This is Why We Don't Care

Florida has a reputation throughout the rest of the country as being a home for inbreeding, trailer parks, old people and barefoot rednecks. Like most stereotypes, these notions are all based in some bit of truth. Just like we regard Northeasterners as loud, obnoxious and wearing knit caps like they all work at the docks; or how we regard Pacific Northwesterners as pot-smoking, scraggly bearded vegans; or how we think of people in Texas as dim-witted yahoos bent on drinking beer and having sexual relations with livestock. Pick any place, really, and there is a stereotype to go with it. England: bad teeth; Ireland; drunks; Italy or France; philanderers; Australia, criminals; Japan, sex-with-robots - the list goes on.

Of course none of these prejudices are true. And even if they are, here's why we don't care what you think down here in Florida, all you miserable snow-bound pasty cold people bundled up in fancy, expensive scarves and boots, reading your hipster blogs and thinking you're so much better than everybody else.

To The Bunker, Floridians!

The National Weather Service has declared Central Florida a hellscape of apocalyptic doom with these warnings for today.

Not a good day for sailing. Or swimming. Bad day to toss a lit cigarette into a pile of dry leaves. Not looking good for your plants either.

I'm going for a walk.

Let's Talk About the Weather

Mine's better than yours.

Recipe for Uncomfortable

It's not just you rain-soaked East Coasters, snow-sick Northerners or tornado-ravaged Midwesterners who like to bitch about the weather. We have our spells of "When will this shit end?" in Sunny Florida as well. Don't come to Disney this week unless you want to go home with stories of how horrible Florida is.

On second thought, come to Disney this week.

There's Just Something About Clouds

Your Monday Morning Moment of Inspiration

A recent study found that 95% of this blog's readers are either atheists, agnostics, unobservant Jews or former church-goers (and I fall into that 95%). But now that the Thanksgiving Holiday is over and the Black Friday mess is cleaned up and you're dreading another week in the bowels of your workplace, toiling like a poorly-paid apprentice for your ungrateful overlords (or your demanding and fickle patrons), take a five-minute break and let this video (shot Sunday morning in the backyard) of the clouds rolling in fast from the Gulf (set to the instrumental "March of the Clouds") be your church or temple for the week. It seems to work for my dog, (the mostly obedient Australian Shepherd, "Roman") who can sit out back and watch the clouds roll by for hours.

Just put it on full screen with the sound up loud and let it wash over your dogged spirit.



See the guitarist performing this piece here.

Brrrrrrrrr!

(Sorry. A little bit. Not really.)

That's What I'm Talkin' 'Bout

Raining on Your Parade

I know people save for a long time for that family trip to Disneyworld. Or the convention planner schedules the big annual to-do a year in advance, reserving tickets to the attractions and arranging excursions to Kennedy Space Center and whatnot. But now is not the time to make that trip if you're dreaming of orange groves and getting a tan. (Actually, orange groves are pretty much a thing of the past, unless you go out to the sticks.) You can count on late August to December to be a crapshoot if you’re expecting that fabled sunny Florida weather, not that it isn’t still nice even when we’re experiencing a tropical storm. (If you watch the local news, you’d swear the Apocalypse had arrived. Super Viper Doppler Digital Death Watch in 3D, with 4—count ‘em— FOUR meteorologists in studio to zoom down to your street level to let you know it’s raining where you live. They also love to report live from the beach in their rain gear, scolding others who are on the beach, as if that Bachelor's Degree in Communications makes them better equipped for rainy beach survival than you.)

On the plus side, you’ll have the rides to yourselves. You can just wear a swimsuit and a shirt as it’s still warm. And if you do get here and it’s raining, remember, it’s only water.

It's Only Water

Plenty of people around the world think they’re being real witty when they announce what they think is their very own local saying, “If you don’t like the weather here in [insert locality name], stick around five minutes. It’ll change! Hahahahahaha!”


Everywhere I’ve lived, people complain about the weather. It’s always too hot, too cold, too rainy, too icy, too windy or too humid. Every once in a while, you’ll get that picture perfect postcard day where the temperature is 77°F, (25°C for the rest of the world) fluffy white clouds float lazily over the landscape and everyone agrees that it’s a beautiful day. Those days are rare unless you live in Hawaii.

And in the endless pursuit of that perfect day, we are obsessed with the weather. We have desktop weather apps, the radio stations announce the weather every fifteen minutes, there’s a couple of weather channels, the local news stations compete like pit bulls to be top dog of the local weather scene, promising to save your life in the next tornado, hurricane, flood or Act of God.

Truth is, nobody really knows what the weather’s gonna do. It’s still a guessing game despite the advanced science making predictions. Take what you get and wait it out until that next beautiful day shows up.

We're in the midst of a rainy month in Central Florida.

You Do The Math

From the album Telegraph Canyon

Every afternoon at about this time
for a month
it’s been raining
The afternoon scattered shower
The kind that lasts until the end of rush hour
It’s like someone saying
take it easy
It’s like someone whispered
take it slow

The straight and narrow’s got a couple twists
The straight and narrow bends just a little
The cloud ceiling’s pretty high
You got some water in your eye
What chance we’re slippin’ off the path?
The odds are slim – you do the math

Every evening at about this time
for a month
the sun shines
3D clouds under a crystal blue dome
No matter where you are you’re home
It’s like someone saying
take it easy
It’s like someone whispered
take it slow

The straight and narrow’s got a couple twists
The straight and narrow bends just a little
The cloud ceiling’s pretty high
You got some water in your eye
What chance we’re slippin’ off the path?
The odds are slim – you do the math

Weatherman, You Are Hereby Useless

And you Weatherwomen as well. Or Meteorologists or weather readers or whatever you people are.

They brand their various radar systems with goofy names like Double Super Doppler Plus (Now with Life Saving Abilities!) and play with their little interactive maps, giving me way more info than I want or need. They compete with each other in blaring promos, arguing over who was the first to Track That Storm and Keep You Alive. And now they're giving us online tools like this one, where I can zoom down to my street and see when a storm might be coming. If I'm really concerned. I prefer to just let the weather come and deal with whatever shows up.

"Hot Enough for Ya?"

Ah, the boring weather/sports conversations in the elevator with people you don't know. I just put on a gameshow host voice and say with a cheesy smile, "Yes. It certainly is! And how about those Mets?"

Bad segue alert!!!

Speaking of the weather, Bryant Heating and Cooling apparently found a bunch of money to throw at some CGI, featuring their mascot Bryantman doing battle with the evil Scorcher.



Never was into comic books. I was more of a Mad and Cracked kid. But this is pretty good. I mean, how do you sell Heating and Cooling? It's for hot weather and cold weather. What are you gonna do, show some happy family keeping cool or warm indoors? Boring. Why not play it up in a fashion that will have people remembering your name? And of course, as is now advertising law, there's an accompanying microsite for the kids, where you can download PDFs of coloring pages.

You can catch the winter version of this comic book theme here, where Bryantman battles Bone Chiller, who's got this pretty cool (ha!) Glam-Punk thing going on.

No idea on the agency and no, I'm not being paid to say nice things about Bryant.

UPDATE: Agency is MarcUSA who prove with their website that if you have to do the Flash thing on your agency site, you can do it differently than the now-too-trendy "just TRY to find our links" style.