Weather men suck it.

Due to overwhelming public pressure I am posting another entry. Here's the deal - I think the two below this one are pretty good and I contemplated just going out on top - but no - I have been forced into writing some more crap for your consumption.

So if you read Sarah's "Typical Cleveland" you'll see that weather here in Cleveland can be a little hard to predict. However, in typical weather man fashion, the guys here just determine the worst possible prediction and make that one. "Hmmmm... Computer model 'A' says it will be 39 and cloudy, and model 'B' says 37 and chance of rain" By air time this will translate to "You are going to die - the fucking sky is falling - up to 4 feet of snow - run hide - buy food!!!"

There is no oversite group to shut them up and make them stop with their stupid gloom and doom predicitions that are never right. I know a guy that tried to build some elaborate spread sheet to track the weatherman's accuracy. Surprisingly, he said they were right most of the time! This seems to fly in the face of my whole blog - well let's just say this certain someone recently run into a few "credibility issues" so we'll discount his findings.

Here is what drives these idiots to always predict the worst
(1) My mom
(2) The sound bite "Fox 8 saves lives"

Let me elaborate. I hear the weather and I listen to the tempurature and then I ignore the rest. I have no interest in what else this douche has to say - I don't own an umbrella - so I don't care about rain etc (umbrellas are NOT for snow - more on that in another post). My mom could need an emergency spleenectomy and she would try to schedule it so she could see the weather report. She will be visiting us (we live in different states) and she will stay up to see the weather. Ummmm... mom, we aren't leaving the house tommorow - why does it matter? Also, note that today is 01/13 - I plan on going home for the Super Bowl (home = Rochester, NY) (sorry to all who wish to have me and my family at their Super Bowl parties). If I call my mom tonight and say - "hey we are coming to NY on February 6" She will immediately say, "ohhh they are calling for bad weather that weekend!" I could say - "no I mean next year mom." she'd say, "Oh they are calling for bad weather then too!"

I mean these guys don't get it right one day in advance and my mom will take the 8 day forcast (which has a doom and gloom bias) as the gospel. She will be out buying C-rations and filling the generator.

(2) Fox 8 Saves lives - this is the holy grail. So every day the weather man comes on and says - it is going to be the worst day ever - 4000' feet of snow will fall and the fist of God will come down on you. If it doesn't happen they say "oops" if it does then the big payoff can occur. A viewer calls in and says, "Andrea's forecast kept my family and I from going into the mountains this weekend - we might have died." This sends the producers straight for the lotion and kleenex. God - FOX 8 SAVES LIVES!!!!!! (I roughly translate this to Fox 8 way over-inflates the possibility of bad weather in hopes that your dumb ass might be in the mountains in the middle of winter).

I have one more complaint - then I'm done. I used to live in Dayton. Dayton doesn't get that much snow. So how can Fox 14 save lives.... ? Tornadoes!! Every 14 fucking seconds in Dayton my entire fucking TV screen is comsumed by Tornado warnings and Tornado watches (every time this happens they need to tell you a watch means "conditions exist that might cause 'Tornadic' activity and a warning means one has been spotted"). Hey here's a tip for you - since you have to remind my dumb ass every time which is which - why not just say "We see the conditions" or "DUCK!! There is a tornado!"? Anyway, there literally was a severe storm or tornado warning like every 5 seconds. and to show you where it is and how it is moving (read : save lives - please people call and say we saved your life!!) they use 90% of my screen realestate. So I am watching Seinfeld on a 25" TV - but the box that shows non-weather related stuff (read: Seinfeld) is like 9 pixels by 9 pixels. And that isn't all - no they have to have this tone play like every goddamn 20 seconds to let me know there is an alert. Oh shit I didn't even notice that my whole screen is covered by a map with orange and yellow clouds.

The kicker is - I didn't know Dayton geography - so the one time there actually was a Tornado (I was at the mall). They were like, "A tornado has touched down in Darc county." I think, ohh that sounds bad - I wonder if that is close to us. Well apparently it was - because the next announcement was for everyone to proceed to the Northwest corner of the store (I was at Kaufmann's). This announcement was made and within 1 nanosecond all eyes are on me... I am the only male in sight and every female looks to me to pull off some orientiering shit and get us to the Northwest corner of the store. I am not being sexist - that is what happened - every woman assumed I knew where to go (reread the part about how I didn't know Dayton geography if you think I had any clue). Fortunately, another male emerged - let me restate - fortunately for the women, another male emerged. I say this because for a brief moment I had build a story in my head where the store was blown down and rescuers took days to get to us - and I was the only male trapped with the females and I was forced to satisfy all of their feminine desires and they tear my clothes off and ... whoa what the fuck was that? Anyway, so we all go to the Northwest corner thanks to Eagle scout (that totally blew my chances of getting laid - asshole). Some women are crying and one, in a shaky voice, asks, "why the northwest corner??" Before I can give a sarcastic answer, captain-fucking-merit-badge says, "the storm would come from the northwest and if we are in this corner the debris would blow over us." (relief starts to wash over my crowd of love slaves). I realize that chances of a sexual encounter are gone so I figure it's time to piss people off, "No that's not it at all. The rescuers just made up a convention, ummm... northwest, that's it. See this way they only have to dig in one spot for our bodies." Holy shit - extremely poor timing on my humor. Women start crying - ooops.

Well no tornado came - Fox 14 didn't save shit and I went home. Fuck you weatherman.