Small, stormy world.

It's funny how small the world has become due to the Internet. All

week I've been reading and seeing reports about Frances, the hurricane that's about to run amok over there in Florida. And just now I went online to play some online pool, and I ended up playing this guy from, you guessed it, Florida, who was still sitting in his boarded up house, waiting for the storm to

hit him full on. Throughout the game I started talking to this bloke, and it turned out that the storm was due in about two hours time, and that he'd be online until the power went out. I, being from Holland -famous for its lack of a climate altogether- was understandably fascinated, and I forgot all about the game at hand and had a good chat with him.

-- "What does it feel like to have such an enormous force of nature heading straigt for you and your tiny, fragile, wooden house?" I asked - he said he was scared, and I believed him.

-- "So, why not evacuate?" I asked a bit later, and his answer made my day.

He said he hadn't abandoned the proverbial ship because he had too many pets, and he didn't want to leave them alone during the storm.

After that he was disconnected.

I hope he and his pets are all right.

Cheers