Multiply 365 Day 33 - Forecasting

 

I am starting to feel like a dissident writing behind enemy lines as I approach this blog these days. One day closer to the Super Bowl and some of the gems from the newscast in the last 24 hours; Hines Ward may have went to a strip club in Dallas; Ben Roethlisberger and Terry Bradshaw spoke, and to each other no less; and Steeler fans are in Dallas and they are in a bar. Remind me again why I should care? Stupidity reigns supreme, or should I say Super, when it comes to the news these days. I am longing for this game to be over just so we can go back to the endless loop of car crash, house fire, shooting, wash, rinse repeat.

But the job of fear monger has fallen to the weather people. I know, technically they are called meteorologists (at least those that earned a degree in the field are) but I refuse to recognize anything as a science when the number of failures are on par with the number of successes. Far better to just study chicken entrails, or tarot cards when it comes to getting a forecast these days. Last night we were getting more “Storm Team Coverage” of rain that was going to come in the evening, and then change to ice causing for dangerous conditions in the morning. The rain did come. And that was it. It never got close to freezing to create the fear laden scenario they were spinning in order to have viewers glued to their sets. I am sure that the argument would be made that the predictive models showed that had this front went here as opposed to there than the conditions would have been such that a mix of rain and ice would have occurred. As I have said in the blog before, if my aunt had a dick, she would be my uncle.

Not to be deterred though, the promos for the weather were running again before the newscast today, where “Storm Team Coverage” was tracking the latest weather event. Please, these people couldn't track their ass with a mirror. They shoud just have the weather person say here's my guess, and while were at it here's my crack at tonight's lottery numbers. Or, since TV news is in a cost cutting mood these days, maybe just give the anchor a jar full of fortune cookies, each one with a potential forecast in it and have him or her just pick one. Or they could do what they do with every other story and tell people to submit a forecast to the station's Facebook page and they will read those forecasts on the air.

So, how are you? Sorry but all of that junk was stuck in my cranium and it seemed better for me to get it out when it was still relatively fresh than to go on some long winded intro, only to then forget part of it when it came time for me to get to the meat and potatoes of this blog.

It is looking like the inmates get to run the asylum at work here in the next few days. As we know it is still winter so Ed is still in Florida, Brian just left today to take his family on vacation in Florida, Dee is leaving Friday morning to fly to Dallas for the Super Bowl, leaving just John and us kids to run the place. We have enough good people in the right places that I doubt there will be much of an issue, but this may be as unmanaged as the store has been in my two years there.

I am debating whether it is in my best interest to go out on Friday after work. It is another employee night out, but I am questioning my desire to go out versus my desire to be responsible. I would like a beer or two, don't get me wrong, by the same token I have to make sure I get our order in on Saturday morning this weekend (usually I have until Sunday) because Sledd is giving their people time off for the Super Bowl. Yes, there is that damn game again. It has all but taken over everything. This Friday will be the second pep rally for the city in two weeks, apparently the other one didn't take or our attention span is so short that people may have forgotten it in a week's time. One would wonder just how much more effective governing may be if half of the time spent organizing pep rallies was actually spent on real problems instead. Bread and circuses indeed.

Small break there, I had to annoy the people on Facebook with what was playing on my Pandora station. “I Will Follow” by U2, probably my favorite song by the group, though I do like a decent amount of their stuff, but gun to a head moment to pick just one it would probably be this. For anyone wishing to check out the station sometime, you can always follow the link, though it isn't for everyone. Heck there are days it isn't even for me.

Okay, I better stop before the city authorizes the door to door searches for those that aren't all clad in black and gold and sends us off to the camps. Or worse, Buffalo.