My friend Amanda has the greatest away message on right now:

“Sleep. Final tomorrow. NO MORE GOVERNMENT EVER!”

At first glance, it may seem like it’s about a class at school, but actually, she’s an apocalyptic anarchist.

The wind was really loud last night. It woke me up, so I checked weather.com, and it said that the wind was 25 mph out of the northeast, with gusts up to 45 mph.

Well, there’s some furniture in the side yard next to my apartment, and all night this furniture (which is not mine) was banging up against my bedroom wall because of the high speed gusts. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep very well, and when I did, I dreamt about furniture banging into my bedroom wall.

The damage from the wind was really apparent on the freeway today. Several of the exit signs on the side of the 73 had been destroyed by the wind. Generally these were two-post signs, and the wind had blown too strongly on the sign, thus dislodging one of the posts and consequently bending the sign.

The wind was still very strong this morning, and traveling down Fairview, I noticed that the street signs hanging from the signal poles were hanging horizontally instead of vertically.

What’s up with this wacky weather? First it was really cold (for Southern California), and then all of a sudden it got really hot, and now it’s extremely windy. I would like to remind the National Weather Service (which, we all know, creates the weather), that we in California pay a lot of money to have beautiful weather at all times, and we do not approve of these shenanigans.

I have a thirty dollar promotional gift certificate from Amazon.com, and I can only use it on books, music, movies, and a few other categories. I can’t use it on toys, clothing, home and garden, or anything else that’s fulfilled by one of Amazon.com’s partners (Toys ‘R’ Us, Office Depot, Target, Circuit City, etc.).

So I’m trying to decide what to get. I could get Songs for a New World, Elton John’s Greatest Hits 1970-2002, or White Blood Cells, but I feel silly spending money (even if it’s not mine) on music these days. There’s also The Simpson’s First Season and A Hard Days Night, but I feel similarly silly about movies.

Then there are books. I don’t like to read, but some books catch my interest too. I could conserve the chi in my living room with the Little Book of Feng Shui, or I could teach my friends The Art of Cat Massage.

On the other hand, I could get something useful, like some slim jewel cases or blank CDs. They just happen to have a few that aren’t sold through Office Depot. But do I really need more? I think I have plenty already.

I think I’ll just hold on to this gift certificate until the next time I’m really excited about buying something. I’ll prob’ly get something really expensive, like a new printer or monitor, and just use the gift certificate as a discount.