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I like being in a new place that has weird weather. It’s one of the main things I like about new places. And every place besides the place I live in now has weird weather, because I’ve gotten used to weather here. I don’t know when it happened, but it did, like it always does. It’s no longer exotic: hot summer days, humid summer nights, big thunderstorms, and cool late falls. Winters that can get cold, but not that cold. Beautiful springs. That’s now normal.

I’d like to live in several more new places with weird weather before I die. Maybe Montana; I bet they have some really odd weather up there.

I like living in a new place long enough so that the weird weather’s no longer weird.

This entry has been changed since I can’t depersonalize it enough to guarantee maintenance of total anonymity, which is vital since I don’t get paid. So screw it.

It’s the mark of a worker-controlled company if that company will give a worker a leave of absence for the purpose of making him less dependent on the company. An owner-controlled company would have no qualms with denying that leave. Give you more control of your destiny? Be less dependent on the company for a livelihood? That’s absurd.

I’ll find out, maybe, whether Brand X Airlines is a company of the first sort when I apply for a leave of absence four or five years from now to go to nurse anesthetist school. I’ll find out whether Brand X considers me a person or a serf. That’ll be interesting to know.

You’ve gotten tired of coffee tables, they take up too much room. You get rid of the coffee table. You put an old, tattered chest where the coffee table was, thinking it might work, that it just might be different and interesting.

People who come in, everyone, the first thing they say when they see it is “Hey; you want help moving that?”

I guess it’s still Pensacola’s turn. I’m not even going to bother taking any “before” pictures; at this point it looks like we’ll be getting less fallout from the storm than we did with Ivan, which itself wasn’t too bad here.

My mental powers are simply too great for my foes in Pensacola. During the night, while I was sleeping, apparently I subconsciously steered the storm away from us and toward them. Half an hour ago I went outside to laugh at the weather. An extended, exultant, booming laughter.

It’s all me. I’m 2 for 2! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Not my blood! Not my blood! Not my blood!

I’m really not ready for this. I like to read about my tropical storms and hurricanes happening far away, for at least a month or two at the beginning of the season. That has been thwarted this year, first by TS Cindy, and now by this behemoth.Probably nothing will come of it, except for a few downed branches in the yard and a carpet of leaves in the pool. Like Ivan last year. Dennis is supposed to turn toward the Alabama/Florida border sometime tonight, which would once again put us on the good side of the storm. Right now, though, it’s headed directly for my house. That’s pretty sobering.I’m going to take some “before” pictures tomorrow morning, and I hope the “after” pictures don’t look much different.

You know how lakes can be stocked with fish by the government? The only justification for that I’ve ever heard or read is that it’s for fishermen, for fishermen to have good fishing. What the hell is that all about?

If it were just me, and I heard that the government stocked lakes with trout, and didn’t know why, I’d figure that they did it for some scientific or commercial reason. Like the lakes would swell up and explode from a lack of trout. Something like that. I’d never guess it was done because it makes good fishin’.

That’s an odd use of my tax money.

I think it’s fair to say that after one reads his hundredth real book, say around fifth or sixth grade or so, one should know the necessary word is “drivel.” By that time, one should have read enough to avoid unnecessary ironies like this. When making a statement that someone else is saying something stupidly, one shouldn’t say anything stupid. Right?

I’ve come across this foul usage several times lately, in forums and “sound offs” in the newspaper. It’s almost unbelievable that grown adults can make this mistake. I guess I see it more than I used to because I read more words from amateur writers than I used to. Professional writers don’t make this mistake. It goes without saying that the pros have read at least a hundred books before they become pros. But apparently it also goes without saying that there are far too many adults in the world who simply don’t read books, and yet feel compelled to offer opinions in writing.

These people are mistaken when they think their opinions matter. They don’t. It’s not my job to try to figure out what they meant to say when they don’t have a clue themselves. My time is more valuable than that. I urge them to read some books, then get back to me.

Please: if you haven’t found the time to read a hundred real books in your lifetime, keep your god-damn hands off your computer keyboard. Thank you.

Anticipating a tough confirmation battle in the Senate, Bush called for a “dignified” process of considering his nominee.

This is code for “I’m going to nominate who I want and screw my enemies to the wall, there’s not a damn thing you can do about it, so just open wide and take your medicine.”