Did another test of the iPhone 3GS video camera while wheeling my way through the produce department at the Dominick's supermarket in Park Ridge. I shot this vertically to make it less obvious to store personnel I was capturing video.

Looks pretty good -- although a wider format would have captured more of the experience.

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.

Apple's new iPhone 3G S doesn't deliver high-definition images, but what it lacks in fidelity, it more than makes up for with convenience and portability. Here's my first video, shot on my way into work in Chicago this morning.

I wish we could shut off the camera's autoexposure, but otherwise, I'm really pleased with the addition of video to iPhone.

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.

Every since my disappointing experience with the Amtrak flat iron steak, I've wanted to know more about beef cuts, flavors, how meat is aged, and so on. Thanks to Leah Zeldes, I now know a great deal about these somewhat arcane subjects.

Those of you following along at home might want to consult this chart that explains beef cuts. It's courtesy of the Cattlemen's Beef Board & National Cattlemen's Beef Association's BeefRetail.org site.

Also check out "Raising Steaks," an article Leah wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times.

And yes, the photo above is what I had for dinner before recording this podcast. I opted for the original version of Hamburger Helper on the left. It still tastes great, and is almost as good a comfort food as Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Dinner.

PRODUCTION NOTE: I promise to do a better job with Skype next time.

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.

For many years, I was a devoted shortwave radio listener. Even on worknights and schoolnights, I'd be up until the wee hours scanning the high-frequency bands for unusual signals, pirate transmissions, numbers stations, clandestine broadcasters and other fringe emanations from the ether.

One of my favorite pirate broadcasters was Alan Maxwell's KIPM, which usually took to the airwaves on holiday weekends. Many pirate broadcasters simply played rock music and subjected listeners to vulgar humor, but KIPM produced professional-quality science-fiction dramas that could last an hour or more.

Like many pirate broadcasters, KIPM responded to listener reception reports. Much to my delight some years back, I received a QSL card from KIPM. Shown above, the card confirms I picked up the station's signal on Oct. 27, 2002, on 6950 kHz. Maxwell also included some bizarre artwork and an audio CD of the shows.

About this same time, I began listening to the eclectic programs on WBCQ, a shortwave station owned by Allan Weiner that courageously embraces the First Amendment in a way that would make most mainstream broadcasters defecate cinderblocks.

Although WBCQ's programming has always run the gamut from extreme vanity to extreme politics, I found some shows to be fascinating. Radio Newyork International with John P. Lightning was a favorite of mine. It's a potpourri of pop culture and politics that's best described as Howard Stern without the punchbowl -- and without the turd.

Another great WBCQ show I enjoyed listening to was "Marion's Attic," which featured an elderly lady playing Edison cylinder and old 78 RPM records from the dawn of commercially recorded music.

But not all of WBCQ's programming smelled so good. Weiner's commitment to free speech also meant that some genuine weirdos, goofballs and nutjobs gained access to the airwaves. Among those was Hal Turner, who bought time on the station for several years to espouse his anti-Semetic and racist views.

Turner was arrested just the other day amid accusations of threatening public officials. I disagree with nearly all -- if not all -- of what Turner stands for and says, but this is still America and he has the right to espouse those views. But if Turner did try to incite violence, however, then he does need to answer for that.

An even more interesting fringe broadcaster active around the time Turner graced WBCQ was "Colonel" Steve Anderson, a self-styled militia leader who operated clandestine shortwave station United Patriot Radio from a site in Kentucky.

Anderson broadcast nightly diatribes against the federal government for far longer than most shortwave listeners believed possible. Here in Jefferson Park, his shortwave transmissions came blasting across my radio with such strength you'd have thought the transmitter was just up the street.

See a reception report of mine from April 2001 (scroll down to the USA logs).

The colonel's rhetoric usually began at a seemingly sane level, but quickly progressed to mouth-frothing talk about New World Order conspiracies and Jews being the spawn of Satan. Interspersed among his Christian Identity pontifications were references to his love of baking homemade bread.

Anderson, a former Kentucky State Militia member who got the boot when he refused to stop his illegal transmissions, definitely knew how to keep his audience riveted.

United Patriot Radio's hit parade included "You Can Take My Gun From My Cold, Dead Hand," "Onward Christian Soldiers" and a taped interlude featuring a guy firing a machinegun and yelling, "Janet Reno! Get some! Get some today!"

The broadcasts ended one fateful night in October 2001 when a county mountie pulled the colonel over on a routine traffic stop for having a broken taillight on his truck. One thing led to another and Anderson whipped out an automatic weapon and swiss-cheesed the officer's patrol car. (Initial newspaper reports noted that Johnny Law had a 15-year-old girl in the squad car with him, but if this fascinating detail was ever explained in subsequent coverage, I missed it.)

Anderson took it on the lam until he was arrested after his mugshot appeared on "America's Most Wanted." He's now doing time.

The interwebs have occupied much of my spare time the past few years and I haven't monitored the shortwave band for bizarre stuff for a long time. I ought to see what's up and start listening again. After all, it's like having kids in the next room: If they're too quiet, you know they're up to something.

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.

This time out, I recorded the podcast with a Livescribe Pulse smartpen. What the audio lacks in fidelity, it makes up for in convenience, I think.

Topics include Jefferson Park, neighborhood festivals and some suburban high school administrators who have a stick up their fundament over an innocent yearbook prank in which a photo showing a student holding a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer made it into print. To hear New Trier Township High School spokeswoman Laura Blair tell the tale, Western civilization is on the brink of destruction.

"It's clearly defiant and subversive and intentional," Blair declared to Chicago Tribune reporter John Keilman.

Talk about an overreaction. Judging by her credentials, Blair looks to be a sharp public-relations professional, so she should have had a much more measured response when journalists came calling, as Tribune columnist Eric Zorn points out.

When I worked at a certain small-town daily newspaper I won't name, we had a similar problem. Each year, the paper would print two full pages with an alphabetical list of all graduating high school seniors. This page was put together and proofread by students from the school's paper. The paper usually painstakingly proofread the list before printing it, but one year somebody slipped up and thousands of readers found the following names among the graduates:

Hugh Jass, Lilac Arug, Seymour Butz, Mike Hunt and (my favorite) Buster Hyman.

School officials and our publisher publicly made the requisite comments about how sad it was that a few pranksters had ruined it for everybody -- but everybody I met thought it was pretty funny. Although not as funny as the time the paper supposedly printed an ad that promised a sale on "Men's Tapered Shits."

And then there's the time that Chicago's very own Lerner Newspapers ran an ad -- in the Skokie edition, I believe, which surely qualifies as icing on the cake -- whose typo announced the opening of the "Nazi Car Wash."

But to get back to subject of yearbook mischief, the sad reality is that it isn't always funny. Pranks are definitely not funny in cases like this.

MORE INFO

Here's information on Jeff Fest. And click on the Flash player below to see and hear the pencast version of the show.



ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.

Leaving Ottumwa, Iowa from Leigh Hanlon on Vimeo.

Here's a brief video of the view out my Superliner roomette window as Amtrak's California Zephyr pulls out of Ottumwa, Iowa, eastbound for Chicago.

NOTE: If you're viewing this page on an iPhone or other mobile device that does not support Flash, you can still view the video by clicking on the POD logo to the left of the headline, or on the filename that appears after "Direct download" at the end of this text item.

PRODUCTION NOTE: Sorry about the previous posting, which I've now deleted. I had saved the video in HD format, which will not display on iPhone.

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.

I love steak and I love traveling by train, but so far I haven't had good luck with the flat iron steak served on Amtrak's California Zephyr.

I tried this relatively new cut last October 2008 on the Zephyr and wasn't especially impressed with it. But I figured it was probably just me, so when I was on the train again in early 2009, I gave the flat iron steak another chance. Same result. This, I asked myself, is a $21 meal?

Last week, I spent a week's vacation out in Colorado, so I decided to relax and take the train again. Meals are included if you book a sleeper, so I tend to eat with reckless abandon. This trip, however, I decided to play it safe with the pork tenderloin -- which was quite good.

As for why I just don't get along with the flat iron steak, Leah Zeldes tells me that some, but not all, flat iron steaks can contain myglobin, which imparts a liverlike taste if the steak is cooked well. I'm not sure if that's why my two Amtrak flat irons failed to excite, since I ordered both cooked medium.

Maybe it's just me. When I mentioned my Amtrak steak experience to several friends in Colorado, they told me that they really like flat iron steaks -- especially when used to make sandwiches.

In any event, the rest of the stuff on the Amtrak menu was just fine.

External links and opinions about flat iron steak and Amtrak food:

Flat iron steak is a hit with consumers, researchers say.

Chowhound pretty much raves about this cut.

Flat iron steak is the result of muscle profiling research.

Here's a photograph of the flat iron steak by Jeremy! on Flickr.

Does Amtrak substitute beef shanks for the flat iron steak?

Blogger declares "There are some inconsistencies."

National Association of Railroad Passengers provides information about Amtrak menus.

Gemma Petrie's Gapers Block account of dining on Amtrak's Empire Builder.

Railroad.net asks, "What was your best meal aboard an Amtrak train?"

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.

The Chicago Transit Authority's beloved Holiday Train brought Santa Claus to Jefferson Park on Saturday, November 29. Parents, children and railfans of all ages turned out along the Blue Line right of way to join in the festivities.

The event is especially fun for photographers, as it's the one time of the year when they're not threatened with arrest by CTA gauleiters.

Watch the video all the way through to learn who Santa contacts on the "Green Phone."

There's still time to catch the Holiday Train. Check the CTA website for Santa's schedule.

NOTE: If you're viewing this page on an iPhone or other mobile device that does not support Flash, you can still view the video by clicking on the POD logo to the left of the headline, or on the filename that appears after "Direct download" at the end of this text item.

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.

I had my compact digital camera with me the other night when I walked to the CTA Blue Line to head home. As I passed by the State Street Macy's, I shot some video of the holiday windows.

Is it just me, or do this year's holiday windows suck the big one? Being an adult isn't the reason these displays disappoint me. I seriously doubt these relatively static, uninspired "Fraggle Rock" things would appeal to any child.

I'm not the only one who thinks the windows blow chunks this year. Writing in The Huffington Post, Mike Doyle declares, "Macy's State Street has cost-cut its Chicago Loop holiday windows and Christmas tree so deeply this year, I personally don't believe it's worth bothering to make that time-honored family foray downtown to see them."

Perhaps the real problem is that Marshall Field's was always something special, but Macy's is really nothing more than just a store.

Uncle Mistletoe has got to be spinning in his grave. Don't ask me about Aunt Holly.

NOTE: If you're viewing this page on an iPhone or other mobile device that does not support Flash, you can still view the video by clicking on the POD logo to the left of the headline, or on the filename that appears after "Direct download" at the end of this text item.

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.

One of the highlights of Christmas in Chicago is the arrival of the Chicago Transit Authority's Holiday Train. The first time I saw this train, I was thoroughly delighted. The CTA takes a normal L train and gussies it up inside and out with lights, garlands, decals and ornaments.

The peace on earth de la resistance is a flatbed car with Santa's sleigh and Santa himself. And you can ride on this train for just the cost of regular fare. (Just to clarify, you ride in the normal train cars; you don't get to sit outside or on Santa's lap.)

The CTA Holiday Train starts running this weekend with special appearances on the Red and Purple Lines. Railroad cheer continues until December 23.

See Flickr photos of the CTA Holiday Train. Here's some great video of the 2007 train. And here's a charming video of the interior.

It would also be fun to see the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train, which next week begins a monthlong journey through six provinces and seven states. The train features live music and raises donations for local food banks. It rolls into Illinois in early December, visiting Pingree Grove and Savanna on the 5th, and Gurnee on the 9th.

See Flickr photos of the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train. And here's a wonderful video of the CP Holiday Train arriving during a snowstorm.

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.