Hurricane Rita, like Katrina before it, passed by South Florida without much trouble. But apparently conditions are more favorable for hurricanes as they move into the Gulf of Mexico. At its peak, Rita was one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded and is now barreling toward the Gulf Coast, just like Katrina did only weeks ago.

I know people (and know people who know people) who live in Texas, and I can imagine how they must feel. And the irony of it all is that Houston is housing the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Actually, my web host is based in Houston, and when the evacuees arrived just down the street from them, they received donations from members to buy food and other necessities. Now that Houston itself is a target, the company is assuring its members (such as me) that they are doing what they can to keep safe They also say that their hosting facilities are not located in Houston for this very reason. The World of Stuff is hosted in Phoenix, Arizona.

Other than that, there hasn't really been much going on. On Wednesday I saw my friend Nick wearing a tie to school. We decided that on Thursday we would get as many people as possible to wear a tie. Only a few people did, but I was one of them. Then we came up with the idea of wearing a tie every Tuesday, for no reason at all other than to see how much it would catch on.

Some people, however, do think there's a reason. Some months ago my friend Mark started a "cult." The only thing about the "cult" (which has no name) is that it exists. All he does is go around asking people if they want to be in it. When he told me about it, he had gotten 200 people (by his own account). I said I didn't want to get involved in anything like that, in case the school took it the wrong way (because all cults are about human sacrifice, right?); so, I said that if he got 999 members, I would be the 1,000th. This week he had at least 994, but I might not join anyway because some of Mark's friends have apparently been told that Tuesday Tie Day is a "cult" activity. When the principal's bootlickers and thugs hear about both Tuesday Tie Day and the "cult" in the same breath, they'll chew out Mark and ban ties. I know it.

I have a science project to do for chemistry class. Apparently most junior high schools repeatedly had science fairs that the kids had to do projects for (my school only had one when I was there). Thus, any science project they call a "science fair." But I call it a science project.

Anyway, my chemistry teacher is made us choose a science project from a list of topics that are like things you might see at a science fair: really simple experiments or things like "Which soda cleans corrosion the best?" But she's making us write a whole ton of stuff about it, like a real science report that some scientist would do. We have to write five pages, double-spaced, of research (and she's counting the lines!). But the topics are so agonizingly simple. It's like writing five pages about what two plus two might be and how you could figure it out.

Also, we have to get research from at least four science journals, but they always have articles like "Spectroanalysis of the Multipolyplexiumbersate Hoobatriskajabbers." You'd never find "How does the amount of salt in a solution affect the conductivity of water?" (That's the topic I chose.) Oh well, I'll just have to do what I can.

Cows can't go down stairs, but they can go up. That can lead to a problem if you bring a cow upstairs. Fortunately, Bovine Descenders provides solutions. "Cow stuck upstairs? You've tried the rest - now try the best!"