Cream 4496 Park Blvd (between Meade Ave & Mission Ave) San Diego, CA 92116

Transplants from the Midwest and the East Coast laugh at Southern Californians whenever we mention the idea of seasons. But I grew up in L.A., and I've lived the past three years in San Diego, and I swear to you there are seasons down here.

Granted, the differences are very subtle. I mean, if you randomly guessed that the weather in S.D. is sunny with a high around 72°, you'd probably be right about 90% of the time, no matter what time of year. But 72° in October feels different from 72° in July.

To me, it's the taste of the air. Autumn always makes me think of the smell of smoke. Unfortunately, this is usually because a national forest is burning, but it definitely colors my memories. When ever I catch that smoky taste in the air, I know that summer is pretty much over.

The other thing is that it still gets dark earlier and earlier as the calendar wends its way from solstice to solstice. In June, the sun set sometime around 8:30pm, and it felt like you had hours and hours of daylight. Now, the sun sets around 7:30pm, and that hour makes a difference. I can already feel that seasonal affective disorder setting in.

So because I'm working a night shift tonight (oh joy), I made my way to the local Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf for a latte with extra espresso. And I caught a whiff of that autumn scent. It lasted for about five minutes at the most, and then it was summer again, but it was enough. Time marches on.

Hopefully the caffeine does its job. I thought I had done well with sleeping today, considering that I managed to sleep for four hours after my swing shift yesterday, and another four hours sometime this afternoon. Unfortunately, I just realized that I'm still another eight hours down, since I'm not going to be sleeping tonight.

Must not think of sleep. Must not think of sleep.

Quizzes. Not from J™. Unfortunately I don’t remember the source.

Mingle² - Free Online Dating

78%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Mingle² - Online Dating

OK this one is from J™:

I am certified: 34% addicted to Myspace Are you addicted to MySpace?

And in the same vein:

You’re Strung Out on MySpace!!!
Take Are you addicted to MySpace? today!
Created with Rum and Monkey’s Personality Test Generator.

Curse you, Tom.

And Rupert Murdoch needs to hire some people who actually know how to code. Myspace looks like Web 1.0 circa 1996. I’m surprised that they actually use CSS. And that the blink tag isn’t all over the place inducing epilepsy.