Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Mike Nelson Apologizes . . . Sort Of

The crude photo at right is Mike "I Switch Stations" Nelson blurting out what I guess could be considered an apology for his and his weather team's grievous error in judgment when forecasting the latest storm for the Denver Metro area. If you missed it, Mike and his cronies over at Channel 7 predicted 2 to 4 inches of snow in Denver today. As is often the case, there was no snow. Mike went with the oldest excuse in the book and blamed the southeasterly wind. Poor old southeasterly wind . . . always getting shit upon by forecasters who rely too heavily on weather models. Ah well, I suppose Mikey deserves some credit for having the seeds to go on the air and admit when he is wrong. It would appear that he's not the only one who's backpedaling. Coniglio blamed the mountains. What a dick.

I wish I could get more in depth on all the local weather soothsaysers and their follies, but I spent the majority of my day yesterday sitting on a westbound Amtrak train listening to an old hippie/vagabond (who looked a lot like this guy) ratchet up many pints of phlegm and resin from his lungs with deep and sustained coughs. I was concerned he was going to die. Then I wondered to myself: "If this guy does start to enter the throes of death during one of these coughing fits, will you have the mental fortitude to give him CPR and not throw up while doing so?" I came to the conclusion that I would wait for someone else to attempt to save him and if no one volunteered, I would step in. Sad? You bet. But true.



But he was really the least frustrating thing about the trip. I like Amtrak . . . I really do. Any method of travel where you can drink heavily and no one bats an eye is OK in my book. I've traveled by train many a time and had some insanely memorable trips (like getting wrecked in the smoking car for five hours on Super Bowl Sunday (Rams vs. Patriots) with a cowboy poet and bondage models). I haven't rode (ridden?) the rails in a couple of years and was thoroughly disappointed with the shape our national rail service is in . . . well, maybe just the California Zephyr. Sure, the train was seven hours late getting to Denver, but that's somewhat acceptable given the brutality of the weather back east over the past few days. But the state of the cars was just pathetic. Lights were out, chairs were broken, bathrooms were in disrepair, doors between cars didn't work . . . it's like they just said, "Fuck it . . . we'll just let the cars go until they can't go no more." C'mon, Amtrak. You can do better. Shit, the Feds are handing over bailouts left and right. Go get some of it. I know, I know, you're already heavily subsidized. But that shouldn't stop you from asking for more. It's the new American way.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Lord rhr wimmin "forecasters" all look as if they just climbed out of a skank tank. TV4 has Lauren Whitney and is the only thing worth watching in the so-cslled pap that passes ad news.there are rwo "male" weather guys on TV 4 thank are just terrible..never watch 9 snooze..chatty kathy "I am important" Sabine is like a dose of ippicac..retch!

Unknown said...

Lord rhr wimmin "forecasters" all look as if they just climbed out of a skank tank. TV4 has Lauren Whitney and is the only thing worth watching in the so-cslled pap that passes ad news.there are rwo "male" weather guys on TV 4 thank are just terrible..never watch 9 snooze..chatty kathy "I am important" Sabine is like a dose of ippicac..retch!

Unknown said...

Lord rhr wimmin "forecasters" all look as if they just climbed out of a skank tank. TV4 has Lauren Whitney and is the only thing worth watching in the so-cslled pap that passes ad news.there are rwo "male" weather guys on TV 4 thank are just terrible..never watch 9 snooze..chatty kathy "I am important" Sabine is like a dose of ippicac..retch!

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.