• It's raining. So what? Well, this rain, ahead of a cold front, is more widespread than previously expected. That's because the computer models did a horrible job predicting the post-landfall path of Hurricane Rita. Late last week, it looked like the storm would stall over north Texas or Arkansas and dump heavy rain for 3 days. Instead, the flow became more progressive and the moisture was carried up into the Ohio Valley and on into the northeast.

• I've found a random but consistent bug in Apple Address Book. (I'm running OS 10.2.8.) When you import a set of vcards, the import doesn't execute perfectly; it leaves a few out and you have to go back and find them.

• At the post office, the person ahead of me in line was waiting to mail a postage paid business reply envelope. Hello?

• A couple of friends and I saw Joy, the play. We all felt this show was largely devoid of content. But I tend to approach theater like I do concerts--not everything will be a winner, but it's worth trying it out because in NYC, most of the stuff will be good.

• Kudos to American Express and Continental Airlines for converting Membership Rewards points to OnePass miles within 90 seconds. From my work at an e-business consulting firm, I can imagine many millions of dollars were required to sift through and connect different databases and software languages. This is almost as impressive as Citibank's virtually real-time reporting of ATM withdrawals on its online banking site--another project that surely kept hundreds of programmers and database specialists busy for many many hours.