Felt like a train. Felt like one of those lumbering freight trains that run outside your Days Inn window. The kind that make the alarm clock dance and wake you up, in case you'd slept through the previous hour's factory whistle.

But while it felt like a train, it didn't sound like one. Believe me, I listened. Funnels had touched down to the northwest a few days earlier, and when the room shook I couldn't rule out a sequel. The kitchen went into a light wave pool roll for a good five seconds — maybe 10 or 15 with the wave's ease out — taking me, the kitchen furniture and my 5 a.m. orange juice along for the undulations.

I stood and looked out the kitchen door, and the trees weren't moving. That discounted the tornado theory but lent support to the hallucination theory.

Regularly waking at 4:30 leads one to doubt oneself, especially in regards to physical phenomena. You brush your teeth twice, and you pour juice on your cereal. Hallucinating would seem to be the logical next step. A friend of mine says she hallucinated working overnights once. A witch flew over in her in the ladies room, she said.

With all of these thoughts popping up, I was somewhat happy to get a room shaking instead of a witch flying. The less occult visions, the better off you are — that's a good rule of thumb, right?

But then I turned on the television. "EARTHQUAKE," read the banner. I had survived the Atlanta earthquake of '03. As of yet, I haven't found any commemorative T-shirts.

The new Hershey's Creamy Chocolate MilkShake proved less rewarding than the dollar I spent on it today. The "MilkShake" moniker turned out to be misleading. Contrary to the likely popular belief, the drink is not similar to the standard American milk shake. Instead, Hershey's has used the term to mean that the milk-based product must be shaken before use.

It's an interesting marketing ploy. Literally, you expect a liquiform dessert. Figuratively, you get a Yoo-hoo.

From a Daily Northwestern article yesterday: When The Daily informed the Myers' family Wednesday of the hastened testing, they were thrilled, said Jackie Jacobs, a spokeswoman for the family. They have been waiting on tenterhooks since being notified that the unidentified boy in Evanston shared features with Myers.

Tenterhooks! The word doesn't appear often in The Daily. A search of the paper's online archives show "tenterhooks" never to have appeared any other time in the last four years. Personally, I'd doubt the word has ever appeared before in the paper. And if it did, heavy drinking was likely involved.

In case you're wondering, the meaning and origin of "tenterhooks" is fully explained here.

Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor talked to students at my high school yesterday. (No text available; only video.)

Purdue University sophomore Josh Brown got a letter to the editor published in the Purdue Exponent on Monday, March 28. In the letter, Purdue doesn't have enough quality women, Brown made his case for more attractive female students: "Sure I'm insensitive, but you're fat."

The letter, of course, stirred up a tempest on the campus. The responding letters to the editor gave the Exponent's Opinion page staff a field day for creativity. Here's how they wrote headlines for all of the different letters, each written with the singular purpose of laying the smack down on Brown:

Wednesday, April 30

-Large does not mean unhealthy for some people

-Author of letter should employ more wisdom

-Playboy wouldn't come if Purdue women were fat

-Purdue women do not exist 'to improve scenery'

-Writer of letter needs to switch schools, go to IU

-Female student believes author won't get dates

Thursday, May 1

-People should be happy, proud of their appearance

-Comments lead some to develop eating disorders

-Men shouldn�t view women as mere scenery

-Letter shouldn�t chastise others based on looks

-Exponent should reevaluate definition of "obscenity"

-People come in all shapes, sizes, colors

-Fraternity apologizes to women on behalf of sexist writer

-Indignant woman tells student to have fun alone

-Josh Brown devalues individuals with superficial letter

-Letter reveals immaturity of writer

Friday, May 2

-Skinny woman retorts, provides psychoanalysis

-Sexist letter embarrasses Exponent

-Women at Purdue get no respect

-Student has no room to criticize

-Writer can expect lonely summer

-Writer reflects harmful obsessions

-Woman advises �boy� to learn tact, facts about women

-Student offends women everywhere

-Purdue has many quality women

-With this advice, Purdue women can look great

-Writer needs to get out more

-Male students can be gross too

In a conversation Thursday, Brown told the paper's editor he was sorry for what he said.

The ground will shake…

The earth will move…

When one man faces off…

Against a planet out to kill…

Coming soon to theaters near you…

A 4.5 in big screen thrills…

Earthquake: Atlanta!

"People hardly ever write love letters anymore," says Jose Luis Munoz, Spanish National Radio's Cuenca bureau chief. But thanks to the bureau's annual love letter contest, the tradition continues.

Shall I compare this contest to a summer's breeze? No, because it is not light and frothy like the wind. It is not to be tossed about gently like so many flowers in a meadow, or tested haphazardly like so many beans in a coffee-maker. This contest is meant to be held. For without the holding, it would not occur. It would be nothing, a grain of sand amidst millions on a dusky beach, but for the keys of embrace and passion.

Only through embrace and passion — two words similar in the strength needed for utterance and the enunciation needed for completion — do we find ourselves gazing, lost within ourselves, at the phonetic simplicity of love. The didactic qualities of sound show the sonic energy to be language's muse, whether read within our hearts or aloud.

Spanish National Radio, I kiss you!

Running across a reference to Don McLean's American Pie, a reference addressing the incomplete nature of a non-Don's musical memory of the song, the line came around on the head ticker, "helter skelter in the summer swelter / the birds flew off for a fallout shelter." The notion of "eight miles high" also came around, but my attention had reverted from the ticker to the big picture because there isn't much reason anymore for distances to be more than scrolling yellow bands.

But the words I had seemed inappropriate for the day. Beautiful day. The sun brought out the green the way the rain had once last week, and holes in the tree cover seemed to indicate, from the open window's one direction, a lazy blue sky undercut of its starch by a lake-like breeze. So it was not a swelter. It was not the bite-size hail and tornado storm that fell here Friday night either. It was Sunday morning in the spring.

If only seasons were that easy — "spring," one word intrinsically defined — then our discontent would be over and not still gray. It doesn't look gray at all, like I said it's green and blue, spring's traditional colors before we get scorched, but time and seasons are now a slippery slope. Buenos dias, El Nino; Hello, you've got mail; Happy Christmas, kept in your heart all the year long (war is never over).

The breakdown of the system and the schedule are confusing because I'm not sure what end around to take. Do I find a wall to brace against and fight? Doing so would assume there is concrete force to fight. I hold 7-11 somewhat responsible for teaching the world that the night can be profitable, but now, maybe, we are all The Other. The thought scares me and makes me add the "maybe" because life's becoming like those late quarters of calculus with virtual zero — except now the difference between virtual and actual is reality. The curve itself is either megalomania or powerlessness, but whatever it is, we're under it.

Back upstairs, domestically disturbed, "helter skelter in the summer swelter" led in my head to the Beatles' "Helter Skelter," but I couldn't tune that name — a culturally induced, Beatles-specific, reactionary failing — and ended up with the massive God-or-demon beat of the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter." It was spring, and war and love were equally questionable.

Most spam senders are boring. The lonely housewife, the Nigerian plotter, the anti-virus promoter, the would-be medicator, the helpful economist. But someone knocks on my e-door and wants to give away lobster, I listen.

"Click here to win 50 lbs. of lobster," said the e-mail to my Yahoo account. I was intrigued, so I clicked. Sure enough, the good people at Lobstersweeps.com were offering a chance to win 50 lbs. of lobster.

What does 50 lbs. of lobster look like? It looks good. Fifty pounds is the equivalent of $750 worth of lobster, according to the contest rules.

Not surpisingly, the chance to win set the blogging community aflame. Stacey pondered an Annie Hall-ish hell: "Why would I want 50 pounds of lobster running around in my kitchen!?" Leo disagreed with the means: "I think one should inherit it from his/her kooky uncle." Adam felt chafed: "I was much more comfortable when the Nigerians were writing to me, at least you know where you stand with them."

touch japanese analyzed the theory: "Where is the guy who thought, you know what the key to spam is? not Viagra, not Home mortgages, but yes, what is it everyone loves? that's right… lobster."

Katie was thoughtful: "i don't know why i found it funny, but i did." Akasha was unthankful: "I don't even like seafood." Jason was media-critical: "I wonder what the lobstersweeps newsletter covers? Is it a daily? Does it have world lobster news or maybe just focuses on the U.S.?"

Nicole responded to the solicitation: "Your heartwarming email regarding the 50 lb Lobster prize made me nostalgic about the past, and remember the fun times me and my late sister Susie Ann (who recently and ironically died from a shellfish allergy) had so long ago."

Kar3n considered the cooking: "Do pots come that big? Can you freeze 'em and broil-as-needed?" Okey-dokey appraised the eating: "breakfast, lunch and dinner…. and a small snack in between."

Who knew what 50 lbs. of lobster cook provoke? You have to give credit to advertising.com for running this contest. They successfully tapped into the deep-seated American urge to win ridiculous prizes — an urge first embedded into the national psyche with 1803's Louisiana Purchase.

I urge everyone to sign up for this contest, especially if you're an attractive young blonde (and of course if you don't mind giving your e-mail address to a known spammer).

Attractive young blondes are one-for-one in these lobster contests so far, thanks to the comely, glamour-shot-toting April Malone of Houston, Texas. She won 40 lbs. of lobster. And don't you want to be like her?

I miss them so.