That's It, Done With The Snow

I like snow, I really do. I like living in an area where it snows (at least a little bit) every year. Its an important part of the season. It should be cold in the winter with snow and ice; it should be nice and mild in the spring with plenty of rain; the summer should be hot, humid, hazy, and muggy; and the leaves should turn color when its cool and crisp in the fall. Yes, it can all be a pain in the ass, but the changing of the seasons is important.

That being said, I'm done with the fucking snow for this year. Snow is good on the other side of the holiday season, as you're building up toward Christmas and New Years (and possibly even Thanksgiving). On this side, at the end of January? Not so much. Sure, it's supposed to be cold, I can live with that. But 4 inches of snow with more on the way? Please, pitchers and catchers report in a few weeks; I don't need anymore snow.

Now, some random Super Bowl thoughts on this frakkin' snow day:

-Big Arizona Cardinals fan right now. I've never even really like Kurt Warner, but I'm all for him now. Yes, it would be depressing to see the Cardinals win a Super Bowl before the Bengals, but it would be more depressing to see the Steelers win their sixth, and when given the choice, I always root against Pittsburgh.

-I don't think there's anyone in sports I hate more than Hines Ward. I've given this a lot of thought, and I can't think of anyone else. And its not just because he plays for the Steelers; I'm pretty sure I'd hate him if played for the Tampa Bay Storm of the AFL. One tool I use as a barometer in deciding things like this is I try to judge how I'd feel if I found out Player X had suddenly died. Would I feel sad, happy, or neutral? With Ward, I'm pretty sure I'd feel ecstatic. Completely overjoyed. Potentially moved to tears. Does that make me a bad person? Oh well. Fuck him.

-I love Super Bowl Prop bets. If you can think of it, you can bet on it. And I'm not talking about the little things like "which team will score first" or "how long will the first field goal attempt be"; that stuff's junk. I'm talking about manly man bets like "over/under number of food items mentioned by John Madden during the broadcast" and "color of Gatorade dumped on winning coach". Picking those winners takes real skill.

-The Mike Tomlin-Omar Epps thing never gets old. Never. Ever.

-Have to admit, I'm stoked for Bruce Springsteen's halftime performance. I'm a huge Springsteen fan, and I think he's a great choice for this gig. And speaking of The Boss, he's got a new album out today. Working On A Dream, that's just phenomenal (random aside- how the hell did The Wrestler not get nominated for an Academy Award? Insanity.). No, I didn't brave out into the snow today just to buy it; it leaked online about two weeks ago. And that brings me to this question- Springsteen's halftime setlist. I think the recent standard has been 4 songs, so with that in mind, and taking into account the release of the new album, my picks for the setlist (in order) are: Born To Run, Working On A Dream (off the new disc), My Lucky Day (another new track), The Rising. Given the shortness of the playlist, I think its possible he could opt out of playing the relatively mellow Working On A Dream and replace it with something like Radio Nowhere or even something older, like Glory Days. Either way, I think he stays away Born In The USA.

Last football game of the season; that's sad. But the end of football should mean the end of snow, so no more. Baseball's just around the corner, and hope springs eternal. Go Reds. Fuck the Steelers.

Demented Santa Claus

To help get you into the Holiday Spirit:



The White Death has once again descended upon the Queen City. Panic is sure to ensue.

White Death

Flurries dusted the Greater Cincinnati area this morning, so in honor of Jim Borgman:

I get the feeling that its going to be a long winter around here.

Our Lady Of Blessed Electricity

Awesome: I got power back at my house yesterday afternoon, sometime around 3 or 4 pm, putting my power outage at just over 24 hours.

Suck: I have no service from Time Warner, which means no television, no internet (thankfully things are back up at work).

One step forward, two steps back.

A Mighty Wind

Holy shit, that was some crazy wind yesterday (and it wasn't exactly blowin' peace and freedom). In total, I've lived nearly 17 years in the Cincinnati area, and I can't ever recall a "storm" like the one we had on Sunday. It was just wind. No rain or other precipitation, no thunder and lightning, no cyclonic formations. Only wind gusts of upwards of 50+ miles an hour. And that shit knocked out power to a huge chunk of the city (myself included- I'm currently sitting in a cafe downtown because there's nothing close to my house with power and wifi).

The lack of other weather factors really screwed me in terms of preparing and dealing with my current no-power situation. I mean, its tough to make "severe weather" preparations when its sunny and 80+ degrees outside. Sure, trees are bending at right angles and patio furniture is flying by the window- there's no real threat, we're still good.

Yeah, not so much.

I been without power since about 2 pm Sunday afternoon. The estamites I've heard for power being restored in my area range from 2 to 5 days. Lovely. I bet that half gallon of milk in my fridge tastes pretty good right now. My office doesn't have any power, either, so this morning it was either sit in the dark and do nothing at home or sit in the dark and do nothing at work (I was at "work" for 2 hours before we decided to call it a day). I drove around a little last night to see what was still open (and because I had to charge my phone), and God help me if I have to buy gas today. I bet it was something like 9 out of 10 gas stations I drove past were closed, and the 1 out of 10 that was open had a line at least 15 cars deep. I saw that a Chipotle was open and thought I might be able to get something to eat, but there had to have been 400 people in there. It was insane (same went for any eatery that was open, which was why I ended up getting something from UDF).

I have no idea what I'm going to do the rest of the day ('cause there's no way I'm sitting here all day). Maybe I'll just drive around and look for places that are still open. Problem there is that I'll eventually have to buy gas. Fuck.