– AUGUST – is National Inventors’ Month.
– TONIGHT – is Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbors’ Porch Night.
– HAPPY BIRTHDAY – Antonio Banderas, and Amber, and the Wolf Baron.

– QUOTE OF THE WEEK –
“Anyone who has got a book collection and a garden wants for nothing.”

Andy Heller recently wrote a galvinizing (literally; he supposedly got a ton of letters in response) column about Flint’s recent spate of drive-bys here.

Here is my letter to him, and single qualification:

Hey,

Somehow, on a first pass, I missed your recent column about the Grand Blanc drive-bys.

I’ve been tagged by Sumara.

1. One book that changed my life:
Les Misèrables, by Victor Hugo. It moved me; it also informed me for the first time that a novel can strive to contain and encompass (and be encompassed by) everything in the world.

– WEATHER –
Well, last week we officially melted. It was too hot for me to get much done during the early part of the week, and anyway, I was too preoccupied later on with Jess’ and my birthday and our 1 year anniversary (yesterday) to pay much attention to projects.

Today is my birthday! I’ll post more tomorrow…

– QUESTION OF THE DAY –
What is the coolest street name you can think of at this moment?

END OF POST.

5. Did I mention I work on the seventeenth floor of a midtown skyscraper, and that the air-conditioning is broken?

END OF POST.

– AUGUST – is Civility month.
– HAPPY BIRTHDAY – Wes Craven. And Sean! And my Jessica!

– PICTURE OF THE WEEK –
Gray Nurse Shark.

– QUESTION OF THE DAY –
What is the last thing you usually are thinking before you go to sleep?

2. Now I really do have a legitimate beef with Toyota, because they have that ad where there’s the weird little, turbined-driven Mars-rover style machine, puttering along haplessly. Then the stupid Toyota comes and rolls it into tiny pieces before sucking up all the fuel.

I was going to post on the Mel Gibson thing today, but my post is too tangled to make much sense, and wants revision. I’ll get back to that later. For now, enjoy this sexy picture of Malibu.

Oh, I wish I was in Malibu.

I was telling Jessica the other day that I sometimes have doubts about moving back to Flint. The comment is pertinent right now specifically; we want to get a house after our educations are finished, and we’re faced with the prospect that anywhere we go, our family and friends are gradually dispersing.