For ump-teenth time, I have lost my dwarves, my wizard and my way. It could be the Labor Day holiday sucking away my will to be productive, or just the sticky ebb-and-flow of life dripping out of my fingertips. It's going to be touch and go for a few paragraphs, and finding the useful information is entirely up to the reader. I'm afraid I won't be much help. I stared at the glowing television playing 2001 last night, and I just don't think were ever going to find the next monolith. Please take heart that I'm only hurting myself with these rambunctious thoughts.

Waco was a crock. We've always thought it was a crock, and now we are getting the evidence. So the military actually went in and started the fire on the Branch Dividians. Big surprise. When it comes to law enforcement vs. the wacky public, the jury will acquit the boys in blue for the heads they blow off. If you have a gun in your hand, the police will shoot you. Simple as that. If you burrow yourself inside a compound and talk like you're the new messiah, they will set you on fire. You can quibble over whether that's right or wrong until the cows come home, but it won't change the fact that it will continue to happen. Nevertheless, the American people might get one more trial concerning the Clinton administration before he's out of office. Personally, I don't want Janet Reno in court, top story of the news and on a bunch of magazine covers. Just thinking about it makes me feel ill.

We are two-thirds of the way through 1999. People are already starting to ask where the year went. I don't know what to tell them.

Prisoners will riot if given the chance. In Santa Rosa, N.M., prisoners took over, killed a guard and trashed a third of the prison. There is a big uproar over what should be done to make prisons safe. There is only one way to make a prison safe, and that is take all of the prisoners out and make it into a trendy family eating establishment. Big potential to make into a nationwide restaurant chain. Or am I not taking this issue seriously?

My bank is charging me $10 a month now for my account because they said I don't have enough money to have their fee waived. Why is it that if I have less money, a bank account costs more?

Israel and Palestine are deciding that they can live next to each other. Of course, they have actually been living next to each other for decades now, but they are now starting to accept it. I guess growing pains for a new nation like Israel last a little under fifty years. If you can survive bombs and attacks from your rivals for that long, you can finally become one of the boys. The United States had to do that in its first fifty years, and then we decided to declare war on ourselves during the next fifty. Oh, those growing pains.

Most of my football teams have been projected to have dismal seasons. I guess my gladiators of choice are subpar. Who's Spartacus playing for this year?

I woke up this morning with one line on the tip of my brain. I repeated it over and over in my head until I could remember it without actually thinking. The line was "Don't you worry, Mrs. Curry, about your raisin almondine." I don't know any Mrs. Curry, I haven't had raisins in a few months, and I had to look in the dictionary for the definition to almondine (it means a variable color averaging a dark red usually referring to semiprecious stones). It doesn't have any rational explanation, and I have no idea why those words constituted my first thought of the day. If I had a well paid psychologist, I'm sure I could get some spiffy Freudian or new age answer, but I kind of like the line the way it is--ambiguous.

Sometimes life is just as rewarding when it doesn't make any sense.

Chris Jungle is waiting for the cows to come home.