Steaming Turd

I can’t see how it could possibly be safe not to dismiss us from work early on Friday. We’re looking at 3-7 inches of snow across the region during the day Friday. (Another 10-14 inches overnight.) The snowfall is supposed to pick up in the mid-afternoon. Really, it would just be better to close the government for the whole day.

They could make this decision now. The writing is on the wall. Yet so far, they’re only saying unscheduled leave.

Update: They’re only giving us four hour early dismissal, and as far as I can tell, we can’t take the administrative leave for those four hours and then take annual leave for the first part of the day. I guess that means I’m riding a very crowded train home this afternoon.

Also, storm totals are forecast by NWS at 18″ to 24″ (although if you add up the numbers on the forecast, it could go up as high as 31″). Might be bigger than the December storm.

“If I said you had a beautiful grudge, would you hold it against me?”

Horrifying scenes of snowman carnage, some based on old Calvin and Hobbes strips.

(You actually can view larger versions of some of these pictures. Underneath the images are image credits, and the credited names are links to other sites with bigger versions.)

Looks like I get the day off tomorrow, because these wuss Washingtonians can’t take a foot and a half of snow

This is what $300 lets you do in Uruguay, apparently.

The BBC says that Sam Raimi has offered the guy $30M to make an actual Hollywood production. Finally, we can get our explosions without depending on Michael Bay. Also, we can only hope that Bruce Campbell lands a cameo role.

Meme via Homis

Longest distance ever traveled: - Cleveland, Ohio, to Portland, Oregon… via Newark, New Jersey

Farthest North: - Vancouver, Washington (not Vancouver, British Columbia…)

Farthest South: - San Diego, California (or Houston, Texas, if you count airports)

Farthest East: - Boston, Massachusetts

Farthest West: - Oregon coast, west of Portland

Highest Mountain: - Bald Knob in West Virginia, at 4842 feet (highest elevation in general would be Timberline Lodge near Mount Hood, Oregon, at 5960 feet)

Hottest Temp: - 110F+ in Las Vegas

Coldest temp: - Not sure of the actual temperature, but we had -40F wind chill in Cleveland in 1995 or 1996

So, apparently, they brought back Let’s Make a Deal. Wayne Brady is hosting.

Can’t wait to see what game show they give to Ryan Stiles and Colin Mochrie….

In 1913, H. G. Wells wrote about a rule set for a tabletop miniature wargame that he and some friends had invented. The game used tin soldiers common at the time, along with spring-loaded model artillery pieces with 4.7″ barrels that fired 1″ wooden projectiles.

But, since H. G. Wells was such a high-quality author, the short book he wrote on the topic is not just a set of rules - it’s an entertaining read, as well. Since 1913 is miraculously outside the bounds of copyright, the book is freely available at Project Gutenberg.

Is Obama constitutionally barred from accepting the Nobel Peace Prize while in office without Congressional approval?

I’m writing this from my new cell phone. I think it’s gonna take a little gewtting used to. The keyboard on this thing is fairly tiny, so.any tyopos arew thwe result of my not having.a special dialing. waand. (In the future, I’ll be a little.more generous with thw proofreading, but I’mleaving this one unedited for fun.