Quick Hits

• The good news is that it appears that Fargo has avoided the worst predictions for the Red River. Forecasters now believe that the river crested last night at 40.82 feet, more than two feet below expectations. The cold weather that's seemed to work against residents as the sandbags froze may have been their salvation. Water that otherwise would have been adding to the level of the river is frozen and holding off for just a little bit longer. Part of the problem has been snow melt, and freezing temperatures keep that much more snow from melting. The forecast still calls for another week or so of raised river levels, so nothing's certain until the water starts receding. But it's a better situation than it looked like it was going to be.

• I'll admit to complete selfishness in making sure that I had my tickets all lined up before I passed this on to everybody else. But now I do, so I'll let you know that I'm planning to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail with Terry Jones in a few weeks. He's making an appearance at Chicago's Lakeshore Theater, where we'll see the movie and then pepper him with questions. The show's announcement was made earlier this week, and as of a couple of days ago there were still tickets, though I can't say how long they may last.

• We started talking about the weather, so we might as well end on it, too. Al Gore is writing another book on global warming, and I can only hope that he'll include information about a situation I just discovered last week. The movie The Blob was on last weekend, and when Steve McQueen and his pals finally figured out how to combat it, they sent it up to the arctic wastes. It seems that, although the creature can't be killed, it can be frozen into a sort of stasis. The final line in the movie announces that the world will be safe from the blob "as long as the arctic stays cold." I trust Gore will use this as another argument to reinforce the gravity if global warming.