If you’re not getting the title of this post, then you might want to watch the video in the previous post in order to get up to speed.  Anyway, in case you weren’t tipped off by the media maelstrom of hysterical insinuation, oversaturation, click-baiting rhetoric, certain cones of grave uncertainty, there’s a goddamn hurricane on kids!  Apparently, it’s really unfortunate that this storm is so disorganized, because you know, it makes it difficult to track its center.  Wait, did I say unfortunate?  I meant, fortuitous, because it helps keep everyone in a state of media-sluriping frenzy.  I mean, jesus, the storm’s potential track covers the entire state of Florida, which is to say that present info seems to be vague at best, then again, one of those 37 computer generated models has this thing landing RIGHT IN YOUR GODDAMN LIVING ROOM.  No, seriously, model #24 v1.2a is named, “Your Goddamn Living Room Tracker.”  Every time they show one of those computer model clusters, like 12 of them show the storm well off to the east of Tampa Bay.  One of them somehow miraculously ends up in Nebraska, and the last one does, in fact, show a track directly over Tampa.  Shockingly, this is the bright pink one.

As far as  I can tell, most of the reporting on any potential catastrophe sort of follows this model:

You might make it home safely today.

But there’s always a slight chance that 300 ninja paratroopers will suddenly drop from the sky and kill you.  Stay tuned to the Splog for all your ninja paratrooper coverage.

Whatevs.  Be ready.  And if they tell you to leave, then fucking leave; Rent-a-Center probably has insurance on that plasma anyway.

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It’s that time again.

Image not to scale.

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In case you didn’t know, tbo.com has this odd repository of stats pulled from its own archive called the “Data Bay.”  This already pleases me.  Why?  Beause it makes it sound like it’s from fucking Star Trek, that’s why.  Sure, all you remember is Sick Bay.  All mentions of Data Bay got edited out.  Whatever.  Apparently, not even hot chicks in standard-issue space miniskirts can make data entry interesting.  I, on the other hand, find it fascinating.  A hot chick in a space miniskirt can come over to my house and normalize my tables any time.  Rawr.

Wait, where was I?  Oh, right, the Data Bay.  Wait, not yet.  Before I forget, and while we’re still relatively close to the topic of Star Trek, I’d like to take this moment to congratulate George Takei on his recent legal marriage to his partner of twenty years, Brad Altman.  Sulu, FTW!

Right, so Data Bay is this awesome land where Tbo gives a statistical overview of the whole gamut of sensationalist awesome we tend to find in the MainStreamMedia these days.  Look, people, those ads aren’t going to click themselves you know.  School bus incidents, homicides, motorcycle accidents, objectionable license plates - they’re all represented in the data bay.  You know, it’s valuable stuff.  You never know how much real-life relevance SHIT THAT HARDLY EVER HAPPENS EVER has for most of us.

Ahem.  This most recent Data Bay installment covers Florida animal attacks over the past 35 years.  No shit.  The somewhat odd part is that it appears to be derived only from a thorough search of the paper’s own archive.  Now, normally, I’d imagine that this would lead to the impression that a lot of attacks would be underrepresented in their stats.  Probably not, though, since this is the sort of shit that the MSM dispatches teams of wild-eyed reporters to cover all the time.  Seriously, there’s a shark attack listed in there that came from a high school performance of West Side Story.

If anything, then, this has got to be, ironically, one of the most thorough databases of Florida animal attacks.  You can even search by species!  Wait, how the fuck do you get attacked by a sturgeon?  Beats me, but it’s happened three times in 35 years.  Sadly, we’ve still only got that one pelican attack on the books.  Time to step it up, pelicans.

I guess for me, the thing that makes this unintentionally interesting is that it almost functions as Tbo’s conscience.  I mean, you can actually look at these stats and it will temper the sensationalism of the reporting.  Look at things longitudinally, and you realize that yes, the fact that you’re pretty sure that there’s a shark, cobra, and a lead-based Chinese toy out there with your name on it is only an illusion generated by the over-reporting of the anomalous.  Whoa.  Deep.

Lastly, do I even really need to say anything about that tragedy of a banner graphic?  I didn’t think so.  Seriously, I think they’re breaking child labor laws in their graphics department over there.

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Keeping in line with today’s theme of Ur Doing it Wrong, I thought I’d mention the awesome predicament of one Hiram Melvin, a convicted felon, who was arrested for having in his possession, among other things, a long, cylindrical thingy bearing an unfortunate resemblance to a rocket launcher. Wait, can you be an unconvicted felon? I mean, you can be accused of a felony, but not yet convicted, so really you’re not a felon yet. Fuck if I know. I digress.

Anyway, our boy Hiram, whose name lets you know he’s passed that certain threshold of redneck where the Old Testament becomes your version of babynames.com, has in fact been charged with possession of a hoax weapon of mass destruction. No, seriously, it’s an actual charge. Let this be a lesson to all you military style live action role playing types, that lovingly-crafted replica of the plasma sword from Halo might just land you in a very not replica version of a PMITA prison. Remember, this is ‘Merica, we start wars over imaginary weapons of mass destruction. At least they got Hiram. Mission accomplished!

You know what else is a serious bag of win? Hiram’s shirt. That shit says “Chip.” Hiram is singlehandedly bringing back the grunge-era ironic gas station attendant shirt. Thanks for the Singles lulz, man.

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While this is mainly Casey’s area of expertise, you don’t really need his excruciating familiarity with the entire online dating scene to know that there are loads of online dating sites out there at this point. They’re getting more specific, too.

Let’s face it; you got that ass because you like to go to Burger King and have it your way at least five times a week, and that’s ok, because there’s probably a site out there specifically for people at your local Burger King who order the same thing as you every day. Indeed, it’s called, thatoneBKweallgotoConnect.com.

Ok, maybe this new crop of sites isn’t that specific, but you know, they’re still pretty specific - well beyond Jdate and OnlineJesusFinder.com. Do you like teh w33d? Head on over to PotPartners.com. Are you batshit crazy? Would you like to date someone else who is batshit crazy? Then nolongerlonely.com is for you, where everyone on the site has some form of mental illness.

I wonder if your compatibility with someone there increases based on the similarity of your symptoms, or maybe you’re supposed to find someone with a disorder on the other end of the spectrum, you know, so you cancel each other out. I think this is what psychologists refer to as the principles of constructive and destructive interpersonal interference. You know, like waves, but different.

Why am I bringing any of this up? Because here in the Tampa area, we’ve got a company that developed its own niche dating site - SaferDates.com. To what niche do they cater? Well, it’s not immediately apparent. It’s pretty cookie cutter, really. You see most of the stuff you’d expect to see. You know, it’s a scary .NET generated template thing with your basic sampling of over compressed stock photography and blurry graphics. Profiles, search, user matching, etc., etc.

There’s the obligatory team of experts. Relationship expert? Check. Psych stats dude? Check. Private investigator and Martial Arts expert? Check.

Wait, what the fuck?

Maybe some copy from their press center will help:

According to the U.S. Department of justice, a woman is raped every 2 minutes somewhere in America.

Saferdates.com is the first online dating website to offer a background investigation utilizing fingerprint identification and screening. Our goal is to educate our members on safer dating - focusing on both your emotional and physical safety by offering access to monthly articles, tips on safety and relationships; as well as, Q & A by our Team of Experts.

Oh, I get it; it’s a dating site for hysterical people who failed to recognize that Orwell’s 1984 was a dystopian scenario - you know, a bad thing. Apparently, surveillance really is security. See, I mean, if you’ve really got nothing to hide, then you’ll willingly offer up your fingerprints, collegiate political history, colonoscopy results, genome map, polygraph, full genealogy, various cells, CT, blood gas, pre-school transcripts and voiding cystourethrogram results in order to qualify for the site’s Level II Verification. Level II means that you’re a model citizen, and you get a special icon on your profile that tells all your potential dates, “Hey, I’m a model citizen!  Freakin’ date me right now!”

It’s true, though, even a dating system founded on the time-honored principles of Total Information Awareness isn’t foolproof. This is why there’s an astrologist on staff. You might not be a sex offender . . . yet, but if it’s in your stars, she’ll know. If all else fails, you’ll be fully trained in ball-crunching self defense, just in case it turns out your painstakingly-certified Mr. Right holds that goodbye hug a nanosecond too long.

Wow, so there you have it. If you’re one of the increasing number of people who are falling over themselves to divulge as much personal information as possible to some web service, then this site might be for you. I’ll be the one standing over by the jukebox with the conspicuously ink-free fingerprints.

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File this under useful information learned from a dumb criminal: attempting to hold up a liquor store with a can of beans in a sock is not a good idea unless your aim is to get killed. Looks like a clerk who took a beancan to the skull got pissed and shot the 19 year old would-be robber. Unfortunately getting beaned in the head is far less painful and permanent than a few shots from the boomstick.

The rad news is that they found 3 shell casings, but aren’t saying how many shots were fired. If you were curious about places to avoid robbing, add C&K Beverage to the list. It will be interesting to see if the clerk is charged with manslaughter, a minimum of 3 gunshots seems like an awfully deadly response for a bean-induced headache.

In other news on our side of the bay, a dude who entered a pawn shop and started smashing cases also earned his very own gunshot wound. This should be something you already know, but let’s cover it again: people that work at pawn shops are perpetually awaiting the opportunity to shoot someone, it is a desire those people are just born with.

The highlight of the Kenneth City shooting is the last line:

Investigators are assuming that the man was hit because of a blood trail left in the store. A search for the man is still in progress.

I just imagine a whole bunch of cops with magnifying glasses and hounds hunched over and following a trail of blood for hours on end. Run, dude, run!

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Well, it’s that time of year again. Summer is upon us. Most of the tourists have either been arrested (note the tats!) or left to go drive poorly somewhere else (Yes, I’m looking at you, ubiquitous Ontario Minivan). It’s getting stupid hot again, rednecks are lighting large swaths of the state on fire, the termites are waking up from their winter slumber to remind you that the structural integrity of your house is probably something you should really look into this year, and oh, right, and the full team super elite ninja weather coverage machines are revving up.

Get ready, people. Weather is on the horizon, and well, it’s doing shit. Shit that may or not be normal. Shit that may or may not be cause for complete and utter terror . . . or joy, or uh, mild alarm. Well, you know, shit is happening. We may not know what it is, but stay on your toes, goddammit. In fact, the Splog is recommending that you maintain a state of non-specific and total anxiety until further notice.

Here’s a little something from this fascinating exercise in clickbait to set the mood:

Start of Rainy Season?

. . .

So could these showers be the start of rainy season?

Could be.

The rainy season typically begins between mid-May to mid-June. But there have been exceptions.

There’s twenty-five seconds of my life I’ll never get back. I actually wrote something like that yesterday, it goes like this:

Can light exercise be fatal?

You could probably find someone, somewhere who thinks so. I mean, my neighbor Jeff once knew a dude who had a heart attack doing Jazzercise . . . or maybe he didn’t. Not sure, really.

Ok, now that we’re all primed for that sort of thing, today was the day that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association busted out a press release summarizing the stats in turn busted out by the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center, all of which was condensed in a Times post entitled “NOAA calls for active 2008 hurricane season“. You still with me here? Good.

Ignoring for the moment that the clunky idiomatic usage makes it sound like yes, indeed, NOAA is demanding more fucking hurricanes this year, what does this article tell us? It tells us this:

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is calling for a near or above normal 2008 hurricane season, according to predictions released today.

The outlook calls for considerable activity, with a 60- to 70-percent chance of 12 to 16 named storms, including six to nine hurricanes and two to five major hurricanes.

An average season has 11 named storms, including six hurricanes, two of which reach major states.

What does that mean? I have no fucking idea. Now, mind you, this isn’t the fault of the Times. This is nearly verbatim from the NOAA site, which itself is nearly verbatim from the NWS site.

According to the NWS, there’s a 65% chance of an above normal season, a 25% chance of a near normal season. This means that there’s a 90% chance of an above or near normal season. But wait, there’s still a 10% chance of a below normal season.

Wait, what? Shouldn’t “below normal” be the polar opposite of “above normal.” Nope. Check the definitions. Starting from below normal, it goes: below normal, near normal, above normal. Seriously. Chance of simple normalcy? Zero. I’m no statistician. I’m just a simple caveman who doesn’t understand your modern histograms and beta coefficients, but you’d think it might just go: below normal, normal, above normal, and then, if you really need one higher than that, I propose “Kanye West.”

Yeah, I are confused. As always, of course, the bottom line is, be prepared. As a reminder, this will be slightly less easy this year as due to budget cuts, the tax-free - get yourself some granola and duct tape - holiday is not happening this year. I know, right? Usually the first thing I do in an understimulated economy is cut programs that encourage people to shop.

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You may or may not have noticed that my favorite mocha-colored superhero and political BFF, Barack Obama is going to be speaking today at the St. Pete Times Forum. There were 20,000 official tickets available, and they are all gone. Organizers are encouraging people to still head down there, though, as they might let people in if there’s still space available around noon or so. This makes sense to me, as even if people don’t get in to see him speak, there’s something undeniable about a throng of people who might just be happy to get themselves within five miles of something awesome. There’s something unequivocally irrepressible about an aerial shot of say, a metric ass ton of people all just kicking it in support of a man and his ideas.

That being said, has anyone noticed that all the media outlets around here can focus on is how much of a GODDAMN MIND BLOWING NIGHTMARE it’s going to be in terms of traffic and parking. Jesus. We get it already. The Times seems to have the most level-headed response to the whole situation, the advice being this:

1. Arrive early.
2. Don’t expect a ticket to the event.
3. Bring 20% of an umbrella.

If I were just slightly more paranoid, I’d think that some people were trying to minimize attendance by focusing mostly on the GODDAMN MIND BLOWING NIGHTMARE it’s going to be downtown. And did you notice how there was a convenient accident on the bridge this morning that shut down two lanes of traffic? Coincidence? Surely. Although I swear I saw a sign that read, “I’m Hillary Clinton, and I approve this accident.” Just sayin’.

Here’s a little something to get you in the mood:

By Lukas Ketner. Reblogged from here, who grabbed it from here.

That’s right, the man hangs with unicorns.

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I assume you’ve seen the story about the Wizard substitute teacher getting fired in Land O’ Lakes (includes video!1!!) Let’s all spend just a moment realizing that at this very moment the internets are aflutter with people blogging about how fucking stupid people in Florida are. Yes, they are talking about us.

I mean, sure, the magic trick was lame, but fire the guy for the fact he is creepy, not for “Wizardry.” What the hell is wizardry anyway? Is that related to the creepy way he leads up to all his tricks by saying “watch, watch, watch, watch, watch, GO!”?

Leave it to major media outlets to fail at doing their homework, though, and leaving out plenty of juicy details. For instance, Jim actually is a fucking Wizard. No, I’m not kidding. He placed an ad on the Witch’s Voice pagan merchant list in July of ‘06 for his personal site Tarotica Erotica (unfortunately he let the domain name expire last year). Check the ad. Looks like Jimbo’s erotic tarot service covers:

All questions regarding your future answered here. If a desired outcome is requested, a Tarot spell will be performed on your behalf. A copy will be sent to you. A Tarot question including Tarot spell is $20.00

Again, no, I’m not kidding. Check it yourself, peeps, the search is based on his tampabay.rr.com e-mail address, so we’re talking about the same guy. I bet the God Blog wishes they hadn’t posted the story now.

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I love stories like this one from Tampabay’s 10: “Can winter tornado disasters occur in Florida? Hellfuckshitzyea!” Actually I’m not sure if the hellfuck part was in the original story or not, but I’m pretty sure it was.

The gist of the story goes something like this:

1. Actual emergency occurs nowhere near here
2. News organizations everywhere play/write/report the shit out of the story
3. News organizations everywhere run out of angles actually related to said emergency
4. News organizations everywhere try to make it sound like said emergency is incredibly likely to occur in our own backyard

Simple, eh? I think that is like page 4 of Journalamizing for Dummies. Sherry Ray takes it a step further by tying in some extremely abnormal occurrences like:

On January 6, 1998 portions of central Florida were declared a federal disaster after damage from high winds, tornadoes and floods ravished the area. A month later, more deadly tornadoes … killed 42 people and caused millions of dollars in property damage across the state … the deadly tornado that killed at least 20 people in Lake County and caused an estimated $80 million in damage in neighboring Volusia County (in 2007).

Scope out the image below. It basically shows that between 1950 and 1998, there had been less than 1 tornado (F3 or above) in the majority of the state. Well, excepting the Twister ride at Universal of course.

In other words, barring the few deadly storms Sherry Ray quotes, it is more than highly unlikely that we face any danger like the storms in the Midwest. You gotta love the news. Just think how much harder their jobs would be if they actually reported helpful, non-sensational, non-biased information.

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What’s more fun than colorful toy beads that fuse together when sprayed with water? Colorful toy beads that fuse together when sprayed with water and also happen to turn into GHB when they fuse with your stomach acids. Holy crap. Yes, it’s another recalled toy from China. Please allow all manner of jingoistic parental freak outs to commence at once. Also please commence the rejoicing of ludicruously-dressed candy ravers everywhere.

I don’t suppose this has anything to do with recent statements by China that they might stop investing in the US dollar, does it?

It’s swell how every news outlet is just skipping any mention of the drug itself and just going for its seedier application as “a dangerous date rape drug.” Believe it or not, people still take GHB for fun (exhibit A: David Boston). I mean, come on. It does all this:

Common effects include intoxication, increased energy, happiness, excessive talking, the desire to socialize, strong feelings of affection and playfulness, enhanced sexual experience, loss of coordination due to loss of muscle tone, difficulty concentrating, and loss of gag reflex.

Seriously, if there’s one thing you need to learn by the age of twenty it’s that the phrase “loss of gag reflex” is just another way of saying party.

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Or, maybe they won’t. You be the judge with the help of this super scary report from Tampa Bay’s 10 on the potential of lead-slathered Halloween decorations. Thank God they got some pointless Brit’s opinion on the matter, who had this brilliant nugget to share:

“My two little ones suck their thumbs,” says Given. “They’re playing with toys, and they’re putting their thumbs in their mouths.”

Holy fucking shit, in their mouths?! Dude, I hate to be the dude with the bad news, but your kids are going to die. Seriously, order up some tiny coffins, they are as good as gone. If the lead doesn’t get them, the razors or the ol’ cyanide in the candy certainly will.

And yes, it was necessary for the image at right to be that big. We need to alert the parents to the horrible truth about the whole world and how dangerous everything in it is.

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Did you escape the flooding of Hurricane Katrina in 2005? Did you hide from the powerful winds of Hurricane Charley in 2004? Or, maybe you or a friend, neighbor or relative has firsthand experience of any one of the scores of hurricanes that made landfall throughout the Atlantic basin. If so, we want to hear from you!

That’s right kids, if you had a horrible life-scarring event related to hurricanes we are super pumped to hear about it and then tell other people!! So, please, send it on in! Seriously, we used exclamation points! It is a project! About storm stories! AWESOME!!

So, like, it would probably be really unethical and shitty of me to suggest that our readers flood (pun intended) that e-mail address with bogus stories, wouldn’t it? Yeah, I probably shouldn’t do that. It probably wouldn’t be funny to come up with a bunch of totally awesome recollections of things like that one hurricane-spawned tornado that swept you out of your hot tub in Larghetto on a Tuesday and deposited you atop the deck of Cha Cha Coconuts Saturday evening with a sweet mai tai in hand. That wouldn’t be nice. Seriously, we shouldn’t get in the way of this totally noble, non-exploitive, non-ZOMFG-l00k-@-that-awesum-car-crashzors-over-there project.

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God bless Accuweather.com for their totally clear, not mildly confusing cone of concern. I feel a lot better knowing that… um… that… red is bad? I’m not sure what I feel better knowing.

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Fire up the inexplicably-named radar systems.

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