Pancake City

Tropical depression is an appropriate name. Hurricanes are always getting downgraded to tropical depressions. That is depressing. You’re at the height of your destructive career. You’re going places. People are paying attention. Then you get the call from Channel 7s’ Doug Hill: “Sorry, kid. You just don’t have it anymore. Next up: sports!”

If a storm got upgraded to a tropical depression, forecasters wouldn’t even be able to call it a tropical depression. It would be a Tropical Going Somewhere.

Putting an exclamation point at the end would be emotional lying as I ended up going to bed at 11:30 p.m. on the 31th. Yes, I am an old man. I can’t wait for Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes.

I went to Florida for a week with Mom and Tina. We mostly stayed at the beach, and had a relaxing time. Global warming though has taken away the cache of vacationing to a warm climate.

I live in Washington D.C., an area that, up until a few years ago, had a potent combination of unpredictable winter weather and neurotic, fear-spongy residents. The local news stations are experts at whipping up weather-related fear. One of their tools is promotional ads for their respective station’s “Storm Center”.

The ads start off with a gruesome collection of winter images. People trudging to work through wind-whipped snow. Cars stacked on top of each other. Babies floating down the Potomac. An announcer utters with immense gravity: “Washington. Under Siege”. Or: “Winter Warning: Is the Snow-Nado Back?”

Oh, no! What do we do? The announcer’s voices softens: “Tune in to Channel 5, the only local channel with the Channel 5 Snow Patrol Doppler 5000 Protection League! Of Justice.” Whew.

Then Channel 7 airs their promo, except they have the Doppler 7000. Wow, that’s 2,000 more Doppler! And Channel 9 has the Doppler 9000, and Channel 13 has the Doppler 13000, and…wait a minute. Those Doppler douche-bags.

Anyway, the weather has been so mild this season that it has derailed most of the usual weather hysteria. I wish the unseasonable weather was a fluke, but as the Bush administration has stated, the warming trend over the past several years is real, and is caused, we know now, by what the scientific community calls “Angry Monkeys in Outer Space”.

These angry monkeys have made the last few winters in D.C. almost devoid of snow and forced local news stations to lower their promo airing standards from “Threat of Flurries” to “Brr! It’s cloudy outside.” (Seriously. They occasionally can’t help to air one of the promos, but the announcer has a tint of shame to his speech, like a co-worker the next day after he crapped his pants at the office holiday party.)

Back to my point. Thanks to angry space monkeys, vacationing to a warm climate in the winter barely earns a quiver of jealously anymore. This is a typical conversation I had with my friends when I got home:

ME: “How was your Christmas?”
FRIEND: “I’m Jewish.”
ME: “That’s good to hear. Guess what! I was in Florida!”
FRIEND: “That’s nice.”
ME: “Yup. 70 degrees weather the whole time. What was the weather like here?”
FRIEND: “60 degrees the whole time.”
ME: “Oh.”
FRIEND: “Yeah, we had another warm front.”
ME: “Well, it was so warm in Florida that I could wear shorts at night.”
FRIEND: “Lucky. I had to switch to pants after 8:00 p.m.”

There’s no way to make people jealous anymore with a winter trip. Where am I going to fly to now to make people jealous? Outer space? Not without a food-fitted Gatling gun and a box full of bananas. Besides, I would probably just have this conversation:

ME: “Guess what! I went to the Sun!”
FRIEND: “That’s nice.”
ME: “Yup. 6,000 Kelvin the whole time.”
FRIEND: “4,000 Kelvin here.”
ME: “Oh.”
FRIEND: “Yeah, we had another hole in the ozone layer.”
ME: “Well, it was so warm on he Sun that I was vaporized instantly into hydrogen.”
FRIEND: “Lucky. I had to be a semi-liquid after 10 p.m.”

I’m joking about the Earth global warming connection, but this is neat.

There has been so many hurricanes this year—a record 22 of them named—that the Naming Gods have run out of pre-determined names. They are finally able to show their creativity, although they have created a bit of a commotion with their last two choices, Hurricane Asskicka and Hurricane Bitchslap.

If we were only so lucky. The dorks at the weather department are marking his momentous occasion by turning to the Greek alphabet, giving us Hurricanes Alpha and Beta.

You know what I call that? Hurricane Crap. This may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be free of the hurricane naming rules, and they’re squandering it. They can name these hurricanes whatever they want, and we’d have no clue that they were coming up with these names on a cocktail napkin in a bar.

Almost any name is better than Alpha and Beta:

Hurricane Zeus
Hurricane God Hates You
Hurricane Shmiricane
Hurricane…of Love

If we are unfortunate enough to reach the letter D, they can at least calm people’s fears by calling it Hurricane Dude. “Hurricane Dude is still over the Florida Keys. It has been squatting there for a record two weeks. Strangely, the hurricane is only active between 2 p.m. and 2 a.m., and just gives off a faintly unpleasant odor the rest of the day.”

Have you read the damage predictions from the National Weather Service for Hurricane Katrina? It reads like a prophecy out of the Bible.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD…AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCHAS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITYVEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATEADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS…PETS…AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THEWINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS…AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWNAND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERINGINCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLYTHE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING…BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEWCROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BEKILLED.

It’s hard for me to grasp that, a day from now, New Orleans may no longer exist. The loss of a city is something that happens in other countries, other times. It is a story line for a science fiction movie, not reality. And perhaps that’s part of the reason the city’s storm levees were never heightened, in spite of experts’ predictions that this event would one day occur. What other things are we not preparing for, in both our own lives and as a civilization, because the events seem too horrible to happen?

I’ve been feeling sluggish recently. There’s little ventilation in my room, and the heat has been making me feel–

IT’S FRIGGING NOVEMBER! WHY IS IT 75 DEGREES IN NOVEMBER? I DON’T CARE IF YOU CAN GO SWIMMING OUTSIDE, SOMETHING IS WRONG. WE’RE ABOUT TO DIE OF GLOBAL WARMING AND THE SCIENTISTS ARE LETTING US ENJOY THE WEATHER. WE NEED TO ACT, LIKE, I DON’T KNOW, FIRE MISSILES AT MALAYASIA. THEY’LL NEVER EXPECT IT.

–a bit odd.

The past two days have been sunny and gorgeous. And the D.C. weather forecasters are going through hurricane withdrawal.

BOB RYAN: “Storm tonight. Will there be high wind gusts? Tune in at 11:00.”

SUE POLKA: [spinning a weather map on a pencil] “Uh-oh. Looks like a hurricane is coming.”

DOUG HILL: [twirling around the studio] “If you were in the Bahamas now, this is what would be happening to your house. [picks up Maureen Bunyan's notes, scatters them across studio. As he stumbles towards the camera, Hurricane Hill crashes to the floor and enters into a tropical depression. The sports reporter makes fun of his tears.]

Update:

Just kidding! Doug’s A-OK! And he’s backlit more than Jesus.

Since I so publicly called Isabel–what was it, oh yes–a pussy, and bet my Mom five dollars its effect would be no worse than a severe thunderstorm for D.C., I’m due to say that I was absolutely, completely wrong. Many people are still without power, and Fairfax County water was only recently declared safe for drinking. Mom, you win five dollars, and I’m glad my trash-talking mouth didn’t add a ‘ty’ to the amount when we made the bet.

Having said that, you know the idea that you “create your own reality”? I am now a believer. Contrary to houses in surrounding areas, my townhouse never lost power, our water remained untainted, our virgins unspoiled, and few branches fell in thine neighborhood. And perhaps all because I denied the power of this tropical storm in the face of all reasons. In other words, it was worth the $5. And now I know what it feels like to be a creationist.

“In Virginia alone, more than 1.5 million people lost power by late Thursday and more than 16,000 people filled evacuation shelters. Six people were killed in a pair of weather-related traffic accidents in the state; two were killed by falling trees. One man drowned while canoeing.” (AP)

It’s not scuba diving, but it’s close.

I was going to write a post detailing my reasons for why Isabel is a hoax, it’s going to be 72 degrees and sunny tomorrow, and we should all head for the beach. After all, Pat Robertson is 7 for 7 in turning away hurricanes this year. (Don’t remember any hurricane watches? That’s why.)

But I feel bad for making fun of something that, while I think people in the D.C. area are completely overreacting to, could collapse houses and endanger people much closer to the shore. So maybe for Hurricane Jorge, but not this time. I did bet my Mom $5 that Isabel’s effect on the D.C. area would be no greater than a bad thunderstorm. This is based solely on the fact that the people around here are reacting the exact same way to Isabel as they do to a “major snowstorm”, i.e. 1-2 inches. And you know how weather forecasters are fond of torturing kids on rainy November days by saying: “If it were three degrees colder, this inch of rain would have been almost a foot of snow. A foot of wet, virtually unplowable snow.”? Well, the rule of thumb is that 1-2 inches of snow melts into 1/10 to 1/5 feet of rain. So, according to my D.C. fear conversion meter, that’s how much rain we’re getting. Possibly an inch more.

I understand why everyone near the coast is worried about this hurricane. But is everyone else already bored worrying about terrorists? Osama’s kicking over a table right now. “Damn these Americans and their attention spans! What do we have to do, put our threats on DVD?” Is getting worked up a twisted part of the 9/11 healing process, or has it just been a slow summer?

And yes, I’ll eat an extra helping of crow on the likely possibility that I’m completely wrong.

I’d just like to point out that after Hurricane Isabel was called a biatch yesterday by Pancake City, it has dropped from a Category 3 hurricane to a Category 2. Hurricane center meteorologist Eric Blake says “people should not let their guard down even though the storm is weakening.” Neither should you, Blake. Cause I’m gonna “hurricane” you in the balls.

I don’t know that means, but once I do, it’s going to happen.

I hope while Hurricane Isabel is spinning in the ocean it picks up some sharks and flings them across the U.S. I loved Summer of the Shark. It was the only summer when I went to the beach and saw people scared of dolphin fins. “AUGGH! Sharks! And they’re playing with a beach ball!”

Hurricane Isabel was a Class 5 hurricane. Then a Class 4. Now it’s a Class 3, and this overblown Tasmanian devil won’t even hit the East Coast for at least three days.

That’s why I’m calling you out Isabel. You’re a pussy. An overgrown flushing toilet combined with a bunch of warm air. You ain’t going to do shit to D.C.

You think I’m playing? Hell no, dawg. I don’t have renters insurance. And I ain’t getting it. Cause I got my chump goggles on, and the warning light is flashing red when I look to the Atlantic. By the time your swirly ass limps to D.C., you’re going to have less gas than Iraq after Haliburton.

I’m 30 miles inland. What’cha gonna do to me, make me wet? I got an umbrella. And it has a duck handle. Biatch.

So bring it on. If you’re even able to make it up here. I’ll be in the pool, wearing suntan lotion.

I figured it out. There is a God. And he decides the temperature with a dart board. How else can you explain that the temperature is going to drop 35 degrees in a day?

GOD: Today… [thump] 84. Tomorrow… [thump] 88. Yeah! God’s on a roll. Thursday…
JESUS: Hey God!
GOD: Woah! [clang] 52? Jesus!
JESUS: Hey. I just wanted to-a tell you that dee pepperoni pie is a ready.
GOD: Stop making fun of the Italians Jesus.
JESUS: Sorry sir.

I’m off to L.A. for two weeks. Although the weather there will be sunny and in the 70s every day, I truly hope that the weather here, with a little luck, consists of snowstorms and locusts.

I’ll probably update the site 2-3 times in the next two weeks. The updates may even be more frequent than they have been recently as I’ll have more sensory input than my monitor and Chocho, the squirrel that makes crow noises and made me stuff the rest of my grilled cheese sandwich in my mouth when I was eating on my front step yesterday.

1. If you don’t have to go out, stay inside and off the roads.
2. Be careful when it snows. Snow is slippery.
3. Slow down. Posted speed limits are set for ideal driving conditions.
4. Every time your car skids, God kills a kitten.
5. Leave more room between your car and other vehicles on the road.
6. If you don’t want to flop, go easy on starts, turns and stops.
7. Similar to ‘hydroplaning’ your car can ‘snow-o-plane’. Be careful.
8. Make sure you be careful.
9. It’s important that you be very careful.
10. Run over an old lady. Just kidding! Be careful.

Answers: 1, 3, and 5 are true. 6 is half-true (I added ‘if you don’t want to flop’). 4 is true too, but it isn’t on The Washington Post’s site because they’re atheists. (original link)