Friday, October 24, 2003

Ramblin' Road

It's true. I don't want to work anymore today. I'm just making sure the carpeting doesn't roll up under my feet for the next two hours. Don't snicker...It's an important job. I may even multi-task and sort my recycling at the same time. Yay me!

--SURVIVOR--
Survivor last night? It was great. Best moment? Not from the castaways. Not from Probst. From TinyTuna. She and I watch Survivor in my bedroom. She lays on my bed and watches, and I sit in my chair and watch while I chat on Hamster Time. At one point early in the show, I must have been chatting and looking away from the screen. An enormous GASP comes forth from TinyTuna. I stop. "What? What? What happened?" I ask. TinyTuna starts shaking her head slowly. Here comes the Melodrama (we call it "Mellydrama"). "Oh mom," she says. "Jon just did something entirely RUDE!" "What?" I ask. TinyTuna looks at me with her most serious look: Eyebrows jacked up to the heavens and eyes as wide as plates, and exclaims (with pauses between each word):

"Middle. Finger. UP!"

I crack up. But I regain my composure quickly. It's good that she thinks that "middle finger up" is an Emily Post don't. I shake my head in sync with her. Jon isn't very nice, we agree. Later, TinyTuna pulls out her journal. She tells me she is going to write about Survivor. I say ok. She adds, "but I'm only going to talk about nice things. Not Middle Finger Up Things." I tell her that's a good idea. We shouldn't write about those things. Well, she shouldn't -- I just did.

--EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM--
I get emails from an organization called Emergency Email. It was one of those things that I think got started up post 9-11. Maybe it was around earlier. I don't know. It sends out alerts about lots of different things: severe weather, natural disasters and the Homeland Security color du jour --so you can be sure your socks don't clash. I just got one this afternoon, and hoo boy, it's a message I've never seen before:

A POSSIBLE STRONG GEOMAGNETIC STORM IS HEADED TOWARDS THE EARTH AND IS EXPECTED TO REACH EARTH FRIDAY
AFTERNOON OCTOBER 24, 2003. THERE IS A POSSIBILITY OF OUTAGES AND INTERRUPTIONS OF CELL PHONE AND PAGER SERVICE BECAUSE OF ELECTROMAGNETIC INTERFERENCE. SATELLITES ARE ALSO VERY VULNERABLE TO SOLAR ACTIVITY. SOLAR ACTIVITY IS RATED ON A SCALE OF 1 TO 5 WITH 5 BEING THE MOST INTENSE. THE STORM APPROACHING IS
EXPECTED TO BE A 3, OR MODERATE.

Now, I don't know why. But I started laughing. A lot. First of all, I love it that emergency letters are all in CAPS. Caps mean it is IMPORTANT. Caps mean, "listen up. WE'RE NOT KIDDING. Hey! Parental revelation. It has just occurred to me: TinyTuna leads her life with the Caps Lock on. (see: MIDDLE. FINGER. UP!!) Anyway. A Geomagnetic storm. It sounds very science fictiony to me. Beware one and all. Your cell phone might not work. Oh the horror! The humanity!!

Look people. My cell phone loses its signal whenever it damn well pleases. It doesn't take much: A bridge, A hill, A shrub, hell, it could be a shadow. If it feels like Schwarzeneggering my conversation, it does, and without the courtesy of WARNING ME ahead of time. Emergency guys? I think us savvy cell phone people are pretty used to their phones not working. After three or four minutes of yelling "Are you still there??" we figure it out, hang up and call a few minutes later. Not that big a deal. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the fact that the Emergency guys care enough to send me their very best. But you know what's even better than the big scary warning? It's a link to their web page, so I can learn me all about sunspots and geomagnetic storms. Hmmm. I feel a current event coming on.
Sign My Guestbook!

No comments: