As has been mentioned afore, it is both my honor and responsibility somber to occasionally offer, in the name of honest and fair business practice and non-fraudulent dealings, the advising and cybernautical almanac items much promised by the title of this fair magazine, though all too frequently lacking. We promise the orbs of the heavens, do we not, and deliver unto you great unwashed stinkchimps naught but the flapping of meaty gums. We provide so very little of that almanackial spirit, alas. So then, find below and forth just such an item, submitted for your erudition, edification and enlightenment— not to mention entertainment, which entertainment I presume to be both implicit and thorough.

But then, to the point of the matter: Indeed, as it is oft said, it must be agreed that OctoBear is the cruelest month[*]. Although I am as generally unfamiliar with your strange and mutable surface meteorological phenomena as I am with the turgidly torpid waters of your hearts (deep in the crevasses of the crust we measure time and days by tide and tithe, not by the lumbering and inexact motions of the planets— Leap year, I scoff at thee!), I yet continue in my general enamourment both for such matters at once emergent and numerical.

As is well established, the regular actions of the emotions and weather are neither a phenomenon unto themselves, but are rather the sum and total of nigh-unto-countless individual actions, each discrete and understood. Like a thousand waves slowly eroding the patience of the great Slumbers below, so too do the infinitesimal occurrences of the day affect thy and thine. When I bend my mighty and belligerent brain-sac to the task, thousands of influences come to mine mind: the balance of melatonin in your shallow monkey brain; the quality and quantity of sleep procured; things both eaten and failed to eat; the action of wind and Affected Coriolis; the shift in humidity and barometric pressure; the flapping of the butteredfly's wings and the squint of the Chinaman's eye. Weather, and emotions. Neither are monads. As the song is sung, "no emergent phenomena is an island," but rather, after a fashion, composite numbers composed of primes, each corresponding to another of these discrete, numerical, measurable aspects of the world (or the mind, as is applicable.)

As such, and in the name of clarity, I have taken it upon myself to "run the numbers," as it were. To sink my terrible and sharp beak in to the swirling factors that are your daily, simian lives. To crunch upon the results, and benefit you finally with a clear chart showing the progress of the weather, within and without, for the remainder of this month of the OctoBear.

And what a propitious name, for how much less is a squid sans his major manipulating hunting tentacles? Would he be so many times greater than your running-the-mill eight armed OctoPus? I submit to you an answer, oh waddlers in the dust, and my answer is: Hardly. Perhaps I should be afeared of this month, with its implicit threat. But, of course, we recall that the Eight is also the Serenity, the Soother— in effect, telling us "Worry not of the threat of detentackling implicit in this month's name."

Of course, all of this is to ignore the fiercsome fanged visage and whirling paws of the OctoBear himself, in whose honor this month is named. Although I can well imagine this eight-legged, bee-hating, honey-loving forest beast, I seem hard set to acquire any depictetory evidence of the precise nature of the eight-limbed ursine whose existence I deduce from this month's strange name. I sent my lab assistant, Rob, scampering to the computerized terminals in order to perform the webby searches he so adores, and he could locate no further information regarding the octoursine for which this month is named, finding only page after page of possibly salacious anatomical studies of fully-figured adult males, much of the bodied hair and oft favoring the handlebars of mustache. This Web Interneted, it is a strange and fickle informabeast, is it not?

But these, of course, are matters to the side. More of the thrust direct: My Glorious Almanacial Offering of this Week.

Although the calculations were difficult (especially those accounting for periodic shifts in this earth's precession and the readily available prescription mood elevators), I believe the results below are both precise and accurate.

Yonder chart is as exact as modern science and voodoo can forge and temper in the flames of inspection, introspection and prospection. You may have the word of the great Architeuthis Rex Mundi (Vote Squid!), that it shall be accurate to even the tenth most placing of decimals.

As ever, please print this calender and post it prominently in the domicile and workplace. While there is not, in general, a desire to replace internal or external temperament with those listed below, they are offered rather as a set of prognostications. In exempli gratia, imagine that you are planning a date romantique for the October 17. A quick glance below indicates that October 17 is likely to be a day of enduring shame, but singularly attractive lighting. Modify plans accordingly. On October the 4, you might well wonder Is October the 23 a day favorable to the flying of kites? Shall I be psycho-emotionally prepared to actuate my coup d'etat on October the 30? Need not you wonder longer; the answers, they dwell below. As Ever.

I Remain Your Humble Almanaceur,
The Giant Squid

October - Temperament, External and Internal

Su	M	Tu	W	Th	F	Sa
			1. Chill and Blusteristic Pompous Sense of Self-Satisfaction	2. Continuing Chill, with Intermittent Precipitants General Shame viz. Previous Day's Self-Satisfaction	3. Unseasonable, Eerie Sunlight Brief Reprieve from Shame	4. Overcast. Deeply Overcast Crushing Return of the Shame, Steelbooted and Wearing Black
5. Somewhat Less Overcast Somewhat Less Shamed	6. Clear, with Increasing Probability of Water and/or Small Frogs Falling from the Sky Sudden, Crushing Realization that the Previous Lightening of Shame was Illusory.	7. Windy, with Some Chance of Parting of Seas Upbeat, without Being the Cocky; a Good Day for Mood Altering Chemicals	8. Sun and Moon Shine, Possibly Simultaneously, Winds North-Northwest Confusion Grand and Consuming; Do Not Drive on this Day, for the Squirrels will be afoot once more	9. Winds Southerly, Chance of Hawks and Handsaws Elation, then Depression, then Indecision. Much Talking to Oneself	10. Hurricanoes Joy, Obscene	11. Easterly Winds General Cockiness, followed by Increasing Chance of Getting the Lay
12. Boiling of Earth, General Distemper	13. Boiling of Earth, Highly Localized Distension, Spiritual	14. Cold, Not Clement, Ill Weather for Agricultural Pursuit Amorphous Fear, High Chance of Spider Bites and Lawsuits	15. Mild Meteor Showers. Sun Black as Sackcloth Priapism, Hide in Shame or Take Full Advantage?	16. Bright, Shining, but Dishonest Brief, Unexplained Return of Shame, Followed by 50% Chance of Irrational Exuberance	17. Clear Light of Sky, with the Cloudlessness Abiding Shame	18. Strange Windlessness, Causing Displeasure Among Stock Animals and Sailors Jingoism and Fanaticism, at Home and Abroad
19. Olfactory Tinge to Air, Inspiring Askance Glances from Fieldstock and Fowl Braggadocio and Macchismo	20. Snows Desire to Mount a Blitzkrieg Offensive, Or Possibly Just A Desire To Be Mounted	21. Moon Travels Backward, and Water Flees Up from the Earth, Toward the Terrible and Boundless Sky More Swaggering, but Only to Conceal the Recurrent Shame	22. Sturm und Drang Sturm und Drang	23. Tepid, Dry Unspeakable Desires	24. Bitterness of the Cold, with 90% Chance of Life Changing Event of Little Note Unspeakable Desire to Act on Unspeakable Desires	25. Sunshine, Blue Sky, Pleased to go Away Paranoia, but Justified
26. Clear Sky, Much of the Blueness and Sun Fear and Trembling	27. Warm, With Falling Stars and Sagging, Collapsed Moon Hunger	28. Disturbing Warmth, Smiling Flowers Sing Simple Chanties of Their Wantless Lives Carnal Knowledge	29. Breezy Contentment	30. Sudden Impenetrable Darkness General, Free Roaming Happiness	31. Bright, Unseasonable in Warmth, The Dead in their Graves Prepare To Walk The Land Once More Murderousness