An Irene Dream

"Jed! Jethro! Elly May! Vittles!!!"

As I start to write this it's 5:30 am. The center of still-barely-a-Hurricane Irene is just off the coast of New Jersey on its way north. At the weather station where official readings are taken (ostensibly at the airport but the physical location of the weather station is actually just across the river in New Jersey) we've had 5.50 inches of rain. There are a few hours where heavy rain can still fall, and the highest wind gusts may also occur.

Somehow there is still no water coming through my roof. This is borderline miraculous. For a short period, during an intense rainfall that was blowing against the back of my house, water was coming into my kitchen, where there's a door (leading to the deck) that is not particularly well-sealed. It was coming not just at the bottom of the door but also from the top. That was a little freaky.

And despite many dire warnings, the power has stayed on except for a blip of 15-20 seconds. This could change, of course.

Although I semi-planned to stay up all night, I decided around 1 am to try and sleep and I eventually managed to doze off. I got maybe 3 hours' worth, I woke up a couple of times, and now I think I may just stay up. Meanwhile, I had a weird dream about this crap:

Weather Wars And Other Odd Screencaps

Here are a few things I copied from my screen today. Nothing like that weird Twitter comparison from yesterday, fortunately.

First, with yet more snow headed our way (have I mentioned how much I'm sick of this weather?) a Facebook post made a few hours ago by Adam Joseph, one of the meteorologists on 6ABC...

The "person who bashed us" is presumably John Bolaris of FOX-29. Locals may remember when a March 2001 "Storm of the Century" turned out to be a few showers instead of a blizzard. There was an interesting article recently about both the recent Bolaris comment and his role in the "Storm of the Century" hype, written by the station's news anchor at the time, Larry Mendte. Of course, Mendte has had his own problems in recent years, so you may want to consider the source. (And, while you're at it, here's an article from Phillyweather.net talking about TV news and weather hype.)

Later, as I was reading the list of Oscar nominations at Entertainment Weekly's website, I discovered a very popular film that I somehow neglected to see!

 

Gotta love those typos. And then tonight, there was lots of Twitter activity before, during and after the State of the Union address. Most of this "live-tweeting," as it's called was repetitive, boring and useless to me, to be honest. But in addition, Joan Rivers was live-tweeting the premiere of her new reality show, in which she moved in with her daughter for a while for some reason. President Obama made a comment about "our generation's Sputnik moment," referring to the 1950s space race in which the Soviet Union launched a satellite into orbit before the USA. So it was mentioned in a number of tweets on my timeline. But at the same time, Joan tweeted about another "moment." and reading these tweets one after the other made me chuckle:

Quick Reviews: Toy Story 3, Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work

I don't think there's too much to say, really, about "Toy Story 3." Anything Pixar touches turns to gold, and this film is no different. I will say that I think the long delay between sequels (due to squabbling between Disney and Pixar) did help make the plot more affecting. It might have seemed wrong if this movie came out in, say, 2003 with the same plot: young Andy is headed off to college and has to decide what to do with all of his childhood toys, a mix-up nearly gets the toys sent to the trash, they end up at a day-care center where things don't go as they expected, etc. But in 2010 it's almost perfect, ten years after the second movie. There are plenty of laughs and at the end I defy you not to tear up just a little. My grade: A.

Which do you think looks more realistic: the animation in "Toy Story 3" or Joan Rivers' face? (Yes, the only reason to merge these reviews into one post was to go for that cheap laugh.) The documentary "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work" begins with a much-hyped close-up of her plastic surgery-enhanced face without makeup. To be honest, I thought it would look worse. The movie follows a year in the life of the comedienne, with a major emphasis on the fact that she will go anywhere for a paying gig, while summing up some of the high and low points of her life (her first appearance on "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson," Carson's reaction when Rivers decides to compete against him with a late-night talk show on the then-fledgling Fox network, her husband's 1987 suicide -- in Philadelphia). It's an interesting, almost unflinching film, and with a plenty of her one-liners and jokes throughout. Plus, at one point while on stage she gets heckled and she just eviscerates the man. If you're a fan, as I have been, this is a must-see. If you hate her perhaps you'd enjoy seeing her during some of her struggles -- this isn't a puff piece; there are some very melancholy, sad and almost pathetic moments. My grade: A-minus.