Summer Time!

Wow, June 1st already. The year is really flying by. Feels like it was just yesterday when I was stranded outside the Mezz at 4am on New Year's Eve. Now summer is here and, as usual, it is absolutely God awful hot outside. This year is a little unique in the fact that, here in Houston, we have had almost zero rain. April and May are generally the months where we get the giant storms of the century that knock power out and prevent me from playing xbox and blogging. Summer time also means the return of the dreaded hurricane season. I only say dreaded because you would absolutely not believe the hype it gets in the media around here when the season starts. Every year it is the same "how to be prepared for the apocalyptic storm that is surely going to kill everything and everyone that you have ever loved ever." Is it too much to ask the media to spin up the wheels on the fear machine only when there is a reasonable likelihood of being hit by one of these storms? Yes? *sigh*.

And, of course, there is the annual report out of Colorado State University (who, by the way, has never been hit by a hurricane) who predicts, every year, that the upcoming season will be the most horrifying and intense season that dwarfs even the most terrifying nightmares that mankind has ever had. This news, without fail, always drives up the prices of gas at the pump due to the speculation that some oil refineries might be knocked offline for a few days because of a storm. What a beautiful twisted system we have.

It is kind of funny that today, the first day of hurricane season, there happens to be a "disturbance" in the area of the Atlantic Ocean near Florida which means that news stations across the country have coverage similar to this:



Then, after a few months of little to no activity usually around August, the Colorado State people will inevitably revise their outlook downward for the current hurricane season and the news stations will be all like:



Must be nice to be able to make predictions year after year that end up having to be "revised" and still have people hanging on your every word because you were right "that one time."

At any rate, I generally enjoy Hurricane season for what it is. Sure, they can be devastating storms that cause tremendous amounts of loss of property and life, but at the same time I can't help but look at them in awe for what they are. So, with that in mind, here are a couple links to keep you apprised of the 2011 Hurricane Season. None of these links have scare coverage or anything like that, just raw information, which is great if you just want to know some information about a particular hurricane. So before you panic when a hurricane does form, crack open a beer first and check out some of these links before you start looting and pillaging your neighborhood. Enjoy!

National Hurricane Center: The National Weather Service page about both the Atlantic and Pacific active hurricanes.

TropicWX: A no frills weather map site with satellite, radar, infrared ocean temps, time-lapse animations and much more.

StormPulse: Great hurricane tracking site that shows the possible future path of a hurricane based on several different models.

The Sharktopus

This past week, I noticed that the word "Sharktopus” was a trending topic on Twitter. Intrigued, I looked up what all the fuss was about. You see, since I no longer have cable, I am occasionally behind the ball on new TV shows and made for TV movies. Sharktopus was one of those movies airing on the Sci Fi channel. After reading some of the reviews on the internet and watching the promo commercial, I decided that I had to see this thing.

So last night, I watched the Sharktopus movie. I'm using the word "movie” lightly here since there was really only about 30 minutes of actual plot related material. The other 60 or so minutes were the indiscriminate killings of the Sharktopus on the some sort of vacation resort in Mexico. Now, you may be asking yourself, what is the Sharktopus? Let me break it down for you one time. The Sharktopus is half man, half shark and half octopus. It was created by the DOD, apparently, to be a super stealthy killing machine or something. It was controlled by a control collar that conveniently gets destroyed in the opening scenes of the film, thus setting up the story.

You obviously cannot go into this movie expecting anything but entertainment value. I found myself laughing at the simple absurdity of most of the kill scenes. The Sharktopus can impale people with its tentacles, jump into the air to catch a bungee jumper and walk on fucking land. I bet you thought the Sharktopus would be confined to its watery home, but you'd be wrong. The Sharktopus can climb mountains to kill people in a cliff top restaurant. Also, the Sharktopus doesn't even consume his victims; he just kills them for what I can only assume is the pure joy of it.

I'm not going to go into any more of the plot details because I honestly believe you should watch this movie. It has everything a Sci Fi movie of the week should have: overzealous reporter, power drunk Shartopus creator, down to earth Shartopus creator's daughter, former Navy Seal hero, annoying radio DJ guy and girls in skimpy outfits. I applaud the Sci Fi channel for knowing no bounds when coming up with these films.

What's next, Sci Fi channel? Got any more ideas for the next half something half something killing machine? How about a half crocodile half hippopotamus: The Croctopotomus! It can even have the same plot and story! Think about it: "The Navy, wanting to have a bigger yet also stealthier presence in the Sub-Saharan jungle, creates a new breed of monster, The Crotopotomus. But, due to a malfunction, the Crotopotomus is released in downtown New York where it dwells in the run down subway lines waiting for its next victim.” And then at the end you could have it climbing the Empire State building or something for no adequately explored reason. And when the monster is finally killed at the end by the Army or another Croctopotomus or something, the creator will weep and shout to the heavens: "Who's the real 7 billion dollar monster now? Not I…..not…I.” Credits roll.

All rights reserved. Just be sure to send me my movie check when it gets made.

Writers Block

It's official, I have the dreaded writers block. Not that I ever had anything of particular interest to write about before, mind you. With that in mind, let's do a little bit of brainstorming for future blog posts, shall we?

The mathematics of quantum neutrino fields.

The mathematics of wonton burrito meals.

How good or bad an endangered animal might taste.

Hurling various items into the sun and their order of said hurling.

Cartography: A Love Story.

Real life Gold Farming.

A discussion about the various items on my desk.

Possibility of consuming 10 McDouble cheeseburgers in 10 minutes.

Mosquitoes: An Apocalypse.

Electricity: Is it magic?

The freakin Energizer Bunny: A tale of Horror.

Writers block: A smorgasbord of bad brainstorming.

See? See what I mean? These ideas are all terrible. I mean MAYBE the one about mosquitoes, but seriously!

Anyway, I’m on Foursquare now. Go there and stalk me, you stalkers.

Jellyfish apocalypse

I’ve talked about the great zombie apocalypse quite a few times on this blog. For years I had figured that this would be the most logical way for the human race to go out. Recently, however, I have been hearing more and more reports about giant creatures of the sea near Japan that really having me rethinking my theory. I am talking, of course, about giant jelly fish. More specifically, the Nomura Jellyfish. One of these things recently sunk a 10 ton Japanese fishing trawler. If this news doesn’t have you shaking in your nuclear fallout shelter, then you might want to reassess your situation.

With these new terrifying reports in mind, I hope to be able to become as prepared for the jellyfish apocalypse as I made you for the inevitable zombie apocalypse that will be spawned by the LHC getting turned on.

Lucky for you if you have already read my zombie survival guide as it contains many of the same ideas as my jellyfish survival guide. To be perfectly honest, when thinking about terror from the sea, I had always pictured giant squid or some other kind of outer space potato man bringing mankind to its knees. Dolphins have also historically been near the top of the terror scale due to their devious clicking and shit eating grin. Perhaps we only overlooked jellyfish due to their habitual tendency to wash up on shore to die while posing moderate danger to unsuspecting humans who might accidentally walk on top of them with bare feet.

Your best bet in surviving a jellyfish apocalypse is to just stay the hell out of the ocean. My sources inform me that Jellyfish are a salt water species so swimming in lakes should be ok for now. Failing that, your best bet would be to get one bad ass spear or trident. Prepare for quite a battle, however, as these things are about 5 to 6 times the size of your average pathetic human. Once they grab a hold of you with their tentacles there is no letting go because they are made of jelly and jelly is strong.

Should jellyfish develop opposable thumbs and the ability to walk on dry land, humanity is, for lack of a better phrase, completely boned. (Get it? Because jellyfish have no bones! It’s a pun!) They will soon assimilate us into their society and make us their condiments to use on their crackers made of jelly. Our only hope at this point would be for a giant volcano made out of salt to erupt and rain down upon the unsuspecting jellyfish, rendering them completely dried out and possibly delicious.

Save for the volcano, jellyfish will inherit the earth. Our last line of defense would be for us to turn on the LHC and have the zombies declare and all out war on the jellyfish. In all honesty I haven’t run enough test simulations to see how this option would fare for humanity. All I know is that at least I have a sword which should give me a fighting chance against these things. Together with my crowbar, I have a pretty decent plan for surviving whatever zombie/jellyfish combination of apocali that mother nature throws at me.