I finally got around to Googling Markéta Irglová, who played "The Girl" in Once. It turns out, she's 19. As in, years old.

This is in the same category of realizing that when Mozart was my age, he'd been dead almost a year[1].

• Tonight's sunset in Chicago (8:31 pm) is the latest of the year.
• The United Nations reported this week that, for the first time, more than half of all people live in cities.

Apparently there will be a series of bike races just outside my office window on July 22.

Even though I'm not riding my bike as much as I should (though this is about to change), I've finally got off my butt and put my Google Earth tracks from 2006 and this year.

6:09 am:

The Onion weighs in on Alberto Gonzales' usefulness.

I saw the movie Once almost a week ago, and I can't get it out of my head. Imagine a musical where the music makes sense in real life (i.e., when was the last time you saw a crowd spontaneously break into song? OK, how about a subway busker? Which one makes more sense?). And the music is really, really good.

I have now sent the same 2GB compact flash card through the laundry twice. It still works. I'm impressed. That is all.

Parker had just about the longest day of his life yesterday when we drove up to Devil's Lake State Park, near Baraboo, Wisc., for a 9 km hike. That's a lot for a dog of any size, not even counting that it involved a 150 m climb at one point. Fortunately there were stairs:

The June Solstice happens in 15 minutes, at 1:06pm CDT. Happy Summer! (Or, you know, winter, for the one-third of the world who live in the Southern Hemisphere.)