For as long as I’ve lived in Chicago’s Jefferson Park neighborhood -- more than 15 years -- I’ve enjoyed the benefits of City Newsstand. As a store employee explains in a cool video about the store, just about every magazine you can think of is on display -- including Architectural Digest, Land and Farm Bulletin, Fortean Times and more than one magazine entirely devoted to pens.

I especially like City Newsstand’s collection of railroad-related titles.

This past weekend, I had to go to Sears to buy some bath towels, so I dropped in at City Newsstand and bought a number of great magazines, including:

Monitoring Times -- Devoted to the world of radio communications. I was especially intrigued by an article on a mysterious digital pulser signal.

Tiki Magazine -- One-stop shopping for anything related to tiki culture, such as music, island clothes, cocktails and reviews of nightspots like Trader Vic's. Great artwork in this mag.

Trains Magazine -- From the folks at Kalmbach Publishing, here're photos and text guaranteed to get any railfan foaming.

Books on my plate at the moment include:

"Ask Papa Jack: Wisdom of the World's Oldest CEO" -- The life and times of Jack Weil, late great patriarch of Denver's Rockmount Ranch Wear.

"Super Chief and El Capitan, 1936-1971" -- Patrick Dorin documents the glory days of the Santa Fe Railway and its streamliners.

"Eyewitness to the Old West: Firsthand Accounts of Exploration, Adventure, and Peril" -- Richard Scott, a professor at my alma mater of Metropolitan State College, presents the taming of the West through letters, newspaper accounts, diaries and photographs.

"The Divorce Seekers: A Photo Memoir of a Nevada Dude Wrangler" -- William and Sandra McGee deliver a great slice of a bygone era when people from across the United States traveled to Nevada to establish quickie residency and split the sheets. William was a “dude wrangler” at one of these ranches.

So, what are you reading?

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

At work we have something called the "free table" where anything that comes in over the transom goes that's up for grabs. Today, I found a copy of the just-published "Rules of Thumb: A Life Manual."

Author Tom Parker's tome is about the size of one of the Big Little Books and is just the right dimensions to cram into a day pack or purse.

The book is described by Workman Publishing as "a mix of folk wisdom, common sense, shared experience, the advice of experts, and the kind of group think that's made websites like Wikipedia so vital. 'Rules of Thumb' is the impulsive compendium of 1,000 general principles that apply to every facet of life. Collected by Tom Parker for over 25 years, these are rules that are practical, quirky, and as entertaining to read as they are relevant to the reader."

The book is a fun read, whether on your commute or on your commode. My favorite rule of thumb is this one:

Two out of every three magazines tossed along the roadside will be pornographic.

That's absolutely true. Back when I was in junior high, I was walking my grandmother back from the Miller's supermarket at JCRS shopping center along Pierce Street in Lakewood, Colorado, when she noticed a magazine at the curb and picked it up. We stood there speechless for an embarrassingly long moment as we each read this gay publication's title to ourselves: He's Hard, I'm Lucky. (Although on second thought, it might have been Him Hard, Me Lucky.)

Grandma held the magazine carefully between her thumb and forefinger until we reached a dumpster at the next alley.

Be sure to have a look at the "Rules of Thumb" website, and contribute some of your own rules. And for more information on the FourTrack application I used to record this podcast on my iPhone, visit Sonoma Wire Works or check out this MarketWatch story.

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

You don't need to live in the sticks to benefit from a farmers almanac. After all, everybody's interested in the weather, since sooner or later most of us will need to deal with it one way or another. We reviewed three widely available almanacs, all of which provide ample meteorological predictions, planting guides, tide tables and astronomical data.

But wait, there's more! Articles will enlighten you on the history of popcorn, how to wash your hands, ghost pets, famous blunders, strange weather in years ending in the number 8, all about bananas, wedding weather woes, how weather affects fall foliage, why butter is better than margarine, flowers that stink, and recipes, recipes and more recipes.

It's the advertising, however, that provides most of the entertainment in these publications. In addition to the standard farm and garden stuff like tillers, mulchers and the like, there are ads for incinerating toilets, sex pheromones, erectile-dysfunction cures, miracles uses for vinegar, and "Foods That EXPLODE in Your Bowel!"

If nothing else, these time-honored guides offer great reading in any room of the house -- or in the outhouse, for that matter. They also make great companions for the Burpee catalog.

ONLINE ALMANAC LINKS
The Old Farmer's Almanac
Farmers' Almanac

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

I'm in downtown Wheat Ridge, Colorado, sitting in Big Sky Espresso Cafe and taking good advantage of their free Wi-Fi.

Just across the street from the cafe is Wheat Ridge Middle School, which opened about 10 years ago to replace the old Wheat Ridge Junior High, from which I graduated ninth grade. Even then, I appreciated the solid, classic buildings in which I attended classes. Our campus had been Wheat Ridge High School -- and the auditorium was equipped with all sorts of professional-level stage equipment that many small Chicago theaters would envy today.

I have several fond book memories of Wheat Ridge Junior High. That's where I was introduced to the works of Ray Bradbury and Owen Wister. I guess I had overly romanticized Bradbury as some kind of ideal, because just a couple of years back I saw him on "Politically Incorrect" where, during a discussion of sexual harassment in the workplace, Bradbury casually opined what man wouldn't like to reach out and grab a pretty female co-worker's behind?

I was shocked -- shocked, I tell you. And it didn't stop there...

Yesterday, while browsing through the used book stacks at Black and Read, I found and paid $2.50 for a vintage copy of Wister's classic 1902 novel, "The Virginian" and spent much of last night becoming reacquainted with this wonderful story.

I had to get past Wister's preface, though. In it, he counters criticism that he had no business writing a romance of the Old West from the comfort of his home Back East. So, I'm merrily reading along...

Now and again, somebody warns the public that my Western stories are written by a person who was never a cowboy himself. True. Quite true. But shouldn't these acute thinkers also remind us that the author of Othello wasn't a n-----, the creator of Sherlock Holmes isn't a detective, and that the man who painted Vesuvius had never been a volcano?

Interesting, yep, good observations. And not unlike what I've said many times: If you want to be a cowboy, just put on the hat. Yep, that's right and -- WHOA!!! What the hell was that about Shakespeare?

I calmed down and rationalized that, well, like all of us surely Wister was a product of his times and that in 1902 his phraseology would, regrettably, have been viewed as far less problematic than today. However, I then noticed that although "The Virginian" had been first published in 1902, Wister wrote the revised preface in 1928!

He should have known better, even in 1902. Bradbury should have known better, too.

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272.