The heat from Hades kept me off the streets and out of the subway most of this week, so I don't have a great deal to report. (My big boss at my day job basically told me not to busk. Not that he has any power over what I do in my off time, but it was kind of him to think of me.)

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One woman said that my version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was "the saddest I've ever heard." I wasn't really going for sad, but I do play it on the slow side and a little syrupy, so I suppose I can see that. It's a melancholy sort of song anyway.

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I was playing on City Hall Plaza (incidentally, the garish blue 9/11 memorial panels are gone. Not sure of the backstory there) and a woman tipped me and said, "Thank you for making Boston a better place." That was a warm fuzzy.

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Very small children are extremely cute in their tipping because they come toddling up and try to hand me the tip while I'm playing, which doesn't so much work, what with my hands both being busy. Their parents usually set them right.

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A guy named Mark, who appeared to be in his mid-40s at youngest was telling me his sob story about having just gotten back from Iraq and as soon as he got back, his wife divorced him so he doesn't have a house anymore, and he hasn't eaten in a day and a half and so on. I ended up giving him three dollars out of my case because I'm a soft touch. (This is not a suggestion, because if this happens frequently, I'm liable to turn sarcastic, and that never ends well.)