The cold front continued its stall over the U.S. east coast today making the day cold and grey (but dry). This family day out started with dim sum lunch at nearby Good Fortune. All of the cart-delivered standards we had were good except the charsiu bau (sweet barbeque pork buns) were way underfilled (2) as usual. But they were still tasty.

I stopped into Toys 'R Us to pick up a Shrek doll for Cianna since that is her new favorite video character along with Gromit. The kiosk for the upcoming release of the amazing LeapFrog FLY Pentop Computer was right by the entrance to the store (4). My FLY pentop is on pre-order from Amazon.

The day's main event was the Sugarloaf Crafts Festival in the county fairgrounds in Gaithersburg. The 450 artists on display were weather worn from 2/3 of their days being rained out. The memorable geeky displays for me were the photos by astrophotographer John Chumack, the architectural sculptures in clay by John Brickels, and the fantasy clocks by Richard Birkett, which I was very tempted to buy, but passed. Cianna picked out a wooden grasshopper pull toy by Countree Crafts of Michigan (8, 9).

After the fair closed, we dropped Cianna off at her grandma's so we could catch the dinnertime show of Wallace and Gromit's Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Aardman and Dreamworks did a brilliant job of maintaining the handmade look of the shorts in this 94-minute feature length film. The non-stop gags are clever and hilarious. Go see!

- mike lee - wheaton, md