.

A new president's first foray into the social scene in the capital can be heavy with symbolism, a hint of how the first couple plan to engage with unofficial Washington. Failing to do so could mean missing an opportunity to meet the press, make bipartisan overtures and advance the White House political agenda, as other presidents have discovered.

Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, arrived in the capital in 1977 determined not to socialize with the insider crowd, a stance that rankled Democrats in Washington. "The Carters made the vow that they would never get tangled up in Georgetown dinner parties, and indeed they did not," said Diana McLellan, the author and onetime Washington gossip columnist. "They alienated their base, and it created a huge dislike of Carter. It was catastrophic."

Quickly after arriving in Washington after his election in 1980, Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, enthusiastically made the social rounds, even giving a bipartisan dinner party at the (now-defunct) F Street Club. Mrs. Reagan's social secretary Muffie Brandon Cabot regularly arranged luncheons at private homes so that Mrs. Reagan could make friends. "We were not going to be like the Carters," Michael Deaver, a top Reagan aide who died in 2007, told The Washington Post in 1992.

Opened in 1928, the hotel sits across Lafayette Square from the White House, Obama's eventual work place and home. Its name comes from two historical figures who lived on the site: John Hay, the private assistant to President Abraham Lincoln and later secretary of state, and Henry Adams, an author and descendant of Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams.

The Hay-Adams has 145 rooms and suites, featuring marble bathrooms, intricately carved plaster ceilings and ornamental fireplaces and balconies - with views of the White House, Lafayette Square and St. John's Church - in certain rooms.

Room amenities include custom Italian bed linens and towels, goose down duvets and pillows (hypoallergenic pillows are available; Malia has allergies), plush microfiber bathrobes and slippers for adults and kids, Bose CD music systems with assorted CDs, exclusive Etro toiletries, complimentary Fiji bottled water and a nightly turndown service.

Bloomberg announced the selection on Tuesday morning. "I can't think of anyone I would rather stand at the crossroads of the world at the beginning of this new year than Bill and Hillary Clinton," Bloomberg said. "Both together and as individuals, Senator and President Clinton have brought hope and opportunity to New York, to the nation, and to the world."

This year's Times Square Ball is double the size of previous balls and is covered in 2,668 Waterford Crystals. Weighing nearly 12,000 pounds and measuring 12 feet in diameter, the ball is 20 percent more energy efficient than last year's - consuming only the same amount of energy per hour as it would take to operate two traditional home ovens.

Organizers of the New Year's Eve party say the bigger, brighter ball will remain in place all year atop the building at 1 Times Square to celebrate other holidays including Valentine's Day, the Fourth of July and Halloween.

Oprah Winfrey wants to be as close to Barack Obama as possible. Insiders say Winfrey has started a preliminary search for a home in Washington, DC. A nine-bedroom Georgetown mansion she's said to have asked about is listed at $50 million, but another source said, "She has never personally been to see it." We're sure Winfrey will try to swing by during Inauguration week. Her rep didn't return calls.

Alexander, who met Obama during their time as faculty members at the University of Chicago, is thrilled at the opportunity, and says that her parents are even more excited: "This is an incomparable thrill to them in the way that Obama's presidency is an especially potent and powerful thing for African-Americans in their 70s who have devoted their lives to progress," Alexander says, "To be a part of it, I almost can't imagine it myself."

Alexander follows Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, and Miller Williams as the only poets to read at inauguration ceremonies; she says she hopes, through her poem, "to symbolize and demonstrate is the important role that arts and literature can play in this moment when the country is thinking so keenly about moving forward and coming together." As for her friendship with Obama, Alexander notes, "That friendship makes this opportunity all the more special."

A 5,000 feet, wall to wall, ceiling to floor of Barack Obama

Almost everything you can think of t-shirts, buttons, and mugs.

Anthony Casolaro bought a baseball cap for his daughter.

Customer Anthony Casolaro says "she wants to go the inauguration but I told her she may have to join the other three million people on the lawn."

Customer Stephanie Gorski says "I got a t-shirt for my niece, which is just exactly what they wanted. They've been Obama fans forever. They're little kids, about four."