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.

EVERYBODY PANIC

(Isn't swine flu kitty cute?)

So here we are, once again, being inundated with EVERYBODY PANIC! news coverage of this swine flu thing. And, as with every new catastrophic pandemic the dumbest portion of the population will generally be glued to their tv while sitting in a plastic bag with all the windows and doors duct taped shut waiting for the news to tell them its ok to come out again.

I tend to not watch the news while stuff like this is going on if only to keep my sanity. I saw a headline today which read something to the effect of First confirmed case of death due to swine flu in the US. Pretty scary stuff, right? Wrong. What the Scaretastic headline doesnt mention, and the article only casually mentions as well, is that the person that died was a citizen of Mexico and had come here to the US for treatment. And while that is tragic, not quite as dramatic as the headline would have you believe.

I would like to now casually point out that the normal flu that goes around every year kills, on average, 64,000 people according to the CDC. Where are all the panic headlines for that? Currently, this swine flu has caused the deaths of around 100 people, all in third world countries, namely Mexico, that have sub-par medical treatments available. The fact is that many of the people that have been infected here in the US are doing quite fine and the risk of death for them is substantially lower.

I know you are probably saying right now lolz, but mike if we dont panic the next one might be the real thing and we wont be prepared. I am not saying to not be prepared. And Im quite sure we are pretty well prepared already, hence the lack of US deaths related to swine flu thus far. I just wish the media would stop blowing things completely out of proportion simply because there is nothing else to talk about.

But, lets face it, scaremongering sells. The media has a feeding frenzy every time something like this happens because it knows that people will be terrified and watch their channel 24/7. Remember SARS a few years back? Of course you don't because it caused the zombie apocalypse that ended humanity.

The number one leading cause of death for humans has and will always be life.

There, end diatribe. Now for mine and your amusement: The Jack In The Box Mini Sirloin Burgers Commercial. Beware, the song will be in your head all day.