This Year's First Blizzard Is Da Bomb!

The first great weather phenomenon has arrived just in time for the news to ramp up again after the holiday break. It’s time for all the indoor weather forecasters to get put out in the middle of awful weather conditions to make it look like they are hearty troopers rather than party poopers.

It’s being dubbed…The BOMB CYCLONE! Not that they’d expect any of their viewers to really understand the term, but they get to say “bomb” and “cyclone,” in the same title, which sounds like it would be a hit disaster film.

This storm received various unofficial names (other than the unprintable ones used by those suffering through it on the way to work in the morning). Some of the more colorful names are: Storm Grayson,  Explosive Cyclogenesis, The Blizzard of 2018 (which old-timers will wistfully use to describe it to the youngins 50 years from now), and Storm Brody. The storm was also dubbed a "historic bomb cyclone" by meteorologists who love explosive hyperbole. But, given the fact that most people skip over the news weather reports like they skip over a vitamin supplement information about “steroids on steroids,” the weather casters have to take what they get and run with it.

Of course, we here on the West Coast find it a challenge to be sympathetic to snow issues. For us, snow is something you visit in the mountains in the winter, nothing to be feared. We get a little frost now and again but for most of us, our biggest frost danger comes from our freezers going ice-crazy.

But of course, just you wait - the next earthquake will hit and you’ll hear our weather people calling it the Megathrust Earthquake of 2018!

Oh, well, East Coast Weather people, just remember: There’s no business like snow business!

May The 4th 2017

Happy Star Wars Day! May-The-4th 2017!


Hope your day is happier than a Hutt at a Las Vegas buffet!

So did Darth Vader ever remarry after the death of Padme? The rumor is he did. Her name was Ella.

Ouch! Ella Vader is a bad one, but maybe we can be forgiven on Star Wars Day!

United Becoming Untied

We know this:

The next time they ask for volunteers, you’re going to see people move faster than the babysitter’s boyfriend when the car pulls up.

The Two Men Who Kept Hillary From Being President

When Donald Trump met with Barack Obama, it was the meeting of the two men most responsible for Hillary Clinton not becoming president of the United States, at least for the foreseeable future. Remember, there is nothing like the second chance in American political life…just ask Richard Nixon who said they wouldn’t have him to kick around anymore after he lost an election. Even Obama bounced back after losing an election, so you never know what will happen.

As the two shook hands, most saw them as rivals, but they have more in common than people might want to realize.

What do Barack Obama and Donald Trump have in common? It’s not like the Kennedy-Lincoln list, but it is fascinating:

Both ran for president as outsiders.

Both campaigned as agents of drastic change.

Both broke new ground in using Social Media in their campaigns.

Both launched their primary campaigns at the end of the second terms of their predecessors.

And both beat Hillary Clinton to get there.

Hillary Clinton probably realized it.

Bill Clinton probably did, too.

But the first handshake between “O” and “The Donald” was the meeting of the two people who kept Hillary from the most coveted office in the land.

Russian Hackers Disrupt New Years

Singers have lip synced for years but sometimes it becomes obvious at the worst possible time (remember Beyoncé lip syncing through Obama's inauguration?).

But as 2016 gasped its final seconds, including its very last leap second, the country was subjected to a new national nightmare.

Whether it was a publicity grabbing event by either side or just another 2016 SNAFU, the event can be blamed on the cause-de-jour - Russian Hacking!

Those dread Russian Hackers, led by their Dobby look alike Vlad The Impaler-Emailer Putin.

Could it be? Stay tuned to the WikiLeaks in 6 months to find out what really went down behind the scenes.

Trump Running All Over GOP's Roads

The 2016 political season has broken a lot of old rules but one that still remains a constant is the one that says a few months are an eternity during a campaign.

How many people remember a few short months ago how desperate the Republican Party was to get Donald Trump to pledge to not run a third-party campaign "if" he didn't win the Republican nomination? They feared that scenario more than anything the Democrats could throw at them. So much so that pledges were signed, right hands were raised, ballot laws were changed.

The one thing that didn't happen is Candidate Trump didn't ask the GOP to do likewise. Today, it all seems so absurd.

And yet, never to be outdone with absurdity, the Republican honchos have decided to push the #DumpTrump secret campaign. The genius plan includes redoing the delegate rules for 2016 and replacing TheDonald with a secret candidate deemed worthy by those in the proverbial smoke-filled room.

Is #DumpTrump deja vu all over again? Anybody remember the populist Tea Party movement? Republican establishment types fought pretty hard back then, too.

With all the concerted effort the GOP leaders are putting into "Stop Trump," one wonders how things might be different today if they had put half as much effort into being the "loyal opposition" against the Democrats over the last seven and a half years.

I suppose the Republican leadership has one bit of solace to salve their offended egos. They must be saying to themselves, "well, at least he's not a Tea Partier."

Santa's Self-Driving Sleigh

How soon until Santa joins adapts to the changes in technology?

In fact, with GPS, drone carrying capacity and computer coordination, Santa would have no problems meeting his 24-hour delivery deadline.

Take it another step further - By using drones, Internet use scanning technology and a whole bunch of money, a person could really become a Santa. Here's how:

1. Track the preferences of every person who uses the Internet and use that to compile your naughty and good lists;
2. Use cookies to determine what every person on the good list wants. Your phone app then purchases the Christmas gifts and has them delivered to your staging area.
3. Get a world-record number of drones to make the deliveries and launch them all in stages on Christmas Eve to coordinate with the time zones across the planet and deliver coal to the naughty list members and the presents to the good list.
4. Then wait for the complaints to tweet in - you've overstepped your authority as a human being; you've invaded everybody's privacy; you got the wrong gift; etc.

The joys of being a "real Santa" in the modern era.