Happy Meal

In South Seattle, where I used to live, recycling was a breeze. Newspaper, steel cans, tinned cans, aluminum cans, bottles of every color, magazines, mixed paper, junk mail and cardboard? I tossed them together in a huge cart on wheels that got emptied, curbside, once a month.The only minor inconvenience was that the cart would fill up prematurely, obliging us to slink down the alley in the wee hours looking for neighbors with emptier bins. We eventually figured out that the city was happy to supply us with a second cart, and all was recycling bliss.

The Blast, originally faced with a feared and despised three-game weekend as the NPSL season dwindles down, caught a break when a game in Milwaukee was pushed ahead 24 hours to tonight.It's tough enough going against the defending league champs, Montreal and the high-flying Cleveland Crunch squeezed within the last five games of the season, but the Blast is in an all-out sprint to the wire for a spot in the playoffs.While the team is in better shape, physically, than it has been in months, the extra day will give players the opportunity to not only catch their breath, but to focus better on the upcoming opponent.

ENJOYING THE GREAT outdoors got a little tougher this week with the arrival of tree pollen. I used to bemoan its messy arrival, but what can you do?Anything that is stationary for more than a minute ends up coated in a fine yellow dust. You brush it off and you sneeze. Your eyes begin to water, and then it's time to grab a box of tissues, pop a decongestant, and wait for the end of this onslaught.A-A-A-choo, Pasadena.May Day festFamilies can stop by Lake Shore Elementary School from 3: 30 p.m. to 5: 30 p.m. today for an afternoon of games, food and fun at the annual PTA-sponsored May Day fest.

They may have blown up the kid, but they shrunk the script.There's hardly anything to "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid"; it's about 80 minutes of big baby jokes, pratfalls and process photography. And yet for all its primitiveness, the movie is quite amusing. Or, possibly, because of all its primitiveness, it's amusing.If you've seen the ads, you've seen the movie. There's no reason for it to be 80 minutes long since there's no formal arc to the story. It could have been 80 seconds long or 80 hours long, depending on how many times the big baby steps on trucks.

Emma Keyser, Marie Noonan and Jean Vandenhuerk have seen a lot in the 20 years since the Riviera Beach McDonald's opened its doors.They've outlasted the McLean burger and the breakfast burrito. They've watched the humble chicken McNugget become a menu staple. And don't even ask about the Beany Baby Happy Meal craze.This week, the restaurant on Fort Smallwood Road has turned the spotlight on these longtime employees as it celebrates two decades in business.Wednesday was Keyser's day, yesterday Noonan's and today is Vandenhuerk's.

People crowded around Dan Lohaus yesterday, asking all sorts of questions about his Toyota pickup truck decorated with 53 televisions -- some tuned to the women's World Cup soccer game -- and more than 400 remote controls that was parked at Mount Royal and Maryland avenues."

He's long been a symbol of American cultural progress, invading Europe, Russia and even the People's Republic of China.This week, Ronald McDonald is coming to west county, until now untouched by fast-food hegemony.Tomorrow, at 6 p.m., the hamburger clown will visit the new McDonald's in Lisbon Center, which is celebrating its grand opening this week."We're all excited. We couldn't wait for this to open up, because normally you'd have to go to Columbia or Ellicott City," said Suzanne Kraus, 19, who came to the new McDonald's yesterday with her mother, Philis Kraus, and grandmother, Gertrude Barrenger, all of Glenwood.

According to production information, "Dinosaur" took five years to make, not to mention 3.2 million processing hours, 45 terabytes of disc space, 250 computer processors and 70,000 lines of code. According to rumor, it also cost $200 million to produce. The question before us is whether it was worth it. A lifeless, warmed-over story meant to overcome its limitations with eye-catching special effects, "Dinosaur" falls into a limbo that so many animated features seem to occupy these days, the nether world between a children's movie and a full-blown adult action adventure.

The home of the Happy Meal never fails to give Vijai Nathan a feeling of security. It even helped lead her on a lifelong quest for identity and spiritual truths. In her one-woman autobiographical show, McGoddess: Big Macs, Karma & the American Dream, which opens Saturday at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, the comedian reveals how McDonald's, a Hindu mother, a born-again Christian sister, a semi-atheist father and her experience as a second-generation Indian-American made her question faith and influenced her self-perception.

CLEVELAND --Cleaning my basement the other day was like a tour through our disposable society. I threw out a 7-year-old Mac computer that was as relevant as a leisure suit. I tossed a bunch of Happy Meal toys that entertained my kids about as long as the burgers they came with. And I threw out a few antique phones -- you know, the kind with cords. I worked my way like an archeologist to the modern era -- the most throwaway layer -- last week's newspapers. There I read about Napster and about a program in San Diego to test the DNA of convicts who believe they were falsely accused.