I was sitting on my couch yesterday catching up on the news about the 203rd named storm of the hurricane season when I hear a strange rumble in the sky outside my apartment. Usually, rumbles wouldn't attract my attention. After all, I live under the San Diego airport flight path. But this was no airplane descending for arrival at Lindbergh Field. Incredibly enough, it was thunder. Amazed by the sound, I ran outside with camera in hand and snapped the photo you see above. See, along with the thunder we received enough rain to wet the sidewalks of my neighborhood. If you look carefully, you'll see that there is the beginning of a puddle on the street. Some of you cynics may think that I walked outside with a hose and wet everything down, but guess what? Here's the radar image from yesterday afternoon.
Be afraid, though. Rain doesn't happen in San Diego in September without it being a sign of the detrimental effects of global warming's and the ultimate demise of our civilization. Luckily, the rain stopped thirty seconds after it started, so we weren't graced with local storm watch coverage. We'll have plenty of that to look forward to in January.
Now here are today's assorted items of note:
If you didn't see this one coming, you might should consider laser eye surgery:
With CD sales emerging as a bright spot, [Starbucks Corp. Chairman Howard] Schultz said books may be the next item to get shelf space in front of the company's 40 million weekly customers as they line up for their morning lattes.
"We are exploring what else we can use in terms of other forms of entertainment, maybe literature? Literature is, I think, a natural extension," Schultz said.
If you need proof that Starbucks will soon be on every street corner in the world, consider this:
Starbucks had about 600 stores in java-guzzling Japan, but China is the most promising market for the firm, which has hung its green mermaid logo outside nearly 10,000 stores globally.
♒Some librarians in Wisconsin are putting together a "sexy" calendar in order to raise money for their libraries.
♒Damn right:
Researchers point out that cursing is often an amalgam of raw, spontaneous feeling and targeted, gimlet-eyed cunning. When one person curses at another, they say, the curser rarely spews obscenities and insults at random, but rather will assess the object of his wrath, and adjust the content of the "uncontrollable" outburst accordingly.
Because cursing calls on the thinking and feeling pathways of the brain in roughly equal measure and with handily assessable fervor, scientists say that by studying the neural circuitry behind it they are gaining new insights into how the different domains of the brain communicate - and all for the sake of a well-venomed retort.
♒I have to admit that I'm looking forward to this show:
Earl J. Hickey is a quasi-redneck petty thief who (says he) will "pretty much steal anything that isn't nailed down," and who marries Joy while dead drunk only to later find out that the baby she gives birth to isn't his but Darnell's, the waiter at the Crab Shack. Then one day, after learning that he's won $100,000 in a scratch-off contest, Earl is flattened by a car and loses the winning ticket.
♒MTVNews.com reveals the story behind those interestingly named publishing companies you see listed on your favorite bands' CDs.
