HELTER SKELTER IN A SUMMER SWELTER

Last week I was all "I love New York in June/How about you? I love a Gershwin tune/How about you?" The weather here was perfecto. Gorgeous. The kind of weather that even people from San Francisco couldn't turn their noses up at (or point out to me that I just ended a sentence with a pair of prepositions, though now I haven't due to this parenthetical....love you, parenthetical!).

This week: Awful. Hot and humid. You can feel the weather gathering for a thunderstorm all day, as it becomes muggier and cloudier and yuckier, and you just wish "Damnit, why won't it rain already?" so that the temperature will drop ten degrees and you'll get some reprieve. But, Nooooo! It won't rain until the evening, when you're hoping to go outside and watch a free philharmonic or Shakespeare in Central Park or even just have a beer outside at the White Horse Tavern. Why can't God make the world work the way I want it to?

And the weather (as you can see) makes people bitchy. My mood was not improved by having waited until 11 a.m. to go out for a run today. What was I thinking? Well, first, being that my office is in my home, I skip that rush hour thing altogether by sleeping. And then, at 9 a.m., I feel the scalding reproach of Erin Brunette if I don't tune in to "Squawk On The Street" on CNBC. And then all of a sudden it's 10 a.m., time for morning ablutions and well, someone needs a little more discipline in his life.

On to sports...Here is the best photo of the week. The backstory is that Eastern Illinois University (EIU) has canceled its men's wrestling program due to poor academic performance and, likely, pressure to meet Title IX requirements. So the men's wrestlers had a little demonstration, but this grappler seems to have put a sleeper hold on his own agenda:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1275/633630381_e92f1f30c3.jpg

Meanwhile, as I was dying while doing the Central Park loop this a.m., the term "global warming" did enter my mind. And I'm remembering what Sir Take-Your-Pick Attenborough said in the opening moments of the Planet Earth series about how there were 1.6 billion people on the planet a century ago, and now there are four billion (I blame the rock and roll music for that) and I'm wondering if the planet wouldn't be a more liveable place with, oh, about half as many people...and think how much less time you'd have to wait to ride Space Mountain. But anyway, I'm not misanthropic (I'm totally pro-anthropic!) but how many more humans do we need? It's not as if I'd want to boot any specific people (Mel Hall) or groups (Cincinnati Bengals) off the planet, but what if there actually were a lottery (like the short story, "The Lottery") to determine who stays or who goes? Or better yet, Mark Burnett can produce a real-life "Survivor" series. Who wouldn't watch that?

Thought for the day: If the 1970s were the "Me" decade, are the 00's the "iDecade"? Sorry, but theyr'e not quite the Wii Decade.

Also, let's say you've got some time and some money and have a backpackin' jones to head to Europe in the next two months. Where do you go? Let me give you two words of advice for one of the best-kept secrets I've ever experienced: "Scottish Highlands". Seriously. Check it out on the web. Truly magical place.

Just check out these photos of Glencoe, which I find far more picturesque than its Chicago suburban namesake:

http://www.buyimage.co.uk/photonet/highlands/highlands.html

And if you get bored, you can always do a Trainspotting reality tour.

I fear that I'm beginning to ramble. G.A., save me.