…during what’s essentially the first springtime afternoon of the year. Ah, the smell of freshly mulched grass, the sight of Pike Place tourist hordes, the sound of road-repair jackhammers, the taste of premature California strawberries, the touch of temperate air on the skin. It’s the sort of day that lets one forget the entire S.A.D. season.

WHAT I’VE BEEN UP TO LATELY: Still working with a team starting an exciting new online venture, which I hope to officially announce soon. One delaying factor: The difficulty of coming up with a good web-site name that hasn’t been taken.

LOSS-O-INNOCENCE MOMENT OF THE MONTH: Heard poorly-excerpted beats from The Jam’s 1980 power-pop anthem “Start” in an awful Cadillac SUV commercial last month. It was merely weeks after viewing the DVD set The Tomorrow Show: Punk and New Wave, which contained a rousing performance of the song on Tom Snyder’s late-late-night talkfest. The set also includes a 1977 interview segment with Jam frontman Paul Weller and Joan Jett, both looking achingly young and vulnerable. Of all the fates that could have befallen that fresh-faced, 19-year-old Weller, I can think of few worse than to have become a shill for luxury sport-utes.