In cities along the coast, The Weather Channel's local forecast features tide information. In New York City, you get high and low tides for Rye Beach and Coney Island. This makes sense; one is a point on the Atlantic Ocean; the other is at the western edge of Long Island Sound.

In Fort Lauderdale, they've picked an odd choice for this information. One location for which you get tide information: the New River at the Andrews Avenue Bridge.

The New River runs through downtown Fort Lauderdale and is about 10 feet wide. When you go over it on Andrews Avenue, you barely even notice you're going over water. The only time I've driven on that bridge was to get to the Sea Monster for Sunday tea, which has since moved.

Reporting high and low tides for the New River at Andrews Avenue is like doing so for the Bronx River at White Plains. Who cares?

As you venture down Sunrise Boulevard inland towards Route 1, there are four sub shops within 1/4 mile. They include Blimpie, Subway and Quizno's. But you'd be crazy to go anywhere but Monster Subs.

Monster Subs is a local shop. But the key is that they slice the meat fresh. Blimpie does as well, but since Monster resides in the Gateway Shopping Center along with Subway (which uses prepackaged portions), this distinction is illuminated. Monster does not have quite the variety of toppings that Subway does, but the sandwich tastes infinitely superior. The bread is super fresh, and noticeably a little better.

If you were in the Gateway and instead opted for freshly sliced meat at Blimpie, it's not just a question of jetting down the street. Because of the way Sunrise Blvd. and Route 1 intersect at that point, you'd have to drive for ten minutes through all kinds of traffic lights and odd left turn lanes. Route 1 and Sunrise Blvd. are the same road up to the Gateway, where the former veers off to the north while Sunrise continues on to the beach. This sets up an anomalous hassle driving what is actually a short distance.

Subway is legit as long as you choose carefully. (Hint: roast beef, not chicken.) They don't nickel and dime you for toppings and the bread, as advertised, is excellent. But for the best sub in the vicinity of Fort Lauderdale Beach, it's Monster or bust. I don't see how anyone could choose anything else.

"I Found Love in a Kmart Store:" it's not #1 on the charts, but its composer has hit the big time.

From today's Miami Herald: a Kmart enthusiast from Hallandale Beach loved his favorite store so much that he wrote a song about it. Now, as this story reports, the song is the basis for the chain's ad campaign.

They've had quite a time figuring out what to do with the CNN electronic billboard, the replacement for the Biography sign at Columbus Circle.

As I previously noted, the Biography sign was effective by being simple: clear block letters communicated the time and temperature, the forecast, and that night's "Biography" subject.

The CNN billboard still can't get it right. First, they tried all kinds of animation of oddly pixelized characters like Anderson Cooper. You couldn't make out what the billboard said at all.

Then, a few weeks later, they tried adding the time and temperature to the rotation. The one problem: they chose red lettering on a red background. Now, I'm not a graphic design expert, but it seems to me that red on red isn't the best choice for readability.

They changed the animated graphics to be more concise phrases, like "reliable" and "trustworthy." (Those may not have been the exact words, but you get the idea.) So when you were darting down Broadway and wanted to look up at something, you'd only learn that CNN was "trustworthy." In other words, they chose global branding keywords instead of useful information.

Now there is yet another iteration. The time and temperature (now white letters on a red background) appear on a horizontally split screen, with the bottom third of the screen showing a news crawl. There's one problem: the letters in this news crawl are around 3 inches tall. Forget reading it from Lincoln Center-- you have to squint from the north end of Columbus Circle itself.

Oh, and one other thing: the temperature is wrong. It has consistently been 7-10 degrees too low. Where is their sensor, in the Whole Foods frozen foods section?

I love this. Biography got it just right and didn't try to be fancy, understanding the way readers interacted with the electronic billboard. CNN has completely missed the point of this valuable communication space. It's only a matter of time until they try something new yet again.

I was excited to see that for "$40 a Day," Rachael Ray visited Portland, Maine. I think Portland is one of the most underrated, undermentioned cities in the country; it's quaint, clean, sophisticated, charming and, of course, constantly refreshed by sea breezes. The seagulls never stop.

I had no problems with her restaurant selections, but I would have done it differently. She got a lobster roll for lunch and then went to a Mexican-influenced American place for dinner. She could have stayed in the Old Port area and gotten a much cheaper lunch and then had lobster for dinner, right on the harbor. Instead, she schlepped out to Freeport and ate at a lobster shack near L.L. Bean. It is worth pointing out that Freeport is not immediately next to downtown Portland; it's not a far drive, but it's not quite like going from Boston to Cambridge.

In addition, she appeared not to like her crab quesadilla. There were just a few too many split seconds of uncomfortable silence between her taste of the quesadilla and that trademark "mmmmmmmmmmm."

The funny thing (but not the irony) of this episode is this: when I was in Portland, I used a Rachael Ray trick to find us a spectacular lobster dinner right in downtown Portland, on the water. The touristy place is DiMillo's. I wanted something more authentic. I stopped into a random card and gift store in the Old Port area and asked for a less touristy alternative. (Rachael always advises to ask locals for recommendations. I figured the rainbow flag in the window would mean that the shop staff would know about good food.) We were sent to someplace whose name I don't remember but where the dinner was Portland at its best: fresh lobster, right on the wharf overlooking the harbor, and a light sea breeze, all for a moderate price.

Anyway, Portland is a wonderful small city and it was fun to go back last summer.

• It's raining. So what? Well, this rain, ahead of a cold front, is more widespread than previously expected. That's because the computer models did a horrible job predicting the post-landfall path of Hurricane Rita. Late last week, it looked like the storm would stall over north Texas or Arkansas and dump heavy rain for 3 days. Instead, the flow became more progressive and the moisture was carried up into the Ohio Valley and on into the northeast.

• I've found a random but consistent bug in Apple Address Book. (I'm running OS 10.2.8.) When you import a set of vcards, the import doesn't execute perfectly; it leaves a few out and you have to go back and find them.

• At the post office, the person ahead of me in line was waiting to mail a postage paid business reply envelope. Hello?

• A couple of friends and I saw Joy, the play. We all felt this show was largely devoid of content. But I tend to approach theater like I do concerts--not everything will be a winner, but it's worth trying it out because in NYC, most of the stuff will be good.

• Kudos to American Express and Continental Airlines for converting Membership Rewards points to OnePass miles within 90 seconds. From my work at an e-business consulting firm, I can imagine many millions of dollars were required to sift through and connect different databases and software languages. This is almost as impressive as Citibank's virtually real-time reporting of ATM withdrawals on its online banking site--another project that surely kept hundreds of programmers and database specialists busy for many many hours.

When it comes to perceived temperature, it's all relative.

Last night I thought it was freezing. Not literally 32 degrees or below, but walking around in a short sleeve t-shirt, I was very cold. The wind picked up at times and created a wind chill effect. I could not believe when I got home and saw the temperature had been 61. What am I going to do when it's 41? Or 11? (I suppose for starters I would dress appropriately.)

I think this perceived chill effect is greater than usual because the summer was hot. I love the hot weather, so I got used to temperatures in the mid 90s. I remember the day I went outside and thought, "oh, it's really not that hot out; it must be in the upper 80s" and the actual temperature was 96.

Knowledge of meteorology, for me, does not translate into knowing how to dress. One December I was in Fort Lauderdale and the high temperature was 55. For two days, I had to wear the "just in case" long sleeve shirt I brought down. When I complained to my grandmother how cold it was, she said, "You, of all people, should have known."

Fortunately I'm back in Fort Lauderdale later this week. The forecast is for humid conditions with highs in the upper 80s and low 90s. Perfect.

The empty Poland Spring water bottle is spinning in the air. It bounces off the Gatorade vending machine, hits the edge of the recycling bin. And I get the roll. It bounces to the other side of the bin and then finally falls safely into place.

My favorite part of the gym has nothing to do with weights or my iPod. It's the two basketball shots at the end of each session. One involves shooting the empty Poland Spring bottle into the recycling bin. The other is shooting my used towel from across the locker room into the towel bin.

Why not just walk up to these repositories and calmly place the items in them? For the same reason that, to the dismay of my sixth grade teacher, I used to toss paper into the wastebasket from 30 feet away as if to imitate Larry Bird--it's more fun.

One time I threw an airball. Some guy next to me asked, "Do you play for the Knicks?"

At Whole Foods today, I got (among other things) a generous portion of lime chipotle chicken and the total was $11.11.

When I checked out, my total bill was $25.25.

This isn't ironic. But it is cool.

A terrific article about hurricane forecasting. Specifically, it makes the important point that the public should not focus on the exact projected storm track. A hurricane's effects are widespread, and the forecast path is not an exact science.

I've been using my iPod on shuffle, but only recently has it started cooperating again. I continue to believe that shuffle is not truly random, and that the iPod has good moods and bad moods, and some days it's out to get you.

Last week was a bad week. On the elliptical trainer, it kept throwing me either slow, melancholy acoustic guitar songs or incomplete dance remixes drawn from complilations. I would press fast-forward, but the next song would be just as unsuitable.

Then, later in the week, it managed to dig up all of my least favorite Phish songs. I kept pressing fast-forward, and the iPod seemed to say, "No, you are going to listen to Phish." When it insisted on "Foam," which I find to be one of Phish's most irritating selections, I gave up.

The RJKPod decided to be nice on Tuesday. It dished out one great song after another, including "Proudest Monkey" by the Dave Matthews Band (perfect for warming up), "Heavy Metal Machine" by Smashing Pumpkins, "You Wanted More" by Tonic, a live version of "Better Man" by Pearl Jam, and "Show Don't Tell" by Rush. Cool-down and post-stretching featured the perfectly downtempo "Church of Logic" by Medeski Martin & Wood.

I got my iPod a nice new case, so hopefully it will be appreciative and reward me today with another good shuffle.

Two new seasons of "The Apprentice" are underway, and I can't wait to watch both of them. But it looks like they will just pile up on my DVR box for the next several weeks.

Nine of the last fifteen Yankee games have been decided by 1 run. I cannot remember such a suspenseful September, perhaps since 1985 when the Yankees were within a few games of the Blue Jays. The Yankees have cruised to the division title every year since 1996.

The Yankees have finally climbed into first place after last night's 2-1 win (the Red Sox lost 7-4 to Tampa Bay). But the margin of error is tiny. A game and a half separates the A.L. East leader and the team that would miss the playoffs entirely.

The Donald and Martha may have to wait til November.

The other day I was crossing a busy intersection and saw a reckless cab driver turn left. He didn't run a red light (it was green), but he was driving way too fast given the number of pedestrians crossing the street.

I looked back and made a note of his cab number. I e-mailed the Taxi and Limousine Commission about it. I knew that verification would be an issue, but I figured it was worth reporting.

The next day I got a call from the Commission. The woman was very nice and appreciative that I reported the incident. However, for the complaint to be processed, I would have to attend an administrative hearing. I asked if I could file an affadavit. She said no--that was only available for out-of-city residents.

I understand that reports needed to be authenticated and that attendance at a hearing is a good check on frivolous or inaccurate allegations. But boo to a system that makes it harder for a New York City resident than it does for a non-resident to catch reckless cabbies. I'm in effect being penalized for trying to make my hometown safer.

But major kudos to New York City for responding to my report within one day. The representative was nice and intelligent. Bureaucratic rules aren't her fault. Annoying rules aside, it's nice to see such a large organization be so responsive to city residents, and that a complaint filed on its Web site receives fast attention.

This week I received one of those credit card offers with a postage-paid return envelope. I find these annoying. But fortunately, on the same day I received a huge batch of ValPak coupons. I took half of the coupons and stuffed them into the envelope, sealed it with several layers of tape, and sent it to the credit card company. Now they can pay the $2.00 or whatever in return postage for no reason.

But that's not as good as what a friend did. In response to a similar offer to his girlfriend, he wrote a note: "If you send me junk mail, I will send you junk mail. Enclosed is a partially eaten slice of cheese."

The return envelope, cheese and all, went back. Hopefully the credit card company has some toast to put it on.

The discussion at dinner last night turned to props.

The Economist, to which I recently subscribed, is the best prop I know, both from the holder and from the observer's perspective. The Economist stands for worldy intelligence. And getting through all those British spellings just makes you feel smarter. When you read The New Yorker (to which I also subscribe), you feel in the loop, but when you read The Economist, you feel intellectually edified. So when you see someone else reading The Economist, it naturally reflects well on them.

Obviously, The Economist has much more than prop value. Its large number of short articles in each issue make it ideal for the city lifestyle. You can squeeze in a couple of nuggets on the 1 train from 18th to 72nd Street. You can learn something about Canadian trade by the time you get to Times Square, and then catch up on Japanese GDP just before heading over to Fairway. You don't have to get bogged down in a eight-page rumination for which at least 30 contiguous minutes are required.

I'm very happy with my Economist subscription.

Derek Jeter's game-winning single last night was a great piece of hitting.

"Piece of hitting," of course, describes a specific kind of hit. You would not use it to describe one of A-Rod's monster home runs to left center field. Instead, "piece of hitting" connotes artistry and precision, the kinds that come with swinging gracefully at an outside pitch and taking it to the opposite field. (The Yankees squeaked by the pesky Devil Rays, 6-5.)

I've started to see ads for "TimesSelect," the new fee-based online version of The New York Times, which launches September 19th. The benefits to me as a print subscriber seem pretty cool: I get up to 100 articles dating back to 1981 and access to the full contents of the paper, among other things.

It's incredible this took so long to roll out. It's also sure to be a good market test of the limits of "free" on the Internet. Over the last 15 years, the Internet has been about free screen savers. Free fonts. Free games. Free instant messenger software. Free music. And free content. The Internet has created a culture and expectation of free.

Agree or disagree with specific articles or columns in the Times, however, the paper is a product that requires millions of dollars to produce. It's irreplaceable, too. Love or hate today's op-ed column, there will never be another New York Times. And since there is no public policy reason to make it freely or cheaply available (such as things people need to survive, like medicine), I think the Times Company should try to get whatever the market will bear.

Now, since presumably this will be a profitable decision, it's worth wondering where the additional dollars will go. If I'm a Times Company shareholder (which I am not), I vote for quality control. It's been dismal over the last few years, from delinquent reporters, to columnists that appear to be able to say whatever they want, to passively monitored and unidentified stringers who are outside the company's training and culture.

(Full disclosure: for two years I was a freelance writer for New York Times Digital, covering sports, music and nightlife. My editors were what every editor should be. They let not one word go by unscrutinized and subjected every piece to diligent, if not harsh, editing and quality assurance.)

Where should the new profits not go? Chasing down false synergies with things like minority interests in sports teams. This distracts management from reaping the full rewards of what they do best. It's nice to see the company attempting to extract more value out of its unquestionable flagship product.

Overall, I think it's a good bet for the business to make. And I hope it uses the rewards to make its product better.

One reason I love watching the Yankees is that the broadcasters are so smart. They deliver not simply a narrative of the game, but rather concise analysis of relevant issues--with a twist of some clever humor as well.

Tonight, the Yankees were leading Tampa Bay 10-2 when Carl Crawford, the Devil Ray on first base, made a dreadful baserunning decision. A flyout went to center fielder Bernie Williams. Crawford, with his team down by 8 runs, tried to tag and was easily thrown out.

After some "that was dumb" commentary, the discussion turned to why Crawford chose to run. Ken Singleton provided a wholly persuasive answer. "It's the scouting report on Bernie Williams," Singleton explained. Yes. Williams is supposed to be old with a weaker arm. But instead of using common sense, Crawford blindly followed information. It reminded me of meteorologists that get lost in computer model data and then miss predictions that could have been accurate if they remembered their own intuition.

After the commercial break, Michael Kay had one of the funniest jokes I've ever heard. "It always happens," Kay pronounced. "The guy that makes the dumb mistake is the subject of the next inning's Aflac trivia question." This, of course, was a play on the old saying that the guy who makes the brilliant fielding play always leads off at bat the next half-inning.

We're blessed with intelligent sportscasters in New York. I was watching a Red Sox game from Provincetown on Boston's NESN channel. The commentary was an inch thick and drier than a prune. Besides, what they're saying on YES is invariably smarter than the Beltway punditry on other channels.

I woke up extra early today so I could get a number of things done for my biggest client. Of course, this was the day the random bug happened.

The situation: I could visit all Web sites on the Internet, except, of course, for this client's. OK. Troubleshooting is actually fun for me, mostly because in college I worked in campus computing support. This support team was directed by someone who taught us the troubleshooting framework I still use today, 12 years later. Ruling out variables in network failures becomes a fun game (as long as the problem is fixed).

But the way this unfolded was downright odd. My Internet connection seemed to work, because I could visit all other Web sites and send and receive e-mail. The next logical question was whether the client's Web site was down. Nope; it worked fine not just for people on their site but also for others I quickly polled. I could also FTP to the client's FTP server. But I still could not reach its Web site or that of its Web host.

I invoked the "when in doubt, power cycle" rule and reset my cable modem and computer. No dice. I have experienced any number of other problems where unplugging and plugging solved the problem, but not this time.

Finally, I got to the other useful rule: eliminate intermediaries. For me, this meant removing my Airport Extreme base station from the Internet connection and instead connecting my cable modem to my laptop directly. I didn't think this would do the trick, because again, the Internet connection seemed to work with the exception of just one Web host. (I typically run the connection through my Airport base station so I can remove the laptop from my desk and use wi-fi without rebooting.)

This did the trick. I'm not sure why. My guess is that a bad setting got "stuck" in the base station. It's strange that this bad setting affected only one destination. Of course, this was the one destination I had to visit, but it was nice to see the problem solved.

Incidentally, this is not ironic. It is true that the one inaccessible Web site was the one I needed to visit. But that is merely an unfortunate coincidence; it's not irony. It might be ironic if the cause of the problem were a piece of equipment specially designed for visiting the one Web site that didn't work.

Anyway, my Airport base station is still sitting idle, unconnected. I think maybe it needed a rest. I've been around technology long enough to know that even machines can get moody and sometimes just want to chill for awhile.

Sayonara, Mark Messier, one of the greatest players of anything, of all time. He announced his retirement today.

The night the Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1994, my family was attending Beauty and the Beast. With the deciding seventh game against the Vancouver Canucks happening, I had very little interest in the show and brought a portable radio to listen to the action. When the Rangers won, it was pure magic. The ticker tape parade down the "Canyon of Heroes" was remarkable (and nicely timed with my first visit to The Pipeline, whose office was on the parade route, and where I started working shortly after).

Messier is so much more than a winner. Since the championship, he has stuck through season after season of mediocrity, teaching younger players and still trying his best. He made hockey mean something again in the Big Apple.


(AP Photo/Kevin Larkin)

After another great weekend during which it was impossible to be anywhere but outdoors, it occurred to me to research whether September is always this nice. After a cursory review of temperature data from the last five years, it does appear, in fact, that September is one of the nicest months of the year. Highs are consistently in the 70s and 80s with lows generally around 60 or above.

I think people are more surprised because Labor Day marks the end of summer. They expect the weather to become noticeably chillier when everyone returns to the city. It can get cool, and the breeze last night was refreshing, but there is enough solar energy left over to forge another few weeks of warmth.

Another reason the city stays warm is its location next to the ocean. Sea surface temperatures are at their highest point in early September and are still in the upper 60s and low 70s. So an onshore wind, with an air temperature around 80, feels refreshing but not chilly. Yesterday, weak prevailing winds allowed for microscale phenomena to take over, so the pier was cooled by an absolutely splendid onshore breeze for the entire afternoon. It is so rare for anywhere in Manhattan to smell like the ocean, but the wind direction was perfect--from just west of due south, over a long fetch extending down into New York Harbor.

We've seen it a hundred times in a football game: a team is down by 6 with 3 minutes to go and starts the possession on its own 20 yard line. Magically, the march downfield becomes incredibly efficient, with pinpoint decisions as to where to throw the ball or who will run it forward. I have no data on this, but it seems to me that downfield progress during such "crunch times" is more efficient than the norm.

What happened to the Yankees against the Devil Rays this season is the opposite. The Yankees are indisputably better, but seemed never to escape the lull in the belief that they could win any time. I think if the Yankees played Tampa Bay in the playoffs, they would win. But the regular season games didn't seem important enough.

Part of the credit goes to Tampa Bay manager Lou Piniella, who no doubt revels in beating his former team both on their home field and in their owner's hometown. But Yankee laxness against the Devil Rays predates Piniella's arrival. In 1999, a year the Yankees cruised to the division title and won the World Series, Tampa Bay took 4 of 6 September games against the Yankees including a three-game sweep at Yankee Stadium. For this reason, I think this season's woes are more a symptom of a sports psychology phenomenon than simply managerial skill or merely luck.

Whose job is it to battle this complacency? Joe Torre. I am a huge fan of Joe Torre, but it is unquestionably Torre's job to find a way out of this problem. And since the problem isn't new, Torre should have been more ready for it than ever before. This is what leadership is supposed to be about.

Who ever thought the Yankees would be thrilled to see the Devil Rays leave town so they could get on with the Red Sox?

You know you've watched a lot of Yankee baseball when this happens:

Sportscaster Jim Kaat: You know, one thing that's odd: more players haven't bunted against Mariano Rivera.

My thought: Well, that's because Mariano is such a great fielder.

(Five second delay)

Sportscaster Ken Singleton: Well, that's because Mariano is such a great fielder.

Tenzan, a new Japanese restaurant on Columbus Avenue, has an odd menu. Some of the sushi items have a smiley face next to them. The smiley is a bold yellow, not unlike the AOL Instant Messenger emoticon.

The footnote says that a smiley face denotes a cooked ingredients roll. This is funny. Uncooked fish is the very essence of sushi. This is like McDonald's putting a smiley face next to its vegetarian items.

Is it already over? What a great vacation. It actually consisted of two mini vacations. For the first half, I enjoyed non-stop sea breezes in Provincetown. For the second half, with five consecutive days of sunny, warm weather in the forecast, I decided to play it by ear and wound up staying in the city. It was a wonderful at-home vacation, largely because I was barely home and got to see some cool things like the Cloisters, sunset on the pier, and other places I haven't gotten around to seeing during your usual standard weekend.

For example, who knew the West Village had such interesting microclimates? Walking west in the afternoons, I noticed what appeared to be a convergence zone right around Hudson Street. Warm air rising over Manhattan was pulling in slightly cooler air off the river. Then the winds would slacken towards West Street, and pick up again out on the pier. Flags at different points on the New Jersey side seemed to indicate a boundary between a local harbor breeze in Jersey City and the prevailing wind direction, also ascertainable by observing takeoffs from EWR.

I also loved the water taxi from Logan Airport to the wharf in downtown Boston. I had an hour to pass, so I decided to give it a try. I was expecting something like the New York Water Taxi, e.g. a small boat to hold 10-20 passengers. Nope. When I arrived at the Logan docks, a small boat (the kind used for waterskiing) pulled up and the guy yelled, "Hey, you need a wahtah taxi?" After I moved to the right side of the boat to balance the weight (so my laptop wouldn't wind up in the middle of Boston Harbor), we took off on the most exhilarating seven-minute boat ride imaginable. It was sunny and warm, the harbor was calm, and we were right next to downtown Boston and could see all the buildings. It is almost worth another trip to Boston just to take the water taxi again.

It's odd to be back (although less odd after a somewhat hectic morning). I have been physically here for the last five days but felt like I was in a new city. You can always re-invent the New York experience; it's why I'll probably never leave.