Have you ever cooked on an outdoor grill in the rain? I cooked cheeseburgers in the rain last night, complete with honey barbeque sauce and toasted buns. (Why skimp just because it's raining?) I was just wondering if I was crazy. Check that. I was wondering if I was crazy for doing that.

From reader Scott W., regarding the previous journal entry: "I didn't have too many violent disagreements with the contents of the list (although the idea of ranking them is, of course, absurd). No, what made the show almost unwatchable was the parade of nobodies they chose for presenters. If they do a similar show in another fifty years, I doubt that half a dozen of those yahoos will make the first cut."

Without going into the detail I did in discussing the AFI Top 100 Movies list, which was a long-running discussion in this journal last month, I would like to take a moment to comment on the AFI Top 50 Greatest Stars list, which were announced in a television special last Tuesday. The 25 supposedly best actors and the 25 supposedly best actresses were compiled in two lists. This is an even sillier exercise than the Top 100 Movies project. It's one thing to rank art (which I believe is at least theoretically possible), but quite another to rank people (which can't). My favorite actor of all time is Spencer Tracy. I can say that. I have a personal, subjective liking for his acting, screen presence, and easygoing demeanor. But how could I possibly declare his objective superiority over another? It would have been more acceptable for the AFI to rank the greatest performances -- performances are works of art and can be critiqued and evaluated. People can't.

I highly recommend Roger Ebert's two articles on the subject, one written before the show aired, entitled Stars' Ranking Really Rankles, and one written after, entitled Grading Greats Really Grates.

I welcome discussion.

Well, I got far more answers to last week's reader question ("Which is better, bicycle tires or horseshoes?") than I could possibly print. So unfortunately I can only print a representative sample, and that means several good answers didn't make the cut. I was pleased with them all, and I hope the turn-out is as good for the next reader question.

• From "Trip": "Who wants to find a bicycle tire in a bowl of Lucky Charms?"

• From "Unipeg": "It's gotta be the horseshoe. I mean, the whole, 'For want of a nail, the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe, the horse was lost...' thing. There isn't one of those for a bike tire. No, it would be, 'For want of a tire, the mountain biker dude called someone and gave him the message instead of taking it there himself.' The tire just can't compete with that!"

• From Paul A.: "The horseshoe, without a doubt. A horseshoe helps you get where you want to go, whereas tiring your bicycle just slows you down. Have you ever tried riding a bicycle when it's tired?"

• From Stephen K.: "After much thought, I'm going to have to say the horseshoe. After all, it has the most luck associated with it. It doesn't roll as well nor does it have that oh-so-pleasing springy quality, but it can be thrown effectively, and as a close combat weapon it is the obvious choice. But this presents a whole new dillemma -- what if you need to escape said close combat situation because the bad guys have bats and/or other things? Well then you'd want that bike tire to roll away on. Of course, you can't very well roll away on a bike tire by itself; you'd just fall over and look stupid and possibly hurt yourself. And then you'd get hit by the bad guys. So in the end I'd take a fully automatic gun with bullets made out of horseshoes. Because then you'd be lucky and lethal."

• From "Scaarge": "I think, ultimately, it would depend on what your plans were. If I had to choose, I'd pick the bicycle tire. It could be rolled down hill and chased, thus providing valuable exercise. It might accidentally roll into a busy street, providing thrills, adrenaline and a sense of adventurous yet minor defiance. Scofflaw Lite. You could stick it sideways on top of a pole and rotate it and marvel at the order of the universe. It sounds like hours of fun, both entertaining and enlightening.

  I'm not sure what one could do with a horseshoe, though. (Unless one owns a horse that needs one or has only one leg.) One could hit oneself or others with it, I suppose, if that's the sort of person one was.

  I guess the best use would be to carry it concealed on your person, and when someone said, 'Well, I was close,' you could say, '"Close" only counts in handgrenades and--' banging the horseshoe dramatically on the desk, '--horseshoes.'"

Today's reader question: "Which is better, a bicycle tire or a horseshoe?" I know you have an opinion. Let me hear it.

A number of people have asked me about the release date for The Game of the Ages on Adventure Games Live. It won't be for at least another two months, but beyond that, you know as much as I do. The game will be out this year -- December 31, 1999, is my deadline -- but beyond that, I couldn't tell you. I will say, however, that the game is progressing nicely, and I am very excited about it how it's shaping up. It's distinctly more plot-oriented than Fantasy Quest and seems to be quite a bit more complex.

I'm pleased to report that last weekend, Yahoo! added It's a Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Movie to their listings. Since then, we've received a substantial increase in the number of reader review submissions. So, for the next few days at the very least, we'll be posting reader reviews more frequently than usual. I'm hoping it keeps up.

Last weekend, my wife, brother, and I took a three day canoeing trip down the Saco River, from Center Conway, New Hampshire, to Hiram, Maine. The first day, we covered the popular stretch of the river, which had lots of people, many of whom were annoying, though they were far from ruining the day. We had a great time, and at the end of the first day, we left the bulk of them behind.

But it made me realize how many people there are out there who don't know how to enjoy the outdoors. I don't know. Maybe the people that do go down less popular and less populated rivers. But the vast majority of the people we saw during our trip clearly had no idea of the beauty and serenity of the world they were seeing, touching, breathing, but not experiencing. It was sad. And while it wasn't exactly astonishing, it was eye-opening. I saw firsthand how far removed from our roots the human race has become. We're so far removed, we can't recognize the intrinsic beauty of God's creation even when it's right there in front of us. I asked myself why most of the people we saw on the river even bothered. They appeared to have brought their indoors with them, so that even while physically outdoors, for all intents and purposes they were still indoors -- or at most in their backyards.

If you go on a canoeing/camping trip with a stereo, radio, CD player, or any other instrument designed to play back prerecorded music, you don't get it. If you play music on these devices at volumes loud enough to overcome the sounds of nature, you really don't get it. If you bring beer, you don't get it. If you bring cigarettes, you don't get it. If you carouse loudly, you don't get it. If you float down the river facing inward, to the other members of your party, rather than outward, to the beauty around you, you don't get it. If you bring a chainsaw to cut firewood, you don't get it. If you bring a generator, you don't get it. If you bring any other kinds of noisy machinery, you don't get it. I'm not saying technology is inherently obstructive to the enjoyment of nature -- we'd have had a lot less fun without sunblock and bug dope -- but to indulge in it to the exclusion of all else, or to permit those products of technology that override the sights, sounds, and smells of what you're theoretically out there on the river for, that's just ignorant.

On our trip, we snuck up on a pair of Canada geese who were wading on the shore. Later, we canoed up as close as we could to another pair, these with six goslings whose heads were still yellow. We took time out to explore the home of a flock of bank swallows, who live in holes in the dirt on the side of river banks. We took note of a couple of squirrels on shore, who chattered at us until we paddled by. We listened to the relentless sounds of the running water, the plethora of birds hidden in the trees, and the droning of the frogs. And we passed by a lot of people who weren't.