1. Storming Area 51. The media has been caught up on stories of people who are “planning” to storm Area 51, or the US Air Force facility at Groom Lake, Nevada. I like to think most people have signed on as a lark, maybe because they want to feel like a part of the latest internet sensation. The internet is full of stupid, of course, so I have very little doubt that at least some of them are really “planning” to cross into the facility on or about the appointed date and time. It also seems likely that the type of people most likely to attempt this are the ones least likely to be prepared for what they’ll meet… miles upon miles of some of the most inhospitable terrrain in the United States, almost no services – including hotels, gas stations, and water, and some very irate and serious guards should any of them happen to actually stumble, sunburned and dehydrated, into the restricted area. Planning. I have deep reservations about whether that word means what the internet seems to think it means.

2. Prime day. Every year feels a little more like Prime Day is just an amazon garage sale. It’s certainly a “so what” event from a book perspective. I miss when amazon was a bookseller. Of course I’m still locked out of my Prime account anyway so it doesn’t really matter.

3. Water. The universal advice when getting over a cold is to “drink lots of water.” I’m increasingly convinced that no one who gives that advice has ever actually tried to do it themselves. Water, even the fresh, pure stuff coming up from the well on the homestead starts tasting disgusting after you reach a certain volume of throughput. That’s if you can say it really “tastes” like anything at all. All I’m saying is that if experts want you to flood your system with something, they should make it something that’s reasonably good tasting, I mean where’s the advice to drink lots of hot chocolate or good rye whiskey?