What the world needs now is sand. Sweet sand. You see, lately I've been suffering from a mad sort of daydream wherein I get to visit one or more new islands each and every summer. I'd go here, I'd go there. Basically, I'd pinpoint some randomly inspiring island, research it with a passion, and then get myself there by hook or by crook ... or by plane, speeding train, tall building, or nearest available superperson. (Batman is still in therapy and Superman is visiting the folks, but I hear Thor and Aquaman are free. I mean, let's just face facts. Those two are more than usually free.) In this mad island daydream of mine, however, I apparently have unlimited funds -- not to mention a healthy world view and an excellent travel agent. And unfortunately, while I definitely have a starry-eyed world view, we here in Christaville are not so much acquainted with unlimited funds or travel agencies with superperson hookups.

So much for mad daydreams, then. Although I suppose all the really good ones have already been had, what with Lewis Carroll and Baz Luhrmann and the beat generation and pretty much every artist, writer, poet, and/or dreamer who has come before. Maybe what the world needs now is new madness. Sweet new madness. Even if it doesn't fit into the syllabic scheme of that blasted song mock-up.

SUMMER OH YES PLEASE NOW WOOHA!

Now that we've got the requisite little "finals are done and MU HA HA I feel so free" exclamation over with, allow me to explain why I truly hate summer. True, there are no classes during summer. (Unless you're the kind of dope who'd like to graduate before the age of fifty and is therefore stuck taking a summer course until August. Ahem. A royal dope, perhaps, but a somewhat disillusioned, summer-class-taking dope nonetheless.) The reason I hate summer is very simple: it is not the right season for pale, autumn-loving people. Summer is a season full of skinnyminny bottle blondes laying out under the too-hot sun to get their a daily build-up of skin cancer. (Bottle blonds probably do this too, since it's hardly fair for blondie boys to remain exempt from Christa's Oh So Serious Scorn.) Summer is not a season for a rather pale, boots-loving, non-tentpole-figured brunette. And that's all I have to say about that.

Wait ... isn't this Make a Random Complaint That Doesn't Matter In the Grand Scope of Things Day? Did we get a memo canceling that? Oh, I see. The memo company is busy enjoying its new blonde highlights while it lays out on the cancerous beach. Wooha.

Aren't fortune cookies are a fickle lot? Most of the time they don't even contain a fortune at all. You usually get a proverb, something along the lines of, "The wise are quiet when it is noisy," or "Your light shines as candles on the water," or even, say, "A bird in the hand may be worth two in the bush, but is also considerably more messy." Hear me, fortune cookie writers: such things are not proper fortune cookie material. A proper fortune cookie should give you a fortune. Such as, "On Tuesday, you will make money!" Or how about, "You will prosper, and furthermore, you will also live long." Or best of all, try, "Watch out man, somebody's gonna come at you with a giant bat and it ain't gonna be made out of foam!" These are not only actual, as-defined fortunes, they're also useful fortunes.

On the other hand, this particular webscribbler opened up a fortune cookie some time ago to discover not one, not two, but THREE fortunes inside of it. As you can see above, all three of said fortunes were more than spectacular in nature. In fact, this particular webscribbler was a little afraid to write about it, for fear that the universe had simply made an error somewhere -- like the payroll department inside some giant corporate conglomerate, which would thus send out dark-suited taxmen of doom in order to make "the proper corrections." (Or at least try to salvage that lost surplus of lucky numbers.) But all black-helicoptered imaginations aside, has my fortune been any better since receiving The Lovely Three? Have I been any less-busy with college finals fast approaching? Any less-weighed down with the crazy inconstancies and ever-bottled-up worries of life? Any less-beleaguered by spiders on the ceiling or attemptedly-new layouts that utterly refuse to fit, perhaps? Richer? Clearer? Happier? Well, we have yet to see -- times three.