Blogesque for a Belated Monday Post

It's probably going to cool off pretty well again tonight. Right now it's 76 degrees in the house and considerably cooler outdoors. With the windows open and the fan on I think it might get as cool in here as it did this morning, when I was pleased to find the thermometer reading 67 when I woke up around half past seven. It topped out at a hair below 79 this evening, while outdoors it had gone into the low nineties. I'm not loving it, but I can live with it.

And now for something bloggy: This Salon article is a long read, but it's kind of fun to see that overpaid and overrated The New York Times pundolt David Brooks has set fire to his own pants and apparently doesn't even know it. I've never really bought the whole Epidemic of Narcissism thing that media types and some academics and various camp followers of both groups have been getting the fantods over for the last several years. I seriously doubt that the damned kids today are any more egocentric than people my age were when we were their age, regardless of what badly phrased sociobabble study questions might have revealed over the years to people seeking just those revelations. The damned kids are alright, okay? They're just damned kids— just like we were. Get off my lawn, David Brooks! You cranky whippersnapper!

Now I'm wondering if this post can really be considered bloggy if it has only one link in it. I'd add another, but really don't feel like hunting one down, and it's almost midnight anyway, so the one will have to do. Now I'm going to go outside and be cooler for a while.

Lament

Five days until the summer solstice— the day on which the entire world bursts into flames from the terrible heat... or not. As it hasn't happened on any previous summer solstice, there is at least some chance it won't happen on this one either. There will undoubtedly be a large sum total of discomfort in the northern hemisphere on that day, though.

I proclaim June 21 to be Envy Australia Day. Right now Sydney is enjoying a pleasant late autumn, with high temperatures in the sixties, and rain. Our summer solstice is still five days away and I already envy Australia. I think I envy Perth, which is in a Mediterranean subtropical climate zone, even more than I envy Sydney, which is in the humid subtropical zone, as Perth is having a slightly warmer rain which is also somewhat lighter. It's going to be a very nice night in Perth tonight.

My night will probably be merely tolerable. I will sit outside with a bottle of Sierra Nevada Summerfest and fantasize riding along cool, rain-slicked streets full of reflected light to a beachfront cafe overlooking the Indian Ocean, where I would sip Foster's Lager while listening to the waves roll in from Africa. Here I probably won't even have any crickets to listen to. They've been silent for nearly a week. Happily, I won't have to smell any smoke, as no fires have gotten started yet this season. But the jasmine is fading fast, and soon I won't have its fragrance to lend a touch of the exotic to the dull summer nights. Oh, autumn, why do you linger in the antipodes when we need you so desperately here?