(We interviewed Danny Lloyd back in 1989, when he was 17, on the effects of making a blockbuster like “The Shining” can have on one’s life. Just for fun, the 1989 column is posted today on the Flick blog and also Pantagraph’s Facebook page).

-- As if the town name of Oblong (“Oblong Man Marries Normal Woman”) is not weird enough, the Crawford County town of 1,500 was originally called Henpeck.

-- When last flying into Bloomington for a concert at U.S. Cellular Coliseum, Reba McEntire got off her private jet and then got back in. That was after realizing she had accidentally gone to Bloomington, Ind.

-- Dan Rutherford, of Chenoa, now has the second most popular autograph in all of Illinois. As newly elected state treasurer, his signature will appear on an estimated 2 million payroll checks in 2011.

-- Workers for the city of Bloomington used 1,100 tons of hot asphalt to fill potholes last year. That’s enough to fill a pothole that is 22 feet wide, by one mile long, by an inch-and-a-half deep. So says Jim Karch, the city’s director of public works.

-- According to one poll, the top eight worst-off financial entities in the world are now: Venezuela, Greece, Argentina, Ukraine, Pakistan, Dubai, Iraq and Illinois.