What a great three-day weekend. Monday off really felt like an extra day off, which is always nice. We've been swamped here and May will be yet another record-breaking month due to the simultaneous launches of a new Web site, new brochure and new home page all in the next few weeks (not all for the same client).

We did have warm weather over the weekend, but we're still waiting for that "breakout" summer day. The upper atmosphere was just too cold. Mornings were sunny, but rising heat generated clouds and showers in the afternoon, and with a sea breeze, it became a little chilly. Some computer models are showing warmer air at all levels moving in by the weekend, but that's too far off to be reliable, and before then it looks like we'll have another bout with cool maritime air. (But not nearly as severe as last week.)

There were tough times on the M11 bus route yesterday. The back door would not close, so each time someone got off, the driver had to turn off the bus and turn it on again. This is the first time in thousands of bus rides I've seen that, which I think actually speaks well for the MTA bus maintenance team.

What's with the collar-up trend? That hallmark of, oh, 1985 should never have come back to see the light of day.

Yesterday during the rain storm, I watched "Iron Chef America" on the Food Network. That show is pretty intense--I don't think I've seen things quite at that pace for so long since the Islanders took the Capitals into a fourth overtime in the 1987 NHL playoffs. Mario Batali faced off against Scott Campbell (whose @SQC restaurant is just up Columbus at 73rd Street). Both seemed impressive, though Batali won easily.

The secret ingredient was cheese, and so both chefs used all kinds of cheeses, melted, shredded, sliced, combined, all to achieve the optimal flavor in each preparation.

But the funniest part of the show was the ads. Here we are, watching elite chefs prepare all kinds of ornate dishes using top-quality speciality ingredients, and then you see an ad for... Kraft American cheese. Not exactly on the same level as properly aged gorgonzola.

Some people have asked where the name "Soundbreeze" comes from. Well, here it is:

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE UPTON NY
CTZ009-NYZ071-282200-
SOUTHERN FAIRFIELD-SOUTHERN WESTCHESTER-
400 AM EDT SAT MAY 28 2005

Today...Partly cloudy. Patchy fog early this morning. A chance of showers and thunderstorms this afternoon. Some thunderstorms may produce gusty winds. Highs in the mid 70s...But falling into the 60s along the coast by late afternoon with sound breeze development. West winds 10 to 15 mph...Becoming southwest in the afternoon. Chance of rain 50 percent.

With any luck, summer is here. The cutoff low has now moved out to sea, winds have turned around and brought in dry, warm air, the price of strawberries has dropped below $4.00, and the Yankees have won 15 of their last 17 games. It looks like everything is lining up after all.

I actually love the heat and humidity (this might explain, in addition to my grandmother, why I cannot go more than six months without visiting Fort Lauderdale). There's nothing better than a hot and humid weekend day, when you don't have to wait on a sweaty subway platform and can wear whatever is comfortable. The city slows down and, without the Fire Island and Hamptons contingents here, is pleasantly more subdued. A nice day with a high around 94 is what I look forward to when walking through 25 mph winds with a temperature of 10.

It looks like the streets around Lincoln Center are all ready, too. I don't know anything about road treatment, but for the last few days, they've closed off six-block stretches of Columbus, Broadway, 66th and 67th Street to do something with the pavement. It's been odd to see these usually congested routes closed.

One of my favorite things to read about is the science and math of networks. Of course the relevant popular favorite is Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. But if you liked that and want a higher-level, more academic look, I recommend Linked by Albert-Lásló Barabási. John Naughton's A Brief History of the Future contains a wonderful account of how optimal organizational dynamics contributed to the development of Linux.

With all of this in mind, somehow over the last month, I have been getting the sense that my own network is starting to fold back into itself. I'll have met person A and then person B, through completely different circumstances. After a delay of months or years, I'll find out that person A and person B know each other, are roommates, or know each other through best friend person C. The frequency of these kinds of connections only in the last several weeks has been truly incredible.

It's hard to measure or quantify social networks, but I'll bet that if someone hammered away at this for long enough, they'd come up with a number--possibly a function of the size of the total networking universe (assuming people are in sufficiently proximate social and professional circles). Whatever threshold exists, I appear to have crossed it in the last few months.

This is both good and bad. It increases the utility of each connection, but you can only fool people even less of the time.

How many unbelievable plays can one person make? Derek Jeter's catch last night is simply one more to add to the list. There was last year's dive into the stands while playing the Red Sox. And don't forget the odd-angle fling to home plate in the 2001 playoffs. Even with all the hype, it just never gets old talking about how great Derek Jeter is.

• I love looking at my Verizon Wireless minutes. Since I get unlimited Verizon-to-Verizon calling, I use an extremely low number of peak minutes. My plan has 400 and I don't even come close. Currently, for this month, only 12.9% of my minutes have been peak minutes. The average over the last two months has been around 14%. That's not because I don't use my cell phone during the day; it's because just about everyone I know is also on Verizon. I don't understand how anyone is not on Verizon Wireless.

• I also love the distinct New York City group psychology evident in situations like this: at the Fairway prepared foods counter, someone yelled, "Did they call 19?" The sign said "18," and not one of the 20 people waiting answered. In addition to the general inclination of New Yorkers to mind their own business unless absolutely necessary, I think there was a sense of, just read the sign. Or, we've all been waiting here; you should have been waiting, too.

• A friend was on Cape Cod this weekend and reports that the trees do not have any leaves yet. Pretty crazy. Well, the wind has been coming off a 45-degree ocean for the last six weeks.

• The bars No Idea and Nowhere should merge because they both cause confusion when the question is "Where'd you go last night?"

Thanks to technology, baseball broadcasters are armed today with any conceivable statistic that might be relevant to any topic of discussion. Unfortunately, they're responding by overloading viewers with information instead of letting us enjoy the game.

Recently, I complained that Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay saturated viewers with pitch count stats during Mike Mussina's complete game shutout. But Kay is not alone.

Tonight, during the A's/Giants game in San Francisco, John Miller and Joe Morgan were analyzing a poor A's performance this season. A graphic presented at least six different statistics for which the A's ranked near the bottom of the American League. This was already overkill; it's obvious the A's are not putting people on base and not hitting home runs. We didn't really need any statistics besides those two.

Then, Miller exclaimed, "And none of the Oakland starters has more than two wins!" Well, yes. If hitting averages are way down, that means hitting is essentially absent on a consistent basis, which means wins will not come on a consistent basis. This is like reporting that a company lost money and then expressing surprise that costs exceeded revenue.

Broadcasters and their stats teams need to be more selective. With any phenomenon in sports (winning streaks, slumps, run production, pitching), there are always one or two most important factors. Watching baseball, until the game is really on the line, should be fun and relaxing. The constent peppering of broadcasts with every relevant statistic is not only analytically flawed; it also interferes with the baseball viewing experience.

Besides a thunderstorm around sunset, we really lucked out with the weather yesterday. The atmosphere is a mess. We have extremely cold air aloft, a coastal storm offshore that just wants to meander around, and a lot of instability to our north and west. None of this is that unusual for late May. But yesterday we were perfectly wedged in between the showers over the mountains and the offshore rain, leaving us with a mostly sunny day and a high around 70.

It's a pattern that is not really anomalous (the weather can be dicey around here all the way through Memorial Day), but since it is out of season somewhat, the computer models have a tough time. Forecasts for the next several days will be extremely low confidence. Nobody knows whether the energy offshore will consolidate into an organized nor'easter early in the week, or whether everything will remain in its currently splattered form.

There's a great thing about competition. It tends to make everything better.

Consider the supermarkets on the Upper West Side. With Whole Foods doing quite well at Columbus Circle, Fairway, although still tighter and more aggravating, has gotten its act together on checkout: they've crammed 9 express checkout lanes into one, and it actually works. You can pick up a few things and leave within 10 minutes.

Westside Market, on Broadway and 77th, has also improved. The cheese section is now vibrant and compelling. It seems easier to find things and their selection of fresh and prepared foods has gotten quite good.

Basilica, a charming little Italian place on 9th Avenue between 46th and 47th Streets, stands out as an ideal place to meet for dinner. In addition to vibrant tomato sauce, fresh pasta and great bread, Basilica features an ideal atmosphere with excellent service.

Eatery, on 9th and 53rd, is one of my favorite lunch spots but the music is just too loud during dinner. Chanpen, on 9th and 51st, offers consistent Thai food, but the instrumental pop music is intolerable. The last time I was there, the chicken satay was overwhelmed by a nauseating Muzak version of "Dust in the Wind." I haven't been back since.

Basilica excels in atmosphere, food and service, all at a reasonable price. It's one of my favorite dinner venues in midtown.

The Yankees have won 10 games in a row, but there's been a sentiment out there that they are simply beating up on "weak" teams. I believe a quick math lesson is in order.

True, six of the ten wins have come against Oakland, which is now 15-24. Yes, Oakland is not in first place. But the season is still young, and the effect of six losses is exaggerated.

To illustrate my point, let's say the season opens and the Yankees sweep the Red Sox. The Yankees have won 3 in a row while the Red Sox are 0-3. Are the Yankees simply beating up on weak teams?

On the other hand, if it's late August and the Yankees put together a 10-game winning streak with victories over teams with .350 winning percentages at that point, then the criticism is more fair.

The recent ten-game winning streak falls somewhere in the middle, and, I think, closer to the legitimate side. Not just because of the math, but also because the fundamentals have been terrific--great hitting and great pitching.

Then again, the Yankees could do anything and there will always be someone out there saying there's something unkosher about it.

A look at the box score will tell you most of what happened in a baseball game, but not all. One such missing element is smart fielding even on routine plays. And one of the best players to make these smart plays is Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui.

Matsui is not only great at chasing down the ball. He has had an eerily accurate eye for bounces off the corner walls at Yankee Stadium. Whatever position he makes a catch in, his throw to the relay infielder is almost always on target. He seems to have this extra sense of exactly how the action on the bases is unfolding, and delivers the ball to exactly the right spot to minimize the runners' advances.

You won't see any of this in the box score. But it's one of those less-than-headline aspects that makes Matsui so much fun to watch, even if there isn't anything big going on.

Great satellite photo of the sea breeze front today. Heating over the land is causing clouds to form, but where a maritime influence sets in, the air is colder, inhibiting cloud formation. Northerly winds along Long Island's north shore are bringing in colder air from Long Island Sound (the water temperature is in the upper 40s). Along the south shore, a sea breeze has developed, vacuuming in colder air from the Atlantic, also inhibiting cloud formation.

Where these northerly and these southerly winds collide, air is rising, forming a distinct line of clouds right across the Long Island Expressway.

You can also see the effect of the sea breeze along the New Jersey coast, where it is clear up to around 5 miles inland.


Photo from Weather Underground

This and that from the weekend:

• Great food weekend. Dinner Friday night was at a Japanese noodle place, Honmura An in SoHo. After splitting a few tasty appetizers, I had an excellent hot udon dish packed with fresh seafood. Dinner Saturday night was at Mancora, a Peruvian place in the East Village. I had a red snapper entree loaded with fresh vegetables and rice. We split a dessert whose name I can't remember, but it had the consistency and appearance of jelly and was served warm. It was extremely dense and none of us could have more than a couple of spoons.

Finally, you just can't say enough about the red leaf lettuce from C.P. Yang's deli at 73rd and Columbus. This lettuce is orders of magnitude better than anything I've found at Fairway or Whole Foods; it bursts with flavor and stays fresh (if properly stored) for several days.

• It seems that clothing stores are not that interested in business from guys. I've noticed an increasing trend of men's clothes not being located on street level. This is true at the Banana Republic on 8th Avenue at 15th, at Zara on Broadway in SoHo, at Hilfiger on West Broadway in SoHo, and the Banana Republic at 59th and Lex. Eddie Bauer, presumably associated with a somewhat rugged, outdoors theme, showcases women's apparel on the ground floor of its Lincoln Square store. Then there's Gap, which seems to have just about given up on guys entirely. At the Lincoln Square store, men's apparel has been squeezed into a space about the size of my bathroom, and even the Chelsea location at 23rd and 8th is two-thirds dedicated to women's wear. I guess any hope is now futile that "Queer Eye" might inspire some widespread male fashion literacy or interest.

• On the downtown D today, I had one of the more assertive conductors. "Ladies and gentlemen: stop what you are doing, and listen to your conductor." It worked. Everybody, in silence, heard the announcement that the E was running along the F line and that you could not transfer to the E at 53rd Street Station.

Some friends and I all have the excellent Vornado two-tank humidifier, and we have all been wondering the same thing:

Why does the humidifier draw all the water from one tank completely before drawing water from the other tank?

After canvassing some of my scientifically-oriented friends, I was still unable to determine the reason. I e-mailed Vornado customer service and they rejected my request for an explanation. It's a "secret," Vornado told me; they won't divulge any information about this patented process.

I found the patent online, and indeed, patent number 6,824,126 explains this state-of-the-art humidifer. But I still can't find a complete explanation as to why water in one tank empties before coming out of the other tank.

It doesn't seem like anything more than basic physics having to do with air pressure at the top of the water tank. If anyone has any ideas, let me know.

Now that the Yankees are playing like champions again, it's fun to watch the games. And I'm enjoying the commentary of David Justice, a former player now up in the booth. Last night with Mariano Rivera pitching, I learned more in one inning about what it's like to face the reliever than in several years combined of watching him pitch with other sportscasters. Justice has great perspective and is good at explaining it.

Paul O'Neill is also coming into his own as a commentator. He still has a few too many clichés ("You gotta go out there and get the job done"), but there's more substance this season than last.

I'm a bit tired of Michael Kay. He spits out too much information and it is overwhelming. When Mike Mussina was pitching his complete game shutout on Saturday, Kay would not let a pitch go by without citing the last time Mussina had surpassed that number of pitches. Last night, Kay completely misused the word "ironically." He said, "Tino Martinez has homered in each of the last four games, and ironically, the Yankees have won those four." This is not remotely ironic; in fact, it is arguably expected.

So the Rolling Stones have kicked off their 2005 world tour--basically on my doorstep. During lunch, I caught a bit of their excellent free show in the plaza right outside Juilliard. A crew has spent two days putting up an elaborate set all for a one hour show, with just about every media truck and camera crew on the scene.

Since I only stayed for two songs, I don't think this qualifies as a concert, but it was a nice break.

Then through lots of pollen to Time Warner Center to exchange a belt at Armani Exchange. Great store. Mostly because their stuff pretty much fits me perfectly, as luck would have it.

Time Warner Center is a pretty nice building but I still think it missed the mark for a lively urban center, and you can see that defect on a day like today. Stores like J. Crew are just too vanilla for the edge and hipness of Manhattan. And who ever heard of First Republic Bank? That's a waste of space. The view out onto the park is great, but when you look around within, it feels too much like White Plains.

New York Sports Clubs must be looking for some new revenue streams. The latest approach? Overwhelm its members with ads.

First there was the Continental Airlines ad that went up by the entrance. Despite the cute line ("Arrive in Better Shape" or something like that), this was somewhat annoying. Now, NYSC has placed a promotion for McDonald's new fruit and walnut salad right at the front desk. I think if you grab the coupon, you get a dollar off.

Why stop there? How about animated ads for Gatorade on the rowing machine display? You could probably squeeze some small ads onto the sides of free weights. If there's a way to commercialize the gym experience even more, I'm sure NYSC will find it.

It's incredible how flawed technology projects can bring down entire businesses. The latest: a botched software upgrade at Canada's Bell Mobility, causing customers to be greeted with a request to call back in one month.

It's not the first. There's also the Siebel nightmare at AT&T Wireless. And the SAP implementation at pharmaceutical company Fox Meyer that brought the entire enterprise to its knees.

I think David Stern has done an extraordinary job with the NBA over the last 15 years, but Selena Roberts (increasingly one of my favorite columnists) raises some really good points in her column today.

The NBA's response to Jeff Van Gundy took on the appearance of a panic, a quick, extreme answer to something it wanted swept under the rug. It just smells odd.

I wish I remembered the name of this restaurant, but it's right on 9th Avenue directly across from Route 66, between 55th and 56th Streets. This has to be the #1 best bang for the buck for Japanese food on the West Side.

I got the tofu salad, which consisted of a veritable mountain of romaine lettuce, surrounded by a few tomato wedges, and capped with a gargantuan portion of tofu. I'm talking about three huge rectangles. You have to integrate it into the salad yourself, but that's fine. The ginger dressing was great.

The "small" portion of edamame was enormous--I could only make my way through about 1/4 of what had to be well over 50 pods.

The eel avocado maki was excellent. The rolls were not quite as large and vibrant as you'd find at Kodama, but they were still tasty.

Here's the kicker: a lunch I couldn't finish for $8.30. I can't remember the last time that happened. I'll definitely be back on those hot and humid July days, if not before.

The weather wire is buzzing today because of the unusually cold upper air temperatures over the northeast. From Chicago to Quebec City, the temperature this morning at 500mb (or around 18,000 feet) was -30C (-22F). The strong sun now heats up the surface air easily past 60F. This warm air rises into much colder air aloft, building clouds and generating showers and thunderstorms. This is why today started sunny but now it's cloudy--once the burner was turned on, that's when the process began.

Tonight will clear out. When the sun goes down, the burner turns off, the clouds dissipate, and it will just be a little chilly.