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| HURRICANE IRENE FINAL ADVISORY NUMBER 666
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
1100 AM FRI AUG 14 2011
A MASSIVE HURRICANE, NEY, A TITANIC BLACK MASS OF DESTRUCTION, BORN OF THE COLD, EVIL WOMB OF MOTHER NATURE, WILL RENDER MUCH OF COASTAL AND INLAND NEW JERSEY AND NEW YORK A BARREN WASTELAND. IRENE IS COMING.
SUCH IS THE POWER OF THIS STORM, IF INDEED, ANYTHING DISPENSING THIS AMOUNT OF HUMAN SUFFERING CAN BE CALLED A STORM.
THE STORM SURGE, ONCE PREDICTED AT 17 FEET, WILL NOW REACH UNHEARD OF HEIGHTS. IT WILL BE AS IF THE OCEAN ITSELF HAS VACATED ITS VAST PRISON, SHAKING LOOSE HER CHAINS, AND LAYING ITSELF PRONE ATOP THE CITIES OF MAN. THE LAST VESTIGES OF ITS BONDAGE SINKING ALL THAT LIES IN IT'S PATH.
ALL STRUCTURES WITHIN A 100 MILE RADIUS WILL SUFFER DEVASTATING EFFECTS. WOOD WILL SPLINTER, CONCRETE WILL BECOME DUST. THE FOUNDATIONS WILL BE THE STARK REMNANTS OF HUMAN EXISTENCE IN THESE AREAS. TREES WILL BECOME UPROOTED AND CARRIED MILES BY WINDS THAT WILL BLAST THE VERY SKIN FROM ANYONE FOOLISH ENOUGH TO REMAIN OUTSIDE. BUT THEY WILL BE THE LUCKY ONES... THE FIRST TO DIE. FOR A MUCH GREATER MISERY AWAITS THOSE THAT SURVIVE.
AMIDST THIS MIRE OF CARNAGE, THE FEW SURVIVORS WILL WALLOW IN A SOUP OF DEATH AND DESPAIR, AS THEY FACE GRIM ODDS. FEW STRUCTURES WILL EXIST, AND FOOD AND WATER WILL BE MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD. AS CORPSES OF HUMANS AND ANIMALS ROT, DYSENTERY AND MALARIA WILL BEGIN THEIR MACABRE DANCE AMONG THOSE REMAINING AND MANY WILL BE FORCED TO CONSUME ONE ANOTHER TO LIVE ONE FINAL DAY. THE LIVING WILL ENVY THE DEAD.
ENTIRE GENERATIONS WILL PERISH, AND THE HURRICANE WILL CREEP INTO LEGEND. IT WILL BE A SIN TO EVEN CALL ITS NAME ALOUD, THE VERY EXISTENCE OF THIS EVENT BEING SPOKEN OF IN HUSHED TONES, AND REVERED BY THOSE WHO SEE IT AS JUDGMENT. IRENE IS HERE. IRENE IS HERE. IRENE IS HERE. IRENE IS HERE. IRENE IS H | | |
| Most of you probably don't know the name unless you were a fan of the Saturday AM Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon. That show was probably my favorite as a kid, (along with The Real Ghostbusters, and Tiny Toon Adventures / Animaniacs / Freakazoid!), and it was a pretty large part of my life for a long while, extending all the way to today's comics.
I'm not going to waffle on forever, but the show's gritty animation and style and extremely well developed characters really made that show stand out to me out of all the crap I used to watch. I still have a soft spot for Princess Sally as my favorite cartoon heroine.
Unfortunately it seems that the show's creator and long time champion, Ben Hurst, recently died from presumed diabetes. Sad news indeed. As I understand it, he was pushing for the show to be picked up again for a very long time, and interacted with us fans quite often.
I might do a little sketch out of respect for the guy. That show meant a great deal to me for the longest time. Still does. Hard to believe it's been 17 years since I first watched it on TV. | | |
| Is it really 2010 already? Where the hell did the past year and change go? And holy hell was it ever a busy one. I crammed quite a lot into the past 6 months alone. I'm still not sure how I managed it all, but here I am.
Did everyone have a good weekend? Mine was fine, up until that giant octopus incident at the mayor's house. Then things got a little hair raising. Fortunately I have an ointment for that. Speaking of ointment, I was at the store the other day to buy a new roll of toothpaste. Tube is probably more appropriate than roll, but I've heard it both ways. Speaking of ways, I found myself on Venus the other day. I was supposed to be delivering papers to the local law enforcement agency. I even bought a brand new bike with 13 gears! But just as I was riding down the street I suddenly found myself hurtling through the vast vortex of space and time. It was a wild ride filled with the sounds of zany laser guns and martian toupees. It was a lot of fun, least 'til we ran out of gas and I had to hitch a ride with a passing manure cart. I got to sit in the front, fortunately, but the driver appeared to have been dead for some time. His animated corpse was extremely smelly, although really remarkably gifted at necro-driving. Then I found myself at the bottom of the ocean. That was when things took a turn. | | |
| So, they really like wearing those bird flu masks in Asia, huh?
I guess to many it's a matter of life and death. Because it IS. Because some people die from all these little Captain Trips molecules we've got flying around the sky these days. I get it. Sometimes it may be a good idea to cover your sniffler. In case a tainted individual walks by and coughs in your eye.
Wait, the mask doesn't cover the eye. YOU ARE FUCKED.
Either way, fuck a mask. I have done double takes several times in recent days as some loony walks by in a mask. I was at Target and an old bald dude masked right past me. I laughed. Suburban Targets are second only to African monkey rape bars when it comes to finding and receiving massive chunks of disease in your fuckin' face. Get your damn mask off, jerk. Unless you're sick as shit. Then, instead of masking around near me in public, stay home and breathe into your own.
This past week I saw the best masked Asians ever. Masians.
They were probably 70 years old. It was a couple. They looked every bit of those 70 years too. Hard road. They looked like Eric Roberts. Time and years of reality had driven motorcycles of grief over them. They looked like people to whom the dark stillness would be a welcome relief to. But they did not embrace the end. They battled death and his scythe by wearing masks!
Which is fine. I'm an asshole and sometimes insensitive to people who aren't exactly me. I'm fine with that. They can have their masks. Just so long as they can handle when they get a few double takes from guys like me who don't have many filters. I do the same thing with massively deformed people, giant breasts, or people with a set of ribs where their eyes are supposed to be [which MAY fit into the massively deformed subsection I just mentioned]. It's human nature.
At least it's my human nature because I'm rough as shit around the edges.
Here's where the story gets jacked.
I'm behind them in the self-scan line. I prefer those lines even though the machine always fucks something up. I'm behind them because I don't have a choice. There's only two registers open and the one to my right has a couple whom I believe is paying for their groceries with a combination of stones and IOU Mesetas from Phantasy Star II. I boldly follow the elderly masked avengers.
THEN I SEE THE CONTENTS OF THEIR SHOPPING CART.
Holy fuck.
They have approximately forty items. Each with their own mask. They went to the produce section and grabbed a thousand baggies. They then wrapped every item they planned to buy in their own little product mask.
Masked toothpaste.
Masked fruit.
Masked pens.
Masked Rice-a-Roni.
Masked batteries.
Masked ice cream.
Masked Skittles.
I wouldn't be surprised if they bought a fucking box of masks and masked that shit up too.
What is this, The Hot Zone?
First of all olds... you love life so much, you just wasted an extra hour of life bagging up Planet Earth in the least sick town in town. You wasted valuable life. Yours and mine. And judging by the look of you, you don't enjoy survival at all so what's the point? Suck the air free of the mask. Maybe you'll die, maybe you won't. But at least you won't be a masked asshole in a relatively affluent suburb far away from the scene of whatever outbreak you fear...
I stood there in awe. This was actually happening.
Then I went in the shitty line, bought my shit, and went outside and sucked the air like it was filled with candy.
Ain't dead yet.
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| "Look, an animal!""Let's KILL it."
And this is how mistakes are made.
I'm not perfect. I killed a snake once when I was a kid. I massacred entire ant colonies. I did stupid shit like that.
The Flood, that was me.
I don't regret every moment of it because I regret nothing, but I've learned from it and now usually go way out of my way not to cause harm to our fine feathered, furred, and carapaced little friends. I've mentioned once the Brown Recluse Spider I found in my home that I took to the woods and freed, hoping to create a few ripples of good animal karma for down the line. So far, not one Bengal Tiger has attacked me at the mall, so I have to be doing something right.
But other people... they suck.
I cannot believe how many times I've been in a situation where I've been around people and upon seeing a bug, fish, or land animal, a person I'm with has the first reaction to showcase their human dominance and attempt to destroy it.
Sometimes it's the hunters, who don't see a deer as a beautiful animal but something to shoot and theoretically turn into food and a trophy. Sometimes it's the people who are afraid of any insect whose first impulse is to swat, not thinking about how short these little creatures lives are without our interference. Sometimes it's people who are potential psychopaths, starting a killing path they'll follow to a clocktower some day.
I was at the home of my relatives in Florida once and in their back patio spotted a snake. A ring snake, full adult size: 5 inches. It'd have to go to the gym three weeks straight just to attain harmlessness. One relative's first instinct... KILL IT. The same goes for any lizard or bug who wanders in from the oppressive Florida heat. Left to their own devices the snake eat the lizards, the lizards eat the bugs, and whomever's left steers way clear of the humans. Sounds like harmony to me.
I'm sitting on someone's deck playing poker once and one of the crew makes a big presentation about slamming their hands around a beetle flying in the vicinity. As if he were saving us from Pearl Harbor 2: The Teenage Years. It's a bug traveling from over there to across the way, one who was probably about to be tasted by a finch anyways... why interfere?
I'm at a bar and a little spider can be spotted in the sunlight hightailing down his web towards the ground where some little jackass gnat was probably causing some shit. A broom appears and is swung onto the tiny beast on its descent. Some people didn't get the memo: SPIDERS ARE HELPFUL.
I'm at a friend's house and there's a pellet gun leaned against the window, the weapon of choice to use upon the squirrels and rabbits who happen to head into his garden to enjoy the delicacies planted there. Suburban critters can't read but they do know that grocery stores were invented so modern folks don't need to be Early American settlers. Way I see it, if there's a squirrel in the garden let the dogs out. They'll keep 'em honest.
I'm on the golf course and a family of deer crosses the fairway. One of the group mentions that he wished he had his hunting rifle.
I never played golf with that cocksucker again. Fuck him.
Folks, they have exactly as much right living as you do. They are not one iota less a part of the world. Many times, their lifespans are a fraction of ours. Add that to the numerous things we are doing on purpose and inadvertently to kill them off and I think the hollow joy folks feel when they showcase their dominance ought to be snuffed out for the greater good.
Animals are great. Even the ugly ones. And remember, we are one scientific experiment away from having an onslaught of 20 foot-tall crickets shredding our homes and rupturing our eardrums with their sweet, sweet leg songs.
There will be a reckoning and even if there isn't, why not try being not an asshole? | | |
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