News Events I No Longer Want to Hear About on Public Radio

1. Israel and Palestine. Yes, it's terrible, frustrating, sad and wholly unjust. But I don't want to hear about every rock thrown or house bulldozed, the daily body count, or I'm going to start to develop deep-seated prejudices against one side or the other (and right now Israel's higher on the list). Just tell me when it's over.

2. WMDs and the Hunt for Saddam. I get it: Bush lied so he could go after Hussein. We can't find him and he's starting to taunt us. Let me know when we find him, but in the meantime quit rehashing.

3. The Economy. If one more pundit or economist gets on the air to say "The economy is turning around any minute now! Just you wait!" I'll scream. From where I'm sitting, the downturn is either over already or it never happened, because it seems like every other day in the last five years. More people are unemployed, but I must be the only person who remembers the much larger unemployment figures of the '70s and '80s. Shut up already.

And you people who produce "The World," tell me some news that isn't about America or Israel or the War in Iraq. Your beat is the whole world -- cover it! I want to know what's going on in South America, Asia, Africa, the places that don't get covered by every other news program in existance. And covering Liberia's civil war doesn't count, since we're getting lots of that elsewhere and your reporting isn't any different. Tell me what's going on in Congo or Namibia or something. Otherwise I'm changing the channel.

VW Love

The last classic Beetle has rolled off the assembly line in Mexico, 21,529,463 iterations after the first one.

My first car was not a bug (although it almost was); it was a Rabbit. A diesel, four-door, beige Rabbit that I named Fu-Fu The Killer Bunny. I had it for less than a year, during which time it was in the shop about half the time thanks to a cracked engine block, but when it was running it was a hell of a lot of fun -- small enough to dart into narrow gaps in traffic, light enough to be picked up and moved by two or three guys, and a sipper of gas -- $2 of diesel was enough to commute to-and-from school for a couple days.

Besides a common parent, the Beetle and the Rabbit shared an important trait: economy. You could buy either one for next to nothing (in car terms) and run it into the ground. Sure, they were prone to problems -- the electrical systems in VWs still suck -- but nothing overly expensive, since you could rely on parts from junkyards or just put up with the problems. Fu-Fu never had more than three doors working at a time, not including the hatchback, but I didn't care.

Fu-Fu cost $850 used. These days a "cheap" new car is nearly $10 Grand, and you probably wouldn't want a used car that cost as little as Fu-Fu did, unless you're a mechanic. It's a shame that transportation has become so expensive. The Beetle was one of the first economy cars, and it's a little bit of a sign of the times that its run is at an end.

Projects

For once I'm actually moving on a couple of my ideas. On Sunday, Christian and I made molds for a lightbulb-shaped candle, which we plan to attach a real lightbulb base to so they can be screwed into a lamp. (Obviously not one you plan to use ever again, since wax will inevitably get into the socket and ruin it. Also obviously not a plugged in one, since that'd be a potential fire hazard.) And I made a prototype matchbook notepad, using a vintage matchbook cover from Knott's Berry Farm.

No, matchbook notepads aren't very original: you can get professionally made "matchpads" pretty easily -- especially if you're having a wedding, it seems -- but none are made with vintage matchbook covers. Christian and I also toyed with the idea of designing vintage-looking covers of our own, but the printing costs are prohibitive. Maybe after we've sold some of the vintage ones... In the meantime I'm scouting around eBay for cheap vintage matchbook lots. (If you've got any, send'em my way.)

The lightbulb candle has proved a difficult project. It took four tries to get the mold right, and when we sanded it down to fit together we found there were a couple points where the plaster of Paris wasn't high enough. So I took the mold home and added another half-inch of plaster, which will hopefully give us enough coverage that we can sand the halves down to a smooth, even level. Or I buy another can of plaster mix and we start again.

It's satisfying to see a project actually move forward. A nice change from the days when friends and I would sit around at the coffeeshop and come up with great ideas that we'd never end up doing -- like the mobile espresso bar (to be mounted in the back of Christian's postal jeep) or the custom architectural magazine spreads for vain and/or proud homeowners.

Gay High

New York City announced today the opening of the country's first gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender high school, to be called the Harvey Milk School after San Francisco's first openly gay city supervisor.

This is my initial response, one I haven't given deep thought to yet, but I wonder: Is this really necessary? Is it a good idea?

I could see this serving two purposes. On the positive side, it allows GLBT (and "Q" -- questioning) students to learn in a positive, nurturing environment, free of any bullying or harrassment while at school. On the negative side, it corrals all the GLBT(Q) students into one place, the easier to pretend there's no issue in the other schools.

One of the things you're supposed to learn in school is tolerance. (Well, it's really something that should be learned at home, but absent that, school is the next best place.) An important way to teach tolerance is by having a diverse mix of races, ethnicities and cultures within the student population. If all the gay, lesbian, etc. students decide to attend Harvey Milk, a segment of the population, one that is growing in prominence if not in number, will be removed from the mix, and the opportunities for tolerance are reduced.

No doubt the talk radio stations in New York and elsewhere are abuzz about this, saying how great it is to have all the [insert derogatory term here] out of the schools, the filthy sinners. Some gay activists will herald it as a step forward in the acceptance of homosexuality. To me, though, it seems like self-segregation, and it just doesn't ring right. We're not talking about a magnet school for arts or mechanics here; imagine the reaction if it was announced that an alternative school just for Asians was being formed, or just for Irish-Americans, or Jews, or red-heads. Would people praise such schools as well? I doubt it. They'd be up in arms about descrimination and/or priviledge, and they'd be right.

I'm not sure it makes a difference whether attendance to Harvey Milk is voluntary; GLBT(Q) students at other schools will most likely be urged to transfer there by guidance counselors and deans at any hint of difficulty, so in effect it will become the defacto place to go if you're gay.

Picture in my eye.

I was listening to a Marketplace story the other day on my way home from work, about what Kodak needs to do to survive in the coming digital world. The report focused on Kodak's adherence to film while the industry moves toward all-digital technology. Some good points were made, but I think the premise that Kodak must give up on film in order to survive is a faulty one.

One of the biggest reasons people have moved to digital photography is immediacy (another is convenience, which I'll get to in a moment) -- they snap a photo, and they see it a instant afterwards. The Polaroid format's saving grace is the immediacy of its images; why pay a dollar or more per picture if they're not available a minute or two after they're taken? Likewise, if digital cameras lacked the LCD screen and you had to download your pictures to a computer before you knew whether they were any good, the digital revolution would have stopped before it began.

And much has been made of the convenience of digital cameras, but in reality they're no more convenient thanks to digital technology than offices are paperless. Sure, there's no more paying for film and processing, waiting for the film to come back, etc. Instead, we have to contend with different connection procedures for every camera and computer, not to mention a proliferation of cords and memory cards. The expense of film and processing has been replaced by the expense of printer ink and "photo paper," not to mention the software to organize and manipulate our photos.

And digital photos are hard to hold, to flip through and pass around so everyone can see. You either have to have everyone crowd around your monitor for a slideshow (and there wouldn't be jokes about boring slideshows if we all enjoyed that sort of presentation, would there?) or take an hour or two to download and print all the images. As much as I love my digicam, I'd still love to be able to pull out a shoebox of all the shots I've taken with it, rather than having to remember the date I took a shot in order to find the folder it's stored in. (Yes, I could take full advantage of iPhoto's categorization function, but I haven't had time to go through my 1,000+ pix. Have you?)

My mother, who is an avid snapshot-taker but wouldn't consider herself even an amateur photographer, is a good example of Kodak's customer base. She takes pictures of her gardens sometimes, but the majority of shots are taken on vacations and holidays. She loves flipping through 3x5 or 4x6 snapshots, and gets duplicates of the ones she likes so she can give them to her kids and sisters, friends and family. She's all but stymied trying to get her digital photos off her camera, onto her computer and then out again as prints. Frankly, she'd be happiest if she could skip the computer step and just have a stack of prints to look at.

Kodak has this part figured out, to an extent. Its EasyShare Printer Dock allows users to download and print photos with just the printer, eliminating the hassle of the whole computer thing. OK, but it only works with Kodak cameras. And it still eliminates the need for film, the company's lifeblood. And you know, there's something just that much more tangible about a true photographic print on photo paper, isn't there?

My proposal is this: Hybrids. Film cameras with digital displays, your standard point-and-shoot or SLR film cameras with an LCD screen on the back that gives an immediate preview of what your photo will look like at the current camera settings. The screen satisfies the truly great part about digital cameras, the instant gratification of seeing your photo right after you took it, while the film produces the glossy prints in an envelope at the photo counter that everyone loves (and keep Kodak in business). For extra measure, the camera could store a digital copy of each photo so they can be shared online as well.

I know I'd buy a hybrid film-digital camera. I bet my mom would. Would you?

Not the Game.

For the past 10 or 15 years, my family has been searching for an album. It's a Disney kids album called "Goin' Quackers," featuring Donald Duck and Goofy, and it was a favorite in our household when I was growing up. It's been out of print for years, and despite our best efforts to find it -- including my mom asking everyone she could think of on a trip to DisneyWorld a couple years ago -- it seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth...or so we thought.

My mom called a record store called Beverly Records, which she had read could get out-of-print and rare recordings. They called her back within 24 hours to say they found the tape. As I was doing a little link hunting for this post (and sifting through dozens of links regarding the videogame by the same name) I discovered it listed on Amazon. Turns out it was rereleased on CD in 1995 and quickly went back out of print. I just picked off the only copy listed on Amazon (available through a partner retailer somewhere in Iowa).

So soon, after years of waiting, we'll be able to sing along again to that wonderful title track: "I'm goin' quackers -- Quack-quack-quack! -- and you can come along! / I'm goin' quackers -- Quack-quack-quack! -- just sing this little song/ Oh yeah! Sing this little song!"

Doesn't it just bring a tear to your eye?

Output out the door

So, I finally got the blank books off to everyone (Bran, you should receive yours by Friday, Alison by tomorrow probably) and got started on my half of the bargain.

Each book is made from 90lb. watercolor paper, bound into signatures of six, for a total of 12 pages. Pages are 6"x8", which is a little strange but it just looked right to me. The books are a nice, hefty weight. I'm pretty happy with them.

However, while each recipient has 12 pages to fill, I have 60*. And because I've got so much more to fill, I feel that paralysis of commencement growing on me. All those blank books...how do I start?

The same way you start any other project -- you just do. Make a mark on a page, jot down a phone number, make a list, whatever, just get into it and go. And so I did.

!+

To expand on yesterday's filler:

• The Gapers' Block party really did go well. More than 60 people showed up, and other than going about an hour longer than it was supposed to, everything went off without a hitch. I wish Atomly could have had a better time slot (we had him after the readings, so he took the stage at about 10:45) but we'll make it up to him next time. And there will definitely be a next time, probably mid-Autumn. Read all about it on in the party wrap-up.

• The new sofa is my friend. I spent most of Saturday afternoon on it, lounging with the cats and watching bad TV. (Speaking of which, Cruel Intentions 2 is one of the worst films I've seen in a long time. The reviews on IMDb back me up on this.) It's far comfier than our old one -- which was "sold" for free at the yard sale in seriously little time. Why those guys took an uncomfortable, cat-clawed-to-death couch, I don't know. They claimed they'll recover it, but I have my doubts.

• Veronica's baby will be with us any day now. We're guessing Friday. We're also guessing it's a girl. Stay tuned.

• The lightning woke us up at 3:30 Monday morning, and this morning at around 5am Tiberius decided it was time to get up. His method? Clawing the plastic clothes basket next to our bed. It was successful. Twice. Isabel also joined the act. I picked up some decaf at Dunkin Donuts on the way to work.

!

Random notes, because I don't have time to do a full post:
• The Gapers' Block Party went off perfectly, and we're sure to do it again soon.
• Our new couch is wonderful, and we got rid of our old one within half an hour of putting it out in the building's yard sale Saturday morning.
• Veronica's baby shower was fun, and thank god the rain held out. Here's a photo.
• A lightning bolt struck right outside our apartment at about 3:30 last night, jolting us out of our slumber. As the storm was in full swing, it took us awhile to fall back asleep. So I'm a bit yawny today.

Publicly Relating to Blogs

Recently, Anil Dash found a MediaMap "briefing book" covering blogs, hidden on some PR pro's website. (In case the thing gets removed, which will most likely happen soon, I snagged it, cleaned it up and samed it as a .txt file for you.

The find has rankled some bloggers, as they realize what it means: PR people are now aware of weblogs, and a deluge of useless press releases is on the way. Theoretically.

I'm not so sure. Of course some bloggers will see this happen, but the vast majority won't. And this briefing book isn't going to be the reason. It contains just 141 listings, and is idiosycratic at best in its coverage. There's thorough coverage of Corante's blog stable and, oddly, those of the Spokane Statesman-Review, but far more prominent blogs are ignored. Anil Dash and Megnut are listed, but not kottke.org or Zeldman, both of whom have written about being pitched by PR.

And as Gene Smith pointed out, most of the entries lack any sort of detailed information about the blog in question, just a list of general topics covered. The entries are each padded with an identical description of what a weblog is and some general tips on how to pitch them:

Indeed, stripping this out of each entry and reformatting them to eliminate other redundancies (such as duplicated contact info) took a 150+ page document down to 40-something.

Although there are a lot of "clueless PR flacks" out there, most won't get involved in weblogs for years -- the PR firm I worked at before my current employ didn't have email until 1998, and apparently hadn't gotten a fax machine until a client demanded it. How quickly do you think they'll pick up on the blog phenomenon? And at least MediaMap is getting it right: They advise email contact only, which reduces the likelihood of bloggers getting pestered over the phone and allows them to completely ignore news releases if they want -- after all, we do so with spam already.

Besides, the majority of the bloggers listed in this briefing book -- and the majority of those that PR pros would be interested in talking to -- are journalists, who are already getting the deluge. The high-profile non-journalist bloggers are already getting used to it, so a bit more won't be all that big of a deal. And while the briefing book isn't all that great, it will only get better as weblogs become more familiar and more time is devoted to researching them.

Smith's admonition that PR pros need to be familiar with blogs before they can pitch them is very true, and it'll happen, however I disagree with him that PR pros need to join the weblog community in order to familiarize themselves with the medium. You don't have to work for a newspaper or magazine to understand them and know how to pitch to them, and you certainly don't have to write a blog to be familiar with them. You do need to read them, and read them enough to understand what kinds of products or services will fit in a blog and which won't (i.e., pitch the new Prince CD to Anil, don't pitch wireless baby monitors to Dan Gillmor). But that's a principle one should use in any media outlet.

Gapers' Block Party

Tomorrow night is the big Gapers' Block Party (I love that, the play on block party.) and we've gotten 67 RSVPs so far. I was initially cautious in my estimates of how many people would show up and told Ann Sather's to book us for 40; we've now been moved to a bigger room to accomodate everyone.

There's going to be a DJ spinning from his laptop, a digital projector displaying the website, and several people reading pieces they've done (including me, and I haven't written anything for it yet.) We bought a case of wine and some random other beverages, and it's BYOB in case we run out. We've gotten stickers, buttons and posters made, to be given to people in exchange for their $5 donations. It's going to be so damn cool!

You should come. It'll be fun.

To Make an Excellent Salad Dressing,

1. Place one clove of garlic in a wooden bowl and crush it with the back of a heavy tablespoon.¹ Add salt and freshly-ground pepper and mash together into a paste.

2. Add a dollop² of good mustard, and mix it in with the paste.

3. Add about a quarter cup of extra-virgin olive oil and about two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar.^{3, 4} Blend.

4. Let the dressing rest while you prepare the vegetables, allowing the flavors to blend. When ready, add the veggies and toss thoroughly, coating everything with a fine layer of dressing.

Makes one salad for 2-4 people.

¹ Substitutions: you may use whatever bowl is available, but wood is preferrable. If you've run out of garlic, a small shallot will do, though chances are you don't have one of those either. Onion would be too strong, so you'd better just go to the store.
² Yes, this is a technical term. Somewhere around a tablespoon.
³ You're shooting for a two-thirds to one-third ratio between oil and vinegar here, but many people prefer a stonger vinegar flavor; if you're one of them, go with equal parts oil and vinegar.
⁴ You could use other types of vinegar, but unless you know what you're doing, stick with an aged balsamic until you've got a feel for the dressing's nuances.

Graphite and Gum

I finished a sketch in my sketchbook at lunch today, the first in a long time. Sure, I've done a little sketching here and there, but this was a full-on composed, shaded and detailed drawing, not just a bare outline. It felt really good.

I did it in my homemade sketchbook. It was a Christmas gift from Cinnamon in 1997, and she did most of the work to create it -- the paper selection (various hot- and cold-press papers for watercolor, charcoal, etc.) and cutting and some of the signature binding. I finished the signatures and made the cover, then she sewed the signatures together and I attached them to the cover. It's 9"x12" (my favorite sketchbook dimension) and about 176 pages, almost 2" thick.

It intimidated me for a long time -- still does, a little. The combination of different, high-quality papers was meant to give me a choice in what paper to use for each image, but I found myself somewhat paralyzed by the choice, whereas with a regular sketchbook I wouldn't have to think about it. The choice also caused the book to become non-linear; since I was working on different papers in different signatures throughout the book, a sketch from one day might be separated by 20-30 pages from the collage I did the next day. So it's sat mostly ignored, getting pulled out only occasionally for use.

I've been bringing it with me to work and lunch the last two weeks, trying to get back in a habit of drawing. It feels really good, but it's still hard to overcome the paper choice. Who would have thought such a simple decision could stymie artistic expression so?

Marchons, Marchons...

Happy Bastille Day!

In middle school and freshman year high school, I was in "honors French," which meant I was on a fast-track compared to your typical French class. It was the first time the program was offered, and I had basically the same classmates for three years, so we developed deep friendships and lots of in-jokes.

For instance, "C'est chouette, le Guignol!" which means, literally, "It's cool, the puppet!" This was a line in one of our dialogues, and the absurdity of the phrase coupled with the odd sentence structure made it an instant hit with us francobrainiacs. I still say it, and my friends Emily and Lauren love it; when Lauren tries to repeat it, it always comes out "Chez Sweat, le Geen-ole." I've given up trying to correct her. Another was "C'est fromage, mon ami." ("That's cheese, friend.") -- a seventh-grade pun on "C'est domage, mon ami." ("I'm sorry, friend.").

At the end of eighth grade, the French Consulate asked our class to do a series of projects on the French Revolution in honor of the Bicentennaire, which would be filmed and shown on French television. We were giddy at the prospect of being on TV, even in a different country, so of course we hammed it up as often as we could. Part of the deal was we had to sing various revolutionary songs, from the French national anthem, "La Marseillaise," to the more obscure "Ça Ira."

To this day, I remember all the words to the first verse of La Marseillaise. I don't remember much of Ça Ira, other than the repetitious first line and this anecdote: We learned the song (and others) by singing along with a tape. We'd sing it through with the tape, then our teacher would stop the tape and we'd sing it à cappella. However, there was some sort of narration or something in between each song, so right after the song ended some deep-voiced Frenchman would come on and say "Dans..." ("Dans" is pronounced with a nasal n and a silent s and means "in.") After a few times of hearing "Donc" before the teacher could hit stop, we started incorporating it into the song, singing "Magré les mutins tout réussira -- Dans!" ("In spite of the traitors, all will succeed -- In!")

It drove our teacher up the wall, because she was convinced we'd do it during the taping and get her in trouble. Of course we didn't do it, but since we hated our freshman class teacher -- having been unable to convince our middle school teacher to move to the high school with us -- anything that gave her conniptions was just fine with us.

Click. Not interested. Click.

I just spent way too long rating music on Amazon. I figured I'd take some time and "train" its recommendation algorithms a little, sort of like Tivo owners have to train their systems not to give them gay programming or hours of Barney just because one show was watched by a visiting, um, lesbian 4-year-old.

Unfortunately, Amazon's algorithm or whatever isn't as powerful or canny as Tivo's -- it latches onto a recommendation and then feeds you every permutation of that item. I had to clear every They Might Be Giants, Green Day, Primus and AC/DC album ever made out of my music recommendations (by saying I wasn't interested in them) just because I said I owned or somewhat liked one album by each band. I had to do the same to get rid of CD singles. In movies, I've been given the choice of John Cusac's entire filmography, as well as most of John Hughes' dircetorial ouvre. Not that that's a bad thing, necessarily. I also had to tell Amazon I owned some items more than once before they disappeared from the list.

The problem is, if someone says they're a fan of a band, it's not a good sales technique to then offer that band's entire discography -- chances are, if they're a fan, they have a good portion of it already. What one is most likely looking for is recommendation of other bands they'd like, based on their input.

I've also noticed that my purchasing records are apparently not factored into recommendations, and different variants of the same item are apparently not connected or corrulated in Amazon's database: My second-to-last purchase was Radiohead's "Hail to the Thief," limited edition packaging, and the number one music recommendation delivered today was "Hail to the Thief," the regular edition.

Once I cleared out the neredowells and the duplicates in the recommendations lists, new stuff started to pop up, but again it tended to lump several albums by the same band together, or follow a different actor's career. Very frustrating.

Blueblack, bivalved.

We went to Hopleaf for dinner last night. Amazingly, we missed Kegz, but with two rooms now, it's finally possible to not see someone at Hopleaf. Such is life.

We had the "mussels for two" off their abbreviated menu -- they're in a soft opening of their kitchen, with the full-blown menu available on the 14th -- and a couple beers each. We both went for fruity beers for the first round, Cantillon cerise for me, a raspberry lambic for Cinnamon. The Cantillon was surprisingly tart but very cherry-like, and not at all sweet. Not a great match for dinner, but oh well, still good. The mussels were huge, far meatier than what you'd get on top of linguini at the local Italian restaurant. The broth they were steamed in could have been more flavorful -- maybe just some more salt? -- but still, combined with Kegz's positive review of the ham sandwich, it bodes well for the rest of the menu.

Next round was dark, rich beers: Bell's "Susie's Sweet Stout" for her, "Dirty Bastard Scotch Ale" for me. Funny, hers tasted of black coffee, mine of chocolate, but we still preferred our own to each other's. We talked about recent events and what to do with Danny this weekend and just had a nice chat. We headed home, full-bellied and content, and watched the news and Good Eats before heading to bed.

Output

It's funny. I've got a tiny little book sitting on my desk, inside of a cardboard box the size of a cigarette pack. I got it out of the Art-O-Mat at the Chicago Cultural Center a couple weeks ago.

The book is nothing special, an assemblage of found paper, some drawn on some not. It's actually a pretty boring little object, perused once and put down. The important thing is this: I could make it. So simple anyone could make it. But I didn't, and neither did you.

In high school, I had a series of notebooks, small unlined books that anyone could write or draw or whatever in, called Jehovah (odd story behind the name, ask me later). I guess you could call them "open source sketchbooks." They ended up being a collection of random quotes, tidbits of knowledge, quick sketches and sometimes diary entries -- not unlike a weblog in many ways. They evolved over time and became a sort of institution among my friends and acquaintances. One of them became an ingrained part of a class, as we riffed on the concept of frogs within its pages while we thought about religion and philosophy in literature.

The summer after I graduated, I made a whole bunch of "little Jehovahs" -- thin books bound with red thread -- and gave them out to several friends. The idea was, each one would take the book and spread the concept among their new friends at their new college. When the book was filled up, they'd send it back to me and I'd bind it with all the others into a consolidated volume, and I'd send them another blank book to fill. Everyone was glad to get their book, and promised to use it.

I didn't get a single one back. Not even from my best friends.

To be fair, the Jehovah that I carried around at the time floundered after I reached college. I didn't have as much time to doodle or play, and I had less interest in interacting with people through my little blank book. Still, it would have been nice to see at least some of the books come back to me. It felt like I had gone all out to create a cool collaborative project that everyone could participate in, and they all dropped the ball and kept the books.

So here's what I propose. I'm going to make a bunch of little books again. If you want one, let me know, and I'll send it to you. Fill it with whatever you like -- poetry, sketches, photos, diary entries, quotes, whatever -- and send it back to me, and I'll do the same for you. That way, we'll both have a book, and neither of us will feel cheated. Sound good?

The storm

Damn, I wish I had the digicam with me, and furthermore that the digicam wasn't broken. I'd have some amazing photos of the seriously strange cloud formations I saw this morning as I drove toward the leading edge of a storm.

I first noticed it as I made my way up Sheridan Road: the clouds were banding light and dark, and tilted about 20° clockwise toward Lake Michigan (which was only a few hundred yards to my right.) As I got closer I realized the light bands weren't clouds but actually breaks in the clouds -- as if the layers of clouds weren't able to mix, like a huge floated drink. The delineation was so sharp and the clouds were so low that I could see the swirling edges of each cloud layer as they dipped toward the lake to pick up more moisture.

As I curved around onto Lake-Cook, I saw that behind the leading edge, the clouds were billowing and swirling as if the air below them was impenetrable, and strange shapes and whorls formed. I reached into the back seat and grabbed the Holga plastic camera I'd been using to take pictures of salvage trucks and snapped a few shots of the formations while I waited at a stoplight. I kept expecting to see a funnel descending from the waves, but none did.

It took awhile before I reached the rain front behind the roiling cloudbank, where it seemed as if the lower air mass that was putting up such a strong fight closer to the lake finally gave up and let the rain come down. As I neared work, the rain let up and the sky returned to a milder form of the waves and whorls I saw earlier on. A coworker said that she saw several people pulled over taking pictures of the sky on her way to work, marvelling at the same phenomena I witnessed.

The long weekend.

Thursday: Left work an hour early. Grilled burgers and watched the fireworks over at Mike and Em's. Watched "National Lampoon's Vacation." Went to bed too late.

Friday: Met Mike and Em, Lauren and her cousin at The Lincoln for brunch, went to Sam's Wine to buy, er, wine for the Gapers' Block Party. Went home for awhile, then walked over to Mike and Em's for drinks and to watch even more fireworks from their deck. The view from the 41st floor is amazing. Headed out to Andersonville with them and Lauren, had mediocre pizza at Konak's, caught a bus home. Went to bed even later than the night before. Woke up at 2:30-something to close window to drown out impromptu, high-decibel fireworks display at other end of alley.

Saturday: Drove to Shaumburg to look at cars. Test-drove a Mini and a Civic Hybrid, bought a couch. Made a brief stop at the mobbed IKEA to buy a table and a new rug to replace the one I accidentally dyed orange by washing it with our bathmat. Returned home, wrote for awhile, then went with Mike and Em to see "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle." Pleasantly surprised, we then hit Daily Bar and Grill where Lauren and Christian met us for dinner. Went to bed really late again.

Sunday: Biked to Fireside to meet Emily and Lauren for brunch. Biked home, talked to Bran on the phone. Worked on the Huff Report and a feature for Gapers' Block, watched the storms come through. Went out to dinner at a taqueria down the street, walked home as the next wave of storms came through. Called Grandma. Channel-surfed a bit, caught part of "Decline of Western Civilization, Part II," took a shower and went to bed at a reasonable hour.

Firecracker

I sort of came close to blowing my fingers off with a firecracker once. And I do mean sort of. It was only a "Black Cat," one of those inch-long poppers with the quarter-inch wick. This one wasn't a true Black Cat but a knock-off, its wrapper a polkadot pattern in some bright color -- orange, I think. It was not the Fourth of July, or anywhere near it as far as I can remember; much later in the summer, and this lone firecracker had somehow avoided use.

I was standing in the garage of my parents' house, lighter in one hand, firecracker in the other. I lit the fuse, and it burned faster than it should have and blew up before I could set it down on the pavement.

The tiny explosion, amplified by the hollow garage walls, rang like a freshly turned on TV stuffed behind a layer of cotton that drowned out the rest of the world. I looked down; my fingertips were numb, but still intact, slightly scorched from the black powder. It felt like frostbite, only hot. The sulphurous smell of the blast lingered in my nose.

As I went off to do whatever else I had planned for that late summer day, I realized how easy it would be to make such an accident with a much larger firework -- one of the M80s my neighbors Tony and Mike were so reverent of, say -- and how easy a time one of those quarter-sticks of dynamite would have taking a couple fingers with it when it went off prematurely. I made sure to get away much faster the next time I messed with a firecracker of any size. (Well, I still wasn't afraid of the snake pellets and whip-snappers the kids got. But you know what I mean.)

Have a happy and safe Independence Day. May it not involve unintentional numbness and hearing loss.

Mmmm.

For some reason, the last few days I've had trouble getting to sleep, and in turn waking up the next day. I've been awake but groggy throughout the day, a condition not helped by the traditional work slowdown the week of July 4 -- does everybody take this week off? Yeesh.

Seems the thing to do is just let it slide, take things as they come and pretend not to be napping with one's eyes open. If possible. The nice thing is it's a short week. Just one more day till I can sleep in as late as I like...

What are you doing this weekend?

Sooosheee

We made sushi at home last night with the stuff we picked up at Mitsuwa. The tuna and salmon steaks we picked up were beautiful -- the salmon was striated like fine woodgrain -- and delicious, as were the hokkigai. We mainly did nigiri and a few sashimi, mainly because the fish was too pretty to hide inside of a roll. We had also picked up something called katsuo tataki, which turned out to be skipjack tuna (aka bonito) lightly grilled on all sides. It was a deep greybrown -- in a good way -- and tasted wonderful. (Cinnamon should have a photo of our platter up sometime today, whenever her schedule allows.)

We took it all out to the deck and enjoyed the twilight air. Cinnamon drank some saki and I had a red rice ale, and the cats begged for a sample of our work.

Just before we ate, I drizzled a little pumpkin-seed oil onto a couple of the tuna sashimi pieces as an experiment. The effect was interesting: it lent the fish a meatier flavor than it would normally have, almost making it taste like beef tartar. The same treatment on a salmon sashimi resulted in a similar taste. Not sure I'll do it again for sushi, but it's something to remember next time we grill salmon or tuna steaks.