a post in the Kottke style...

There are these bugs, in Hattiesburg. I don't know what they're called, because my family always just referred to them as Florida Bugs, because they would die by the thousands as we drove to Seagrove Beach near Destin each year for summer vacation. I am suprised to see them in H'burg, and a little disconcerted. I thought they only lived in FL. I've never seen them in LA, either. There are swarms of them, even after hundreds of thousands have been sacrificed on grills and windshields throughout the region. How do they survive? I think we may have discovered the most sex-crazed creature in the world.

A hotel in North Carolina posted "Get thee to a nunnery" on their marquee, as they face Ophelia brushing the Outer Banks. Never let it be said that the only good hurricane parties happen on the gulf.

I fell victim to bueracracy today when I tried to get a library card. Because I live on the wrong side of a city that straddles the county line, I would have to pay a $45 fee to use the good library. The bad library, you ask? I have more books in my living room than that place has in its whole oak grove branch. I can't even get a card just by virtue of being a student at the university. I have to have a P.O. box there, first. Guess what that costs...yup, $50. Maybe the counties don't get along. This is the deep south, after all.

Heard on the radio that the Jones County State Fair will be cancelled this year because of the "100% destruction of the fairgrounds, the buildings on it, the power lines, and the water supply." These are the words the guy used. "100% destruction." I was puzzled at the zest with which he reported this news. Why couldn't he just have said, "the place is too tore up for us to use it." They could all trek to the Neshoba County Fair instead. They live 20 people to a 3-room skack every year and call it fun. With no air-conditioning. In JULY. Don't need no stinkin' power or runnin' water and whatnot.

Also on the radio were warnings about snakes that may have taken shelter in people's homes after the hurricane. Back away slowly, etc. If you do get bitten, call the University of Mississippi Poison Control center. Gave a long string of numbers that I'm sure no one could remember in a crisis. They should come up with an acronym...1-800-gotbitn. 1-800-cpprhed. 1-8damnsnake.