There was a high speed chase on our street Wednesday night. It was about 10:30 and we were both a little more than half asleep. I heard the sirens getting closer and closer and next thing you know we hear "crash, crash, boom" and the police car stopped on our street with the lights flashing and left the siren screaming for at least 10 minutes which added a David Lynch quality to the whole event. We looked out the window but couldn't see anything so we went outside and stood around with our neighbors not really sure what we were looking at. Someone said the guy was running red lights and the cops were chasing him. A few more patrol cars showed up -- we had state patrol, police and sheriff. The next morning we could see where he made a right onto our street, went wide and smashed a Hyundai so that the wheel was bent in and then he lost control, swerved all the way to the other side of the street and took the bumper off a heavy duty commercial truck and then back across the street again, took out a huge shrub and portion of white picket fence before stopping on the lawn of the house three down from us. Very exciting evening.

Also on Weds I saw Bend it Like Beckham which is fantastic: run, don't walk. I'm going to buy it the moment it's available on DVD. It's hilarious and sweet and pays off huge. It made me think I could play soccer - you know, if I could just get into shape which is hilarious since I was *never* good at sports especially team sports. I'm not competitive that way.

Friday I saw Matrix Reloaded and was completely entertained. I didn't read any reviews beforehand and now I'm seeing a lot of lukewarm responses. Someone said it was a brilliant mediocre movie. I guess I can see that. The talky parts did seem to serve mainly as a rest between cool action sequences and the love story is the weakest part of the whole thing and the flimsy thread holding the thing together. But who cares? I loved it.

Also Friday we saw Bill Bryson at Powell's. He drew a GIGANTIC crowd. We were about 45 minutes early and the room was already 3/4's full. He was hilarious and sounded exactly like his books (and books on tape). If you've never heard of him he writes travel stories and he's both interesting and funny.