back from a fun if whirlwind weekend in chicago, where tommy and i hung out with charles, his family (including his sister, who graduated from uchicago - congratulations johanna!) and mssr. nye. twas fun, if excruciatingly hot and humid - almost worse than normal d.c. summers. please lord tell me that isn't normally the case with chicago summers. if so i think i will melt and die, because it is just not fair that in addition to much more terrible winters, i will get summers that are the equivalent to those of d.c., which are so awful they make you want to wear clothing made out of ice cubes and electrical fans. anyway, the apartment search continues - it's just too early, i guess, for me to find a place for september 1. all the places i called and harassed told me to check back in late july, so i wouldn't be surprised if i have to make another trip back to the windy city to find a 400sq ft abode of joy. and a cat. did i tell you i'm getting a cat? i'm so going to do this to it all the time. (PS - to buddies who live in chicago that i did not contact to tell of my arrival, don't take it personally. we had a full schedule with graduation-related stuff, and, like, i'm moving there in a few months, so you can see me then all you ever wanted.)

so. i obviously have nothing interesting to say, so here are some links!

-gopnik hits the biennale in venice

-an article on development in U street (courtesy of matt; be sure to read his commentary as well); article only serves to underscore the fact that I WILL NEVER EVER OWN REAL ESTATE IN THIS CITY UNLESS I BECOME A HIGH CLASS HOOKER

-five things you didn't know you could track with RSS (some of them i did know, like packages and weather, but i didn't realize you could do tv listings and library info as well. soon you'll be able to track EVERYTHING with rss, including a) people who have crushes on you b) your mortal enemies and c) puppies

-bob mould talks to billboard about his new album and tour

-beep thrills - a city paper article from last week about a series of mysterious beeps in a man's falls church home and the internet cult that originated in order to find them.

“You couldn’t tell where it was coming from,” said the 28-year-old Byrnes. “You’d go to one place and say, ‘It’s coming from across the room.’ Then you’d go over there and the sound would come from where you were just standing.”

When the beeps first began, Byrnes stood under every smoke detector in the house to listen for the telltale screech of a dying battery. He also gathered a group of friends and positioned them in various strategic spots, hoping to triangulate the beeping. But everybody pointed in a different direction. His experimental side exhausted, Byrnes finally decided to try to ignore the new soundtrack to his life.

“It’s really a testament to my apathy,” he says.

When the power went off on his block in February and the neighborhood sat in silence, Byrnes was at home, blanketed with beeping.

Byrnes’ beep-enriched existence might have continued ad infinitum if not for his impending wedding to Lindsay Moss. His betrothed was not a fan of the beeping. Moss issued a directive: Fix the beep by June 17, her prospective move-in date. “I told him I wasn’t going to move in if it was still beeping, but the reality is that I would have anyway,” she says. “I was going to be on his ass every day until he figured it out.”