Randomness

[neadods]

I'm going light on the Internet this week in the hopes of seeing Big Bang unspoiled, but it's impossible to miss the number of links pointing out that Thinkgeek has been hit with a real cease-and-desist letter for a product that is not only fictional, but was obviously an April Fool's joke. Some lawyer had an itcy trigger finger!

But it reminded me of a story that must be, oh, 30 years old by now. The Society for Creative Anachronism has a member's magazine called Tournaments Illuminated. Many moons ago as a joke, they came out with the Tournaments Illuminated Martial Extravaganza issue mocked up to look like an illuminated version of Time magazine... and apparently someone sent a copy of the tribute to the editors of Time.

Their lawyer's response boiled down to: "Cute. But do it again and we'll sue your ass off."

Other than that... I knew when we had a Code Orange* day in April that it was going to be a hard summer. The heat index is supposed to hit 102 tomorrow.

Finally, while I was typing this, the new Dr. Pepper commercial came on. Speaking of 30 years ago, wow, nobody (including them!) would have dreamed that KISS would end up peddling soft drinks.



*air quality, not threat level

Comments

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

By the end of the month we'll probably have more 90°+ days In the Washington DC area than we had all last year. But remember, climate change is just a vast left-wing conspiracy! (though the more expert you are in climatology, the more you accept the fact of climate change: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/06/22/the-scientific-consensus-on-climate-change-stronger-and-stronger/ )

[neadods.livejournal.com]

To be fair, last year was unusually cool for us. I remember going to the Folklife festival without being cooked alive.

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

At least the folks in the Folklife Festival are coming from Mexico and other warm places. In previous years those people from Wales, Scotland, and Bhutan nearly died. One year at the Potomac Celtic festival, poor Andy Stewart, just off the plane from Scotland, had two big fans on him while performing and still cried, "How do you people LIVE in this climate?!" The sad thing is that it was only 82° and we were all walking around with big smiles saying, "Isn't this great? It's not hot the way it usually is!"

(I realize that "had two big fans on him" could be misinterpreted. Try to resist the impulse.)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I will always remember an internet friend describing coming to DC and "being hit in the face with a hot, wet blanket." It's a good description of the air.

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've used that analogy, though more being wrapped in the hot wet blanket than being merely hit in the face with it.

"Weather like the inside of a cow" is another useful image.

Could be marginally worse-- from Ulysses Grant's memoirs, an account of passing through Panama on the way to California before the Civil War:

In eight days [Panama] was reached. At that time the streets of the town were eight to ten inches under water, and foot passengers passed from place to place on raised foot-walks. July is at the height of the wet season on the Isthmus. At intervals the rain would pour down in streams, followed in not many minutes by a blazing, tropical summer's sun. These alternate changes, from rain to sunshine, were continuous in the afternoons. I wondered how any person could live many months in [Panama], and wondered still more why anyone tried.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Sounds like New Orleans, the first time I was there.