Uh, What's The Book Award Called?

This is why I have no college degree.

I'd have won a Pulitzer by now, if it weren't for Mug Night at the KK every Monday, I swear. Oh, and 6 for $6 Molsons on Wednesdays at Brats, and the Long Island Iced Teas at the Red Shed, and knowing the (male) bartenders at various establishments throughout the campus area. Or a Nobel. I would have a Nobel, really, I would.

Everybody Here Is All Right

I'll update, as now the news is getting out about how much damage was done by these tornados, and people are emailing me.

The worst of the storms went just north and just south of Madison. I hardly had any wind, just heavy rain. The tornado sirens went off four times in an hour. I used to be an EMT so I listened to the emergency radio traffic to hear about the damage, and in southern Dane county it was a swath at least 11 miles long. Houses have been flattened, crops destroyed, power lines down everywehere. People were describing a wedge-shaped tornado that threw debris for miles, and people were reporting finding paper and building debris sixty miles to the east (including TJ, who commented on my last post). A retired meteorologist who had worked in Oklahoma called into the news station I was watching and said that he saw the tornado, and it resembled the ones that hit Oklahoma City several years ago, and he guessed it was at least an F3.

The television meteorologists have a neat new technology that allows them to see the direction of the wind on the radar screen. It shows up as red pixels in a sea of green pixels when the wind is rotating, the red being the wind moving one direction and the green another. This is what the National Weather Service means when they say "radar indicates a possible tornado". The meteorologist I was watching would highlight an area where he said there was possible rotation, and within minutes the siren would sound and there would be a report of a tornado. It was amazing, and I believe that it probably saved lives, because up until that point all the attention was focused on the storms to the north, as they had a history of serious damage (the wind took out nearly every tree in one small town). Stoughton is to the south, and an hour previous looked like it was barely going to get rained on.

Anybody looking to donate, the Badger chapter of the Red Cross is helping the victims.

This Is Why I Live Here

Tornados hit around my city this afternoon. The destruction was pretty bad--whole subdivisions lost, a swath of damage miles long, one man killed in his basement by his falling chimney. But it could have been worse:

The roof was torn off the Stoughton Country Club, said the club's executive chef, Lenny Peaslee. As the storm approached, golfers started coming off the course, and about 40 people huddled in the club's basement and waited, he said.

"We were ... hiding behind the bar," Peaslee said. "We had beer, anyway."

It's Just The Way It Is

Peanut, when you are told that the object you are holding does not go into your mouth, rest assured that it probably doesn't go into your nose, either. Nor is it likely lickable instead. This goes double for expensive electronics.

I'll Turn It Off Now (And One More!)

Questions I have been pondering:

• What kind of animal is Uniqua in The Backyardigans? There is a moose, a penguin, a hippo, and a kangaroo (I think), but I don't know what she is supposed to be. A lizard? And how do I get this song out of my head?
  

• Why are there talking dogs dressed up like people in Arthur, yet Arthur himself has a pet puppy?

• Why is Piggley's mother anatomically correct for an adult woman when she's a pig? Dannan doesn't have fingers, after all; she has feathers instead. Will she grow breasts too as she gets older?

• I don't know about yours, but my cats would have eaten George Shrinks rather than made friends with him. And what is up with his parents, anyway? He's about three inches tall, but they don't seem to know where the hell he is most of the time.

• Are the people who thought up Boohbah smoking the same stuff as those that did Hr Pufnstuf and Lidsville, or something different?

• Why do Little Bear's parents wear clothes, but Little Bear doesn't?