As predicted, the backdoor cold front did come through. It's 90 in Toronto but cloudy and 74 here. This is ridiculous. It's the middle of July. I already postponed my trip to the Cape once to wait for warmer weather; maybe I should have postponed it until 2006. Sea surface temperatures off New England are still below normal, so the backdoor fronts keep coming.

I was extremely impressed with FedExKinko's-OfficeAndPrintCenter-SynergyBased-ServiceProvider on West 72nd Street. They printed some of my new business cards but then called and asked me to come in to check something. They thought the black might look too bold and they wanted me to review it before proceeding. As it turned out, it looked fine, but they get major points for stopping to give me the choice. It's nice to know that even mundane printing jobs are not performed mindlessly.

I've been looking for a few reliable casual-but-Manhattan-appropriate t-shirts. I get very picky about these things so nothing is quite right. Those "ringer" tees, all the rage in 2002, have now gone the way of Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl--" we've all had enough. I'll keep looking.

Europan Café at Lincoln Center is so consistently excellent; I don't know how they do it. Everything, from the muffins to the salmon, is always fresh and there's no cheating. Even the little fruit cup that came with my omelette featured perfectly ripe honeydew and pineapple. Those little details are what distinguish the great food places from the merely good ones.