Octopus predicts gray, rain

Let’s stroll through some summery opinions:

“Clouds moving into Washington for weekend”: As most of the nation overbakes, Northwesterners wonder, “What about us?” As the famous line in “Casablanca” goes, “We’ll always have those two weeks in July.”

“Continental tests ‘self-boarding’ at Houston airport”: This is a fun experiment in which people stand in a line for 15 minutes to talk to themselves, only to end up informing themselves they are in the wrong line, at the wrong gate.

Actually, it’s a plan to have passengers swipe their boarding passes at a kiosk reader at the gate, which opens a turnstile or door to the jet-bridge. The article notes that while an agent isn’t there to take the pass, one is there to “handle problems and other customer service tasks.” Such as helping passengers when their boarding passes don’t swipe right.

“Some doctors try to profit on cosmetic surgery’s rise”: We’d smirk and roll our eyes in a “duh” expression except we went a little overboard with the Botox this weekend. Turns out some non-doctors are trying to profit, too.

“Home run king Barry Bonds set for perjury trial next March”: The former San Francisco Giant has pleaded not guilty to charges he lied to a grand jury in December 2003 when he denied knowingly taking a nap in the clubhouse during a game. Oh, wait. Wrong scandal.

“Texas Rangers’ new owners planning to spend, win”: Right. Because the last owner certainly didn’t spend any money…

“Octopus predicts Favre will retire”: An octopus at Minnesota’s Mall of America predicted Thursday that Vikings quarterback Brett Favre will retire. Loki, the psychic octopus, is modeled after Paul, the octopus who accurately predicted the World Cup games. (Wasn’t Paul the walrus?) Anyway, we predict Loki is wrong, but that the versatile mollusk will get called up when Favre is injured. Can you imagine trying to defend a quarterback with four arms and no internal or external skelton?

“Another New Kids on the Block cruise in the works”: And they said there weren’t going to be any more “Cougar cruises” aimed at lusty “older” women looking for younger men. What could be more tempting than 40-something men re-enacting their gig as a 1980s boy band?

“Kate Gosselin and kids to appear on Sarah Palin’s show”: The new TLC show, “Kate Plus 8” will visit the new reality show “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” The two families will go camping, according to the network. Without Jon (Kate’s former husband) there, who will they send on a snipe hunt? It’s a total coincidence that “Kate Plus 8” rhymes with “running mate.”