And by soul, I mean sole. Can you think of a worse day to discover a hole in the bottom of your shoe? I can’t. Slushy snow. Deep puddles. Unshoveled side walks. Wet socks. Luckily, the environmental maintenance in our building is a bit shaky so there are a plethora of space heaters to borrow to dry said wet socks.
Plethora, what an awesome weird word. Do I say “there are a plethora” or do I say “there is a plethora”? Neither sounds quite right.
Am I the only one who thinks that the myriad problems that the Catholic Church faces would be solved by a reality TV show featuring all the Cardinals who are vying for Pope? Think about it. There is more intrigue and backstabbing and double dealing at the Vatican than with any group of Real Housewives. You have a Pope unprecedentedly resigning. You have banking scandals. You have a butler who was selling Vatican secrets. You have a Cardinal resigning for allegedly ringleading a gay group inside the Vatican. You have coverups galore.
Let’s face it, the Vatican is already exactly like the Real Housewives in every respect including the fake piety. This is what happens when you get a group of people who live extremely insular lives and stick them together. Reality no longer has any meaning. They simply define their own reality at this point. Anything can be justified because you’re doing it for the church.
Reality television is a misnomer. It really should be called unreality television. And there can be no greater unreality than the Vatican. I think I need to start a petition drive to get this show made.
I was thinking about the incredibly awesome meteor that decided to streak through the skies of Russia last week and something occurred to me. How close to nuclear war did we come?
Think about it. A rocket-like object suddenly starts hurling itself across the Russian sky and explodes with nuclear-like ferocity. You have to imagine that someone within the Russian army was getting an itchy trigger finger while all of this was going on. Especially since many other close calls have occurred over lesser incidents. I guess it all depends on if Russia was even capable of detecting the meteor on radar.
Maybe Russia has become more careful with their nuclear triggers since the Cold War has ended. What about other countries though? What if a meteor struck Pakistan? Would we be looking at a nuclear war between Pakistan and India? I would say that the odds are pretty good of an overreaction on either side’s part given the tensions between those two countries.
Chances are that if a meteor hits us, we’re not going to see it coming. And given humanity’s penchant for the dramatic, chances are some government will overreact to it. Our biggest threat in the event of a meteor strike is likely not the meteor itself but the actions of the government of the country that it hits. And that’s scary.
Never before has data analysis been used to better serve humanity. I present to you the porn actress demographics study. Not that I have any first-hand knowledge of such things, but I would have expected there to be many more blondes.
Hey, Chicagoans! You know that one CTA bridge that connects about half a million people from home to their jobs downtown? Yeah, it’s going to be closing in March for repairs. Let the quest for the newest -mageddon slogan begin! I’m trademarking commute-mageddon.
Fear not! The bridge will only be closed for two separate 9 day periods between early March and early May. How the heck they’re going to swing that is beyond me. I’m sure we’ll all just have to guess which days the 9 day periods actually fall on within those two months. It’s time to play “How Long Will My Commute Be Today!”, everyone’s favorite game where contestants vie to see if they can guess what the CTA has closed on their commute to and from work. Premiering early March 2013. Check local listings.
It’s a little known fact that the song “It’s Raining Men” was written by Paul Shaffer of David Letterman fame and was originally going to be titled “It’s Raining Spiders” due to Paul Shaffer’s love of all things arachnid. It was then suggested by co-author Paul Jabara that they change the title to Shaffer’s second love for audience appeal reasons. Today, for the first time ever, we have found the video for the never recorded “It’s Raining Spiders”.
Say you’re sitting on the train reading a really engrossing novel and a woman gets on the train. The train is crowded now so she stands next to where you’re sitting. It’s winter, everyone’s got bulky clothes on, the woman included. In addition, she has what looks to be a baby bump beneath all those layers of clothes. Here’s the problem; you’re not sure if it actually is a baby bump or not. Do you offer her your seat and risk potential embarrassment of both her and yourself or do you merrily continue reading your book and allow a potentially pregnant woman to stand? I did the latter except for the “merrily” part because I spent most of the train ride trying to figure out if she was pregnant or not while not making it obvious that I was trying to figure out if she was pregnant or not.
What would you do? Discuss.
Well, it took 39 years, but I have finally found something that I am not immediately good at. Snowboarding. Wait, check that, I am really good at falling down while snowboarding. By the time I stopped, I was also pretty good at getting back up again.
A typical run went like this: Ride up. Boogey over to the slope. Sit down. Strap in. Stand up. Slide down 10 feet. Fall. Struggle to get into a position to stand up again. Stand up. Slide down 10 feet. Fall. Repeat as necessary to get down to the bottom of the hill.
After an hour of this, my body was numb and my lungs were on fire. Skiing and snowboarding are similar in that the goal in both sports is to exert as little energy as possible while going from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the mountain. I chose to exert the most energy possible while snowboarding.
I’m sure that if I had an hour a day for a week or two to spend just practicing snowboarding I’d get it. Unfortunately, there is no mountain in my back yard. As it is, I only go skiing once a year. So, I’ll stick to skiing for now.
As a side note, while sitting in the cafeteria, I was watching the end of one of the black diamond slopes. The amount of small children barreling down the slope effortlessly was just astounding. Such simple grace and fearlessness! Lucky kids, both being able to afford skiing and to have parents that took the time to teach them or give them lessons. Unless they are those overbearing parents projecting their dreams on their children. I saw some of those too. God, I hate that. “Sometimes is never quite enough. If you’re flawless, then you’ll win our love.”
(h/t Chris Clarke)
This is pretty awesome. Catnip: Egress to Oblivion?
Yesterday was cold. Today is snot freezing weather. That’s when you step outside and take your first breath of cold air and everything inside your nose freezes. It’s also when you know you really shouldn’t be outside.
This is really the first snot freezing event we’ve had this winter. Given that it’s already January 22nd, it’s well overdue. Not that I’ve missed it. It looks like tomorrow will still be cold but above snot freezing. One day isn’t so bad.
We’re still waiting for a major snow event. We’ve already broken the record for latest 1″ snowfall in a season set in 1899. Additionally, it’s been 330 days without a snowfall of at least 1″. One month to go before we’ve officially gone a whole year without an inch of snow. There’s a small chance of snow on Friday, but other than that the forecast is more of the same.
Something ain’t right folks. It seems like every other day we’re shattering 100 year weather records. The time to act is now.