Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Totally Shifty
Ok. So I was just reading this article on CNN that talks about the unveiling of plans for David Fisher's shape-shifting skyscraper in Dubai. It's called "Dynamic Tower" or something, and is being billed as "The World's First Building In Motion".
Holy Shit. So each floor will be able to rotate independently using the energy generated by wind-turbines installed in-between floors. I am not fucking kidding. You can check out an animated illustration of this amazingness here.
Pretty fucking amazing, right? Everybody else thinks so, too. So much so that the apartments within are slated to sell for $4 million to $40 million each.
But all is not totally peachy, though, as there has been some skepticism... Like, for instance, Fisher has never built a fucking skyscraper before. No lie. After he declared that his tower will "revolutionize the way skyscrapers are made", he acknowledged that he "[has] never built a skyscraper before" and "[hasn't] practiced architecture regularly in decades". But, no worries... He's got it all under control: He's hooking up with some certified architects in India and the U.K., and they're just stacking some prefab shit together anyway. So whatevs. It's cool.
Um. Who is putting up the money for this thing? I mean, it's a great idea and everything. (Ok.. It's a pretty bad-ass idea.) But, seriously, who wants to live in an oversized merry-go-round? It makes me nauseous just thinking about it. And, on a practical note, skyscrapers have their own special safety issues. Like being able to withstand windstorms and shit. Even whole architect/engineer teams that specialize in skyscrapers can overlook some grave detail. So who's the mega-rich douchebag who decided to let gramps give it a try?
Furthermore, it didn't take a whole lot of Google-searching to find out that not only is Dynamic Tower not the first rotating skyscraper in the world, it isn't even the first rotating skyscraper in Dubai ...since the rotating solar-powered Time Residencies Building will be finished the end of this year. And the Kinetic Pavilion, which allows floors to spin independently by way of wind-power, was proposed two years ago by California architect Michael Jantzen.
...Real fucking original, Dave. What's next? The world's first suspension bridge?
Labels: Ho Rofra, natural disaster, ranting
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Donna Martin is on fire!
I wasn't really paying that much attention to the fires raging in California because I can already hear Al Gore's voice in the back of my head giving some pompous PowerPoint about how they have something to do with climate change, until one of gossip internets informed me that Tori Spelling's B&B is in danger!
Tori lives at "Chateau LaRue" with her fug Lifetime movie villain husband and her fug baby and her fug Pug, the eponymous Mimi LaRue. She also shoots her reality show, "Tori and Dean: Inn Love" there, and that's actually reality trash that I don't watch. I loved her fake reality show "So NoTORIous" with Loni Andersen playing the role of Candy Spelling and the bad guy from "Heroes" playing her obnoxious flaming fag-along, but "Tori and Dean: Inn Love" is just gross. In the only episode I saw, Dean said something like "So we decided to open a bed and breakfast, and then we shagged, and then we made a baby." EWWW. And please..."shagged"? Last I checked, your name was Dean McDermott, not Austin Powers. The idea of these two "shagging" conjures up all sorts of nasty visuals that I could do without.
Anyway, I don't care one way or the other if "Tori and Dean: Inn Love" lasts or gets cancelled by the out of control fires raging through SoCal because I don't watch the Oxygen network or whatever that show is on (UNLESS "The Bad Girls Club" is on, because that was a fucking awesome show, as its plot focused primarily on drunk strippers and ex-cons fistfighting, trashing the house, revenging themselves upon their ex-hookups, and having lesbian sex in the bathtub). I'm also not concerned about the fate of Chateau LaRue, because as any "Beverly Hills, 90210" aficionado can tell you, Donna can deal with a little wildfire.
Bev Niner fans may recall an episode where David throws a party in the hills at a house that is directly in the path of a raging wildfire. For some reason, rather than evacuate, the gang decides to do a little amateur firefighting (even Kelly, who is still suffering post-traumatic stress disorder due to her recent escape from the flames of a housefire caused by Valerie and Steve overloading the circuits at a houseparty). Donna handles the wildlife rescue portion of the efforts, and sprains her ankle trying to rescue a baby deer. Luckily, a hunky firefighter named Cliff shows up to rescue Donna, who dates him later to show her gratitude (although it doesn't work out, presumably because David Silver had not yet blazed the trail into Donna's prudish and militantly guarded vagina yet, and thus Donna Martin wasn't giving it up).
Seemingly, Donna learned her lesson and the next time she was confronted by fire's destructive power (when Gina set fire to her menswear collection prior to the grand re-opening of "Now Wear This," Donna's hip Robertson Boulevard boutique), she handled it with a fire extinguisher like a pro. Presumably, Tori still has these firefighting skills under her belt and will thus keep Chateau LaRue safe and intact despite the encroachment of the raging inferno.
Tori lives at "Chateau LaRue" with her fug Lifetime movie villain husband and her fug baby and her fug Pug, the eponymous Mimi LaRue. She also shoots her reality show, "Tori and Dean: Inn Love" there, and that's actually reality trash that I don't watch. I loved her fake reality show "So NoTORIous" with Loni Andersen playing the role of Candy Spelling and the bad guy from "Heroes" playing her obnoxious flaming fag-along, but "Tori and Dean: Inn Love" is just gross. In the only episode I saw, Dean said something like "So we decided to open a bed and breakfast, and then we shagged, and then we made a baby." EWWW. And please..."shagged"? Last I checked, your name was Dean McDermott, not Austin Powers. The idea of these two "shagging" conjures up all sorts of nasty visuals that I could do without.
Bev Niner fans may recall an episode where David throws a party in the hills at a house that is directly in the path of a raging wildfire. For some reason, rather than evacuate, the gang decides to do a little amateur firefighting (even Kelly, who is still suffering post-traumatic stress disorder due to her recent escape from the flames of a housefire caused by Valerie and Steve overloading the circuits at a houseparty). Donna handles the wildlife rescue portion of the efforts, and sprains her ankle trying to rescue a baby deer. Luckily, a hunky firefighter named Cliff shows up to rescue Donna, who dates him later to show her gratitude (although it doesn't work out, presumably because David Silver had not yet blazed the trail into Donna's prudish and militantly guarded vagina yet, and thus Donna Martin wasn't giving it up).
Seemingly, Donna learned her lesson and the next time she was confronted by fire's destructive power (when Gina set fire to her menswear collection prior to the grand re-opening of "Now Wear This," Donna's hip Robertson Boulevard boutique), she handled it with a fire extinguisher like a pro. Presumably, Tori still has these firefighting skills under her belt and will thus keep Chateau LaRue safe and intact despite the encroachment of the raging inferno.
Labels: Bev Niner, celebrities, natural disaster, oh the horror, TV
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Daily Douchebag: Ray Nagin
RAZZY note: This was written by BigBagel. I tried to convince him to become an official contributor, but he was concerned that doing so might reveal his "secret identity," as he has blogs elsewhere or something (where?). So instead he constructively used the "senioritis" he is suffering at the last days of his job as a newspaper reporter to go off on Ray Nagin, the hungry, sleepy mayor of New Orleans below.
Name: Clarence Ray Nagin
DOB: June 11, 1956
Occupation: 68th Mayor of the City of New Orleans, Louisiana
Hometown: New Orleans, Louisiana
Current residence: New Orleans, Louisiana
Douchebaggery: Endless.
In all fairness, Nagin has a hard job, probably harder than any American mayor in modern history, except maybe Ed Koch when he was first elected. To all the Nagin apologists, and there are sadly many, allow me to make a case for why I am obligated to point a spotlight on his douchebaggery, using Nagin’s own words from his 2005 State of the City address. He chose that platform, of all places, to gripe at the local media for being critical of him and not holding him on a pedestal like the national media. (Which was a douchebag move.) "You see, a wise man once told me a story – I believe it was my father. There was a young colt who looked and acted different than most other colts. One day this colt fell in a ditch. Everyone who passed by threw a rock at the colt in the ditch. They threw so many rocks that they filled up the ditch and the colt eventually walked out. The moral of this parable is: every knock is a boost. Thank you for the knocks: they are boosting me out of the ditch."
Well, Monsieur Nagin, allow me to throw a handful of rocks at you in the hope that you and the Big Easy get out of that deep-ass ditch a little more quickly. In the interest of brevity, I’m going to do it in his own words, which are pretty much the source of his profound douchebaggery with one exception, the famous WWL radio interview after Katrina in which he said, "Now get off your asses and let's do something…"
‘Twas a shining moment, from what I hear. I missed it, busy with my own mountains of debris to climb over. However that was like a fleck of gold in a river of bear shit. According to countless accounts, Nagin was beset with paranoia before and after Katrina, bumbling every important moment with misplaced hysteria and hyperactivity. Even pre-Katrina the dangerous foolishness was planting roots. Nagin swept into office in 2002 promising to reform New Orleans government's notorious corruption. The councilman, Oliver Thomas, whom he proclaimed "had his back" recently pled guilty to corruption charges. But I digress.
Again in the interest of brevity, I’ll just skip right over all the other dumb stuff he said and stuff he didn’t accomplish pre-Katrina, and just put in the highlights of his post-Katrina foot-in-mouth dance. Man, they cannot pay his communications director enough. From MLK Day last year: "Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country. Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America also. We're not taking care of ourselves." (i.e. yes, I am a messianic messenger.)
Same day: New Orleans will rebuild as a "chocolate New Orleans"…."You can't have New
Orleans no other way. I don't care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day." (ie. fuck the white people.) Nagin later tried to say he was sorry by saying, "How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk and it becomes a delicious drink. That's the chocolate I'm talking about." (ie. watch me attempt to surgically remove my foot from my mouth. Oh, wait. No! Now I just sound like a fucking nutjob.) At a town hall meeting in October 2005, Nagin said: "I can see in your eyes, you want to know, 'How do I take advantage of this incredible opportunity? How do I make sure New Orleans is not overrun with Mexican workers." (ie. yeah, who needs cheap, hard working, and immediately available labor when your city is in ruins?)
And now we get to the real reason Nagin deserves the title of daily, if not immortal, douchebag. Violent crime, i.e. people shooting other people in the head, is out of fucking control in New Orleans right now. It is an orgy of violence in what might as well be the ashes of Gomorrah that is rightly scaring away tourists, industry and lord knows what else. Nagin on that subject in a TV interview: "Do I worry about it? Somewhat. It's not good for us, but it also keeps the New Orleans brand out there, and it keeps people thinking about our needs and what we need to bring this community back. So it is kind of a two-edged sword. "
As if that weren’t enough, Nagin also reacted to the murders of New Orleans brothers Demond Phillips, 29, and Michael Phillips, 27, who were suspects in 14 recent murders, this way: "It is symptomatic of the things we've been struggling with since Katrina and really before Katrina. Some of these guys are so violent that it is hard for witnesses to come forward, and they get involved in repeat criminal activities. So it is unfortunate that they had to die, but it did kind of end the cycle that we were struggling with." (Because obviously they couldn’t have had any other brothers, friends, homies, cousins , etc., who would seek retribution.)
I feel that commenting any further on the merits of those statements, anything else moronic he said, the moronic stuff his press secretary has said to excuse it all, or the mountain of dumb things he did would be like drowning or electrocuting a pitbull that didn’t perform well in the fighting ring. Since I am no Michael Vick, I’ll just re-run the highlight of the second to last statement, and let Nagin’s douchebaggery hang out there like the lingering stale smell from a port-a-potty that was just violated by a stressed-out, portly Katrina survivor after weeks of constipation because of eating nothing but Spam and PB&Js. Enjoy.
"It's not good for us, but it also keeps the New Orleans brand out there."
DOB: June 11, 1956
Occupation: 68th Mayor of the City of New Orleans, Louisiana
Hometown: New Orleans, Louisiana
Current residence: New Orleans, Louisiana
Douchebaggery: Endless.
In all fairness, Nagin has a hard job, probably harder than any American mayor in modern history, except maybe Ed Koch when he was first elected. To all the Nagin apologists, and there are sadly many, allow me to make a case for why I am obligated to point a spotlight on his douchebaggery, using Nagin’s own words from his 2005 State of the City address. He chose that platform, of all places, to gripe at the local media for being critical of him and not holding him on a pedestal like the national media. (Which was a douchebag move.) "You see, a wise man once told me a story – I believe it was my father. There was a young colt who looked and acted different than most other colts. One day this colt fell in a ditch. Everyone who passed by threw a rock at the colt in the ditch. They threw so many rocks that they filled up the ditch and the colt eventually walked out. The moral of this parable is: every knock is a boost. Thank you for the knocks: they are boosting me out of the ditch."
Well, Monsieur Nagin, allow me to throw a handful of rocks at you in the hope that you and the Big Easy get out of that deep-ass ditch a little more quickly. In the interest of brevity, I’m going to do it in his own words, which are pretty much the source of his profound douchebaggery with one exception, the famous WWL radio interview after Katrina in which he said, "Now get off your asses and let's do something…"
‘Twas a shining moment, from what I hear. I missed it, busy with my own mountains of debris to climb over. However that was like a fleck of gold in a river of bear shit. According to countless accounts, Nagin was beset with paranoia before and after Katrina, bumbling every important moment with misplaced hysteria and hyperactivity. Even pre-Katrina the dangerous foolishness was planting roots. Nagin swept into office in 2002 promising to reform New Orleans government's notorious corruption. The councilman, Oliver Thomas, whom he proclaimed "had his back" recently pled guilty to corruption charges. But I digress.
Again in the interest of brevity, I’ll just skip right over all the other dumb stuff he said and stuff he didn’t accomplish pre-Katrina, and just put in the highlights of his post-Katrina foot-in-mouth dance. Man, they cannot pay his communications director enough. From MLK Day last year: "Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country. Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America also. We're not taking care of ourselves." (i.e. yes, I am a messianic messenger.)
Same day: New Orleans will rebuild as a "chocolate New Orleans"…."You can't have New
Orleans no other way. I don't care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day." (ie. fuck the white people.) Nagin later tried to say he was sorry by saying, "How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk and it becomes a delicious drink. That's the chocolate I'm talking about." (ie. watch me attempt to surgically remove my foot from my mouth. Oh, wait. No! Now I just sound like a fucking nutjob.) At a town hall meeting in October 2005, Nagin said: "I can see in your eyes, you want to know, 'How do I take advantage of this incredible opportunity? How do I make sure New Orleans is not overrun with Mexican workers." (ie. yeah, who needs cheap, hard working, and immediately available labor when your city is in ruins?)
And now we get to the real reason Nagin deserves the title of daily, if not immortal, douchebag. Violent crime, i.e. people shooting other people in the head, is out of fucking control in New Orleans right now. It is an orgy of violence in what might as well be the ashes of Gomorrah that is rightly scaring away tourists, industry and lord knows what else. Nagin on that subject in a TV interview: "Do I worry about it? Somewhat. It's not good for us, but it also keeps the New Orleans brand out there, and it keeps people thinking about our needs and what we need to bring this community back. So it is kind of a two-edged sword. "
As if that weren’t enough, Nagin also reacted to the murders of New Orleans brothers Demond Phillips, 29, and Michael Phillips, 27, who were suspects in 14 recent murders, this way: "It is symptomatic of the things we've been struggling with since Katrina and really before Katrina. Some of these guys are so violent that it is hard for witnesses to come forward, and they get involved in repeat criminal activities. So it is unfortunate that they had to die, but it did kind of end the cycle that we were struggling with." (Because obviously they couldn’t have had any other brothers, friends, homies, cousins , etc., who would seek retribution.)
I feel that commenting any further on the merits of those statements, anything else moronic he said, the moronic stuff his press secretary has said to excuse it all, or the mountain of dumb things he did would be like drowning or electrocuting a pitbull that didn’t perform well in the fighting ring. Since I am no Michael Vick, I’ll just re-run the highlight of the second to last statement, and let Nagin’s douchebaggery hang out there like the lingering stale smell from a port-a-potty that was just violated by a stressed-out, portly Katrina survivor after weeks of constipation because of eating nothing but Spam and PB&Js. Enjoy.
"It's not good for us, but it also keeps the New Orleans brand out there."
Labels: assholes, BigBagel, Daily Douchebag, Dirrty Dirrty, intentional buffoonery, natural disaster, politics
Saturday, May 26, 2007
FINALLY I got my FEMA check
One of the most awesome discoveries made by LL Cool Jew and BigBagel during their stint on the Gulf Coast was the song "FEMA Check" by Lo-Key and Ayatollah. This brother-sister duo, while spending their time acting as security guards on the destroyed wreckage of a Biloxi casino barge, decided to pen some lyrics about all the ridiculous shit they spent their FEMA checks on, including some new braids, a new wife-beater, a "bottle of drank," a new grill, a new phone, a new couch, a bag of oo-wee, and (naturally) a baby mama new weave. This shopping spree was warranted because the FEMA check was insufficient to cover Lo-Key's rent (her rent exceeds "2 G's"? Who knew that Biloxi's real estate market was on par with New York City's?). Lo-Key also got a Gamecube and some spinner rims, but didn't pay for them on account of it "being the right place, right time...everybody started a riot." When she observed this fortuitous looting spree, she figured, "Aw, hell, might as well," and admittedly "hopped out the store with a set of Sprewells." Ayatollah may have convinced a woman to purchase him a drink at club in Hotlanta by asserting, "Girl, please, I'm a evacuee...you should be buying one for me," but since he never describes whether or not he actually got the complimentary drink, I don't know whether he had to put some of that FEMA check toward his own Hyp-and-Henny or not.
Anyway, LL Cool Jew mailed me a homemade CD of "FEMA Check" that she purchased at a Gulfport mall and it was on heavy rotation in my lab for awhile. It also was a RAZZY.org Hysterical Lyric of the Month back in 2006. BigBagel e-mailed a while later informing me that he'd just picked up a copy of the "FEMA Check" video and it was, in his words, "ridiculously ghetto." I have been waiting and waiting for this gem to appear on YouTube, and tonight, since I'm staying in to nurse a fairly brutal cheap Pinot Grigio hangover, I searched for it again on a whim.
YES! The video is finally on the internets and available for embedding. BigBagel's review was quite accurate. The set consists of them dancing around some of the more thoroughly Katrina'd parts of the Gulf Coast, and Genesis "Lo-Key" Briggs is actually wearing an OLD NAVY zip-up hoodie as she raps about how Hurricane Katrina destroyed her undoubtedly fictional "new drop top." I particularly like the statistical factoids about hurricanes, President Bush, FEMA, and the Red Cross at the beginning and end of the video. Do yourself a favor and enjoy this masterpiece of the relatively unknown but nonetheless awesome subgenre I call "disaster rap."
FEMA, Red Cross, government assistance...welfare, food stamps, can I get a witness?!
Anyway, LL Cool Jew mailed me a homemade CD of "FEMA Check" that she purchased at a Gulfport mall and it was on heavy rotation in my lab for awhile. It also was a RAZZY.org Hysterical Lyric of the Month back in 2006. BigBagel e-mailed a while later informing me that he'd just picked up a copy of the "FEMA Check" video and it was, in his words, "ridiculously ghetto." I have been waiting and waiting for this gem to appear on YouTube, and tonight, since I'm staying in to nurse a fairly brutal cheap Pinot Grigio hangover, I searched for it again on a whim.
YES! The video is finally on the internets and available for embedding. BigBagel's review was quite accurate. The set consists of them dancing around some of the more thoroughly Katrina'd parts of the Gulf Coast, and Genesis "Lo-Key" Briggs is actually wearing an OLD NAVY zip-up hoodie as she raps about how Hurricane Katrina destroyed her undoubtedly fictional "new drop top." I particularly like the statistical factoids about hurricanes, President Bush, FEMA, and the Red Cross at the beginning and end of the video. Do yourself a favor and enjoy this masterpiece of the relatively unknown but nonetheless awesome subgenre I call "disaster rap."
FEMA, Red Cross, government assistance...welfare, food stamps, can I get a witness?!
Labels: BigBagel, I LOVE IT, intentional buffoonery, LL Cool Jew, natural disaster, rap
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
The P-N-Dub versus the Volcano
One of the things about the P-N-Dub (and that means PACIFIC NORTHWEST, to the many people who STILL haven't figured that out in spite of my explaining it several different times) that is notable besides the abundance of salmon, coffee, Costcos, and Windows billionaires, is our lovely natural scenery. We have beautiful bays, verdant year-round evergreen forests, mighty rivers (as anyone who, like me, repeatedly failed at successfully sailing their wagon down the Columbia River from the Dalles at the end of the elementary school "Oregon Trail" computer game can attest), crashing Pacific surf, and majestic mountains. Our largest and most famous mountain, for which our tastiest and most famous local beer Vitamin R is formally named, can be seen here in all its snow-capped glory: Mt. Rainier, known as "Tahoma" by the local Native American tribes, towering over Tacoma, a city whose name is also derived from its magnificence.
Yes, it's very breathtaking and awe-inspiring (as is the hideously triangular outdoor wallpaper design on the Tacompton Dome). Adding to its impressiveness is the fact that Mt. Rainier is an active volcano. It hasn't erupted in 500 years, but apparently it's due any time now. After Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980, it occurred to the US geological survey that Mt. Rainier might also blow its top. However, unlike Mt. St. Helens, which is in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, Mt. Rainier towers over the heavily populated Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area, the land that spawned yours truly. Therefore, the possibility for mass casualties and subsequent FEMA ineptitude in the event of a catastrophic eruption is considerably more worrisome regarding Rainier than St. Helens.
Apparently the big eruption, when it occurs, will not be like those you see on a tropical island or like what happened at the end of LOTR: Return of the King after the One Ring was destroyed, with lava spouting out and flowing everywhere. There will be plenty of lava, but nobody will be able to see it unless they are inside the crater at the time of eruption, a vantage point that equates to instant death. All that magma trying to spurt out of the mountain will hit the underside of Rainier's scenic snowy peak, which is actually billions of gallons of water frozen into several huge-ass glaciers. Those glaciers will instantly liquefy, forming clouds of superheated sulfuric acid gas (called the "pyroclastic flow") and giant walls of boiling mud (called "lahars") that will rocket down the mountainside at the speed of an F-16 fighter jet. While the pyroclastic flow can mix with the hot ash flying out of the mountain to create severe lightning storms and sulfuric acid rainstorms and that's pretty dangerous, the lahars are worse. They will pick up everything, from houses to giant boulders to entire forests, as they speed down the mountain to destroy the towns below. Obviously when the geologists realized that this has a very high probability of happening sometime within the next century, they concluded that maybe a little planning was in order.
My high school best friend G-Boner grew up about ten minutes away from my parents' house in a town called Orting. Orting is located in a valley at the confluence of several riverbeds formed by ancient glaciers leaking off Mt. Rainier. If the mountain erupts, geologists say it's highly likely that a lahar 30-100 feet in height will bury Orting almost immediately. They estimate that the people in Orting will have 30-40 minutes to evacuate before its curtains for them. This is so imminent that when I was in college, a lot of my friends took a Rocks for Jocks course called "Natural Disasters." The hypothetical eruption of Mt. Rainier formed the basis for the ENTIRE COURSE, and everyone in it had to form a group and make a detailed presentation about all the ways my hometown and the surrounding areas are seriously, unequivocally, unfixably fucked. A couple of my friends formed a group and actually incorporated video footage of an interview with me answering questions like, "How does it feel to live in the shadow of impending destruction?" and "Do you experience any anxiety that your friends, family, dog, and everything you grew up knowing might be wiped out at any moment?" and (my favorite) "Are you terrified of seismic activity?" (One popular theory is that an earthquake might set off an eruption).
Fortunately, I don't have to experience constant anxiety while I'm home visiting the P-N-Dub, because the area is prepared. Valleys that will presumably be buried in lahars have installed sirens, and there are various emergency notification alert systems using phones, radio, and TV announcements that will warn us to drop what we're doing and get the fuck out of the lahar zone. For several years, signs advising people of "volcano evacuation routes" have been placed at the bottom of various elevated areas, and basically instruct people that in the event of an eruption, they should literally head for the hills.
I arrived back in the P-N-Dub right in time for a Pierce County-wide lahar drill. Apparently, a bunch of the sirens in such distinguished towns as McMillen and Alderton didn't work, and now the county is freaking out. Apparently, even though these towns have a killer view of the Rainier, none of the inbred dumbasses living there will be perturbed when they hear really loud EXPLODING SOUND, look up, and notice A GIANT FUCKING MUSHROOM CLOUD COMING OUT OF IT:
By the way, that's Mt. St. Helens, and it's like Rainier's kid sister. St. Helens was way smaller, with substantially less glacial mass on top of it, and this is what it did. Mt. Rainier's emissions will be at least twice as big and frightening. If you can't see the fucking mushroom cloud coming out of Rainier, then you had better be blind, because I don't see how you could miss it otherwise. Even if one of these valley-dwellers is too blind or stupid to see an intact mushroom cloud, one would think that sky being blotted out by a huge Apocalyptic-looking curtain of volcanic ash would suggest that it might be time to check out that volcano evacuation route. This is another picture from when St. Helens erupted in 1980. I guarantee that if I walked outside and saw this going on, I wouldn't respond by shrugging and noting, "Wow, the sky sure does look weird today." I mean, we are also famous for our cloudy skies here in the P-N-Dub, but there's overcast with a slight chance of rain and then there's overcast with a 100% chance of Biblically proportioned fire and brimstone, and this is the latter.
My personal opinion is that if the mountain blows and you need a siren or a phone call from the county sheriff to tell you that it's time to make like a tree and leave your double-wide behind alongside the Orting-Kapowsin highway, you would be doing our species a favor by staying right where you are and allowing the lahars to crush you and all those in your inferior gene pool to dust. Who needs eugenics when we've got mother nature, right?
On the bright side, when the mountain blows, my family and I will probably all get FEMA checks to spend on bags of oo-wee and baby mama's new weaves. Since all the dumb people will have succumbed to the fury of the lahars because they were too busy sitting around their sketchily financed Rent-a-Center flatscreens watching NASCAR and cooking meth to evacuate, and will subsequently be dead, there will be plenty of disaster relief to go around for the rest of us to spend inappropriately. Score!
Apparently the big eruption, when it occurs, will not be like those you see on a tropical island or like what happened at the end of LOTR: Return of the King after the One Ring was destroyed, with lava spouting out and flowing everywhere. There will be plenty of lava, but nobody will be able to see it unless they are inside the crater at the time of eruption, a vantage point that equates to instant death. All that magma trying to spurt out of the mountain will hit the underside of Rainier's scenic snowy peak, which is actually billions of gallons of water frozen into several huge-ass glaciers. Those glaciers will instantly liquefy, forming clouds of superheated sulfuric acid gas (called the "pyroclastic flow") and giant walls of boiling mud (called "lahars") that will rocket down the mountainside at the speed of an F-16 fighter jet. While the pyroclastic flow can mix with the hot ash flying out of the mountain to create severe lightning storms and sulfuric acid rainstorms and that's pretty dangerous, the lahars are worse. They will pick up everything, from houses to giant boulders to entire forests, as they speed down the mountain to destroy the towns below. Obviously when the geologists realized that this has a very high probability of happening sometime within the next century, they concluded that maybe a little planning was in order.
My high school best friend G-Boner grew up about ten minutes away from my parents' house in a town called Orting. Orting is located in a valley at the confluence of several riverbeds formed by ancient glaciers leaking off Mt. Rainier. If the mountain erupts, geologists say it's highly likely that a lahar 30-100 feet in height will bury Orting almost immediately. They estimate that the people in Orting will have 30-40 minutes to evacuate before its curtains for them. This is so imminent that when I was in college, a lot of my friends took a Rocks for Jocks course called "Natural Disasters." The hypothetical eruption of Mt. Rainier formed the basis for the ENTIRE COURSE, and everyone in it had to form a group and make a detailed presentation about all the ways my hometown and the surrounding areas are seriously, unequivocally, unfixably fucked. A couple of my friends formed a group and actually incorporated video footage of an interview with me answering questions like, "How does it feel to live in the shadow of impending destruction?" and "Do you experience any anxiety that your friends, family, dog, and everything you grew up knowing might be wiped out at any moment?" and (my favorite) "Are you terrified of seismic activity?" (One popular theory is that an earthquake might set off an eruption).
Fortunately, I don't have to experience constant anxiety while I'm home visiting the P-N-Dub, because the area is prepared. Valleys that will presumably be buried in lahars have installed sirens, and there are various emergency notification alert systems using phones, radio, and TV announcements that will warn us to drop what we're doing and get the fuck out of the lahar zone. For several years, signs advising people of "volcano evacuation routes" have been placed at the bottom of various elevated areas, and basically instruct people that in the event of an eruption, they should literally head for the hills.
I arrived back in the P-N-Dub right in time for a Pierce County-wide lahar drill. Apparently, a bunch of the sirens in such distinguished towns as McMillen and Alderton didn't work, and now the county is freaking out. Apparently, even though these towns have a killer view of the Rainier, none of the inbred dumbasses living there will be perturbed when they hear really loud EXPLODING SOUND, look up, and notice A GIANT FUCKING MUSHROOM CLOUD COMING OUT OF IT:
By the way, that's Mt. St. Helens, and it's like Rainier's kid sister. St. Helens was way smaller, with substantially less glacial mass on top of it, and this is what it did. Mt. Rainier's emissions will be at least twice as big and frightening. If you can't see the fucking mushroom cloud coming out of Rainier, then you had better be blind, because I don't see how you could miss it otherwise. Even if one of these valley-dwellers is too blind or stupid to see an intact mushroom cloud, one would think that sky being blotted out by a huge Apocalyptic-looking curtain of volcanic ash would suggest that it might be time to check out that volcano evacuation route. This is another picture from when St. Helens erupted in 1980. I guarantee that if I walked outside and saw this going on, I wouldn't respond by shrugging and noting, "Wow, the sky sure does look weird today." I mean, we are also famous for our cloudy skies here in the P-N-Dub, but there's overcast with a slight chance of rain and then there's overcast with a 100% chance of Biblically proportioned fire and brimstone, and this is the latter.
My personal opinion is that if the mountain blows and you need a siren or a phone call from the county sheriff to tell you that it's time to make like a tree and leave your double-wide behind alongside the Orting-Kapowsin highway, you would be doing our species a favor by staying right where you are and allowing the lahars to crush you and all those in your inferior gene pool to dust. Who needs eugenics when we've got mother nature, right?
On the bright side, when the mountain blows, my family and I will probably all get FEMA checks to spend on bags of oo-wee and baby mama's new weaves. Since all the dumb people will have succumbed to the fury of the lahars because they were too busy sitting around their sketchily financed Rent-a-Center flatscreens watching NASCAR and cooking meth to evacuate, and will subsequently be dead, there will be plenty of disaster relief to go around for the rest of us to spend inappropriately. Score!
Labels: natural disaster, oh the horror, P-N-Dub, tragedy
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