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.

I was handed this little gem of a promo postcard one night several years back while shooting pictures at an event at the Belmont Harbor Yacht Club.

I'm not entirely sure why I scanned it and have kept posting it every holiday season since.

Maybe I just like that way that a tiny artistic addition has taken what previously had been a pedestrian piece of clip art and transformed it into something worthy of Charles Addams.

See websites for Evil Beaver, Sybris and The Bloody Hollies.

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

The iPhone has become a life-changer for me. This little device has become such an extension of everything about me -- work, home, whatever -- that I would be absolutely lost with it.

That's why I've been anxious to try several recording applications to see how they fare at helping me create podcasts. As a test, I used an app called FourTrack to do an entire podcast recently.

I then decided to evaluate several other recording applications by placing test recordings online. The result is this latest podcast.

There's actually very little difference among them. The apps tested were:

iTalk from Griffin.

FourTrack from Sonoma Wire Works.

Recorder from Retronyms.

SpeakEasy from Zarboo Software.

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

I can't be the only who thinks that the Washington Post has found someone with a perfect byline for reviewing James Bond films.

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.

For at least a month now, I've nearly lost bladder control whenever any one of several bobbing-head commercials comes on. I call them this because the universal body movement that indicates product satisfaction these days has become the bobbing head.

One prominent bobbing head promotes the Digital Message Reminder, which you get free when you order the Buxton Over the Shoulder Oragnizer. The DMR is about the size of a first-generation car remote lock. And boy, is this device handy! The video shows an apparently forgetful young woman using it to remember to buy milk or something at the supermarket.

And what does she do when that little recorder plays back the message and reminds her of her shopping obligation? She bobs her head! Yes, siree! Boing! Boing! Boing!

Similar head-bobbing goes on in the commercial for a device called Listen Up. This piece of technology is about the size of an iPod and allows you to hear sounds, voices and even gossip at a distance. The commercial shows a variety of goofy-looking folks whose lives are made all the better by this electronic wonder.

The lead doofus in the Listen Up commercial is a totally whipped guy whose wife bitches at him endlessly about the TV being too loud, the stereo being too loud, blah blah blah. This poor schelp probably hasn't gotten any since "B.J. and the Bear" was first-run.

Anyway, thanks to Listen Up, he's able to listen to TV in bed without his wife getting on his case. Other folks find Listen Up of value, too: Some non-studly dude at the gym learns that two semi-babes have the hots for him, moms at the playground monitor their snot-nosed spawn, a new resident in a suburban neighborhood eavesdrops on what the neighbors are saving about her, a gunless hunter who apparently puts game in a half-nelson hears his prey approaching, and (my favorite) an elderly lady already suffering from rigor mortis proudly clutches her Listen Up in church while her befuddled husband sits there not hearing a word and is most assuredly bound for hell.

There's head bobbing a-plenty during all of this.

Keep in mind I'm not criticizing these products. In fact, I could probably get into a lot of enjoyable mischief with the Listen Up. And I'd almost consider buying the Buxton as a ready bag for a small camera or two. Note that I said almost. It looks way too much like a purse for a guy to be caught dead carrying.

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

If you missed the live broadcast of Doug Page's appearance on Nova M Radios' "The Cutting Edge," the show is now available as a podcast. Click on the link for the Nov. 9 program.

Doug makes some interesting points about how political campaigns have been using online advertising to get out their message -- and, in a couple of cases, not knowing where their ads wound up.

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

I first saw "Two-Lane Blacktop" during high school in its initial release back in 1971. I saw it at a drive-in theater -- probably the Lakeshore Drive-In in Edgewater, Colorado, although it could have been at the Wadsworth or West. (My parents always felt the Lakeshore attracted too many hoods, so we were discouraged from going there.)

Even with the threat of hoodlums aside, this road film made a big impression on me then. The plot of "Two-Lane Blacktop" is simple: Two cars race across the American heartland and, ultimately, we see that its characters are going absolutely nowhere. If anything, I guess this movie forces viewers to fill in the blanks.

Filling in those blanks proved easy for me. Our family moved several times during my adolescence and I was intimately familiar with highways and horizons. Once, in a grand but ultimately disastrous adventure, my dad moved us cross-country from Colorado to California, then to Alaska, and then back to Colorado. And we drove all the way. The Alaska Highway has been burned into my brain, along with memories of crossing Utah, Nevada and the vast northern expanses of the Yukon Territory -- when gasoline was sold in imperial gallons and we picked up a hitchhiker who, we later found out, was an escaped murderer being pursued by the RCMP.

Maybe this why when I headed out on my own and moved to Wyoming and, later, Arizona, I found myself looking forward to the long, lonely drives. In an odd way, I find myself enjoying the start of the trip and the midpoint more than the arrival. In fact, the arrival usually is a let-down. "Two-Lane Blacktop" has no let-down; its characters never reach their destinations and are still traveling when the movie ends.

Director Monte Hellman hadn't made a movie like much of the others out there at the time. I had managed to sneak into R-rated "Dirty Harry" at the Paramount Theater in downtown Denver and really appreciated what I perceived to be its sophisticated storytelling techniques. However, that Don Siegel film seemed hopelessly mainstream compared to "Two-Lane Blacktop," which frequently has been described as nothing less than existential.

I missed out on Anchor Bay's limited release of the film about 10 years ago, so the next time I saw "Two-Lane Blacktop" was last year, when it was available for something like six months as part of Comcast's free on-demand movie service. Although I must have watched it a dozen times and enjoyed it, there was still something missing, mostly because this anamorphic widescreen movie had been converted to the dreaded "full screen" pan-and-scan format.

Thankfully, the film is now available in its original format on a new Criterion Collection release. Take a look at the frame grab I've placed here. It shows Warren Oates, Laurie Bird, James Taylor and Dennis Wilson at a small-town gas station where the decision is made to race all the way to Washington, D.C., for pink slips. Just image cropping that image to 1.8 times its width; Hellman's thoughtful widescreen composition demands letterboxing at the 2.39:1 ratio.

The supplemental material on Criterion's two-disc set provides additional insight into the making of "Two-Lane Blacktop" and its creators' mindset. In one segment, Hellman's daughter drives the director and several of his film students from Los Angeles out to one of the remote, high-desert locations used in the film. In another, Hellman interviews James Taylor, who has apparently never watched the film he starred in almost 38 years ago.

There's no musical soundtrack to "Two-Lane Blacktop" in the usual sense; music in the movie is heard in the background from radios. That's why the best interview by far is with Kris Kristofferson, whose "Me and Bobby McGee" sets the tone for the film. Kristofferson's original version of his song plays in the background as James Taylor challenges Warren Oates to the cross-country race. The result is a haunting, almost melancholy yearning for the open road.

Interestingly enough, when I bought this Criterion version from Amazon, I was prompted to buy it as a package deal with "Vanishing Point" and "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry," two other car chase films of the 1970s. Both are entertaining, but fall far short of reaching the classic level of "Two-Lane Blacktop."

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