Wow.

I wasn't paying attention, but...

Hurricane Wilma became a Cat-5 briefly yesterday, setting a new record for barometric pressure. For a while, it was the strongest hurricane ever recorded.

*boggle*

It has since weakened. It is expected to hit the Yucatan, and then head for southwest Florida. Still... a Cat-5? in late October? Shouldn't we be having mostly Cat-1s or 2s by now?

My God. We'll be having storms until Thanksgiving at this rate. There must be a lot of heat still left in the Caribbean waters for storms to be this strong this late in the year.

This is the first time that the name list has been exhausted, since they began naming storms in 1953 (they don't assign names for x, y, or z). After this, we move on to Greek letters. Which brings up an interesting point: if we are entering a period of intense hurricane activity, and we have subsequent years this bad, how do they differentiate between very late storms that are very bad? It's not like you could retire a letter, could you?

Language grumping

From the Mercury News this morning: "Senate panel demands Meirs expand on White House work." No, the word you're looking for is expound.

Also, I love the Milk Pail Market. Really, I do. They sell good produce and great cheeses and garlic you don't have to peel and they don't charge an arm and a leg for it. But can you spot what's wrong with the following? "Open daily 8:30 am - 8 pm (Sat 7 pm / Sun 6 pm)"

Yes, I thought you could.

Ack.

By Monday, I have to write five Bible studies for my Church's women's retreat (I've got some of them partly written, and I know what I am going to write about).

Halloween is in ten days, and I have no idea what we're doing for it.

Aaaaaahhhhh!!!!

(And once again, I am struck by the inadequacy of the mood icon set.)

[Edit: kayre has shown me how to take full advantage of my icon set : ) }

(no subject)

Remember in a post last week I talked about the "Randy Newman effect"? That no one could cover Randy Newman songs and have the emotional impact he had? I thought of an exception: "When She Loved Me," from Toy Story II. Sarah Maclachlan's voice hits the right combination of love and pain.

Grump.

Every so often, iTunes has a song that you can only buy if you buy the whole album. I hate that. I love the song, and I really want to get it, but I refuse to shell out ten bucks just to get "When She Loved Me," by Sarah McLachlan.

(no subject)

Yes, it's nasty partisan political satire. I love it.

The BushCo employment agency.