Wednesday Morning Latin Lesson?

I was planning on re-emerging from my bloggery hibernation period on Friday, which just so happens to coincide St. Valentine's Day with Friday, which is the traditional date of all things Latin Lesson-y.  However, a wrench has been thrown into my plans, so I decided to go ahead and post something today.  You're welcome.  My sudden popping out of the slumbering hole can be linked to the impending doom heralded by the slow, yet ferociously fierce arrival of Winter Storm Pax.

Wait just a minute.  Winter Storm...Pax?

A large, fierce system of moisture and air just cold enough to freeze water is moving across the southern plains of the United States right now, as we speak.  Er, type.  Er, read.  Whatever, you get the picture.  With said wintery system--which has been deemed to have the potential to be 'catastrophic' by CNN, among other major news outlets--forecasters have predicted dangerous conditions for travel as well as large swaths of the American Southeast to go dark from power outages.  There will be deaths on the roads from auto accidents and there will be deaths in peoples homes from carbon monoxide poisoning brought on by improper ventilation while running their generators.  There will be people getting frostbite and suffering from exposure, there will be people who are chilled in their homes without power, and there may even be heart attacks and strain injuries from shoveling snow.

All of this paints anything but a peaceful picture.

However, the braintrust over at the Weather Channel has dubbed this particular weather system "Pax."  In case you're unfamiliar with the fuckwittery that goes on at the Weather Channel, a couple of years ago they came up with the notion to name "winter storms" in the same way that we name hurricanes.  Granted, there was no rhyme or reason behind the method to their idiocy madness; anything that spits snow is a winter storm now.  Also, for some strange reason, they decided to pull a mixture of historic names and obscure mythological entities for their list of names; all of this had a heavy Greco-Roman bias to it--except for Orko.  We all know that Orko comes from He-Man and Eternia lore, not from some obscure Iberian weather deity that barely has a registry in the Encyclopedia of Mythology.

All this aside, for 'p' this year, they chose "Pax."

Pax, as you may have guessed from the title of the this blog entry (you're so clever, you), comes to us by way of Latin.  Pax is a third declension noun (you can tell by the -x on the end of the word), which means that it probably entered into Latin via Greek.  If you've attended a Catholic Mass, or you're familiar with hymns, you've come across pax or one of its other forms in the line dona nobis pacem, which means "grant us peace."

There are two other flavors of pax that have appeared in English over the years.  One of them is the phrase Pax Romana, which describes the roughly two hundred year period of peace within the Roman Empire after our boy Augustus took power and thus ended the Roman Republic.  Pax Romana brought peace and prosperity to the people of Rome, and for those two centuries--minus the end of Nero's reign which led to the Year of Four Emperors--Rome was basically without internal strife.  No civil wars, no great rebellions by conquered people, no piracy along the coasts or across the Mediterranean, just wonderful, blissful, ever-loving Roman peace.  Yes, there were still foreign wars, but the Empire had ceased its indefatigable expansion and now focused on protecting their borders and their people.  For a couple hundred years, it was good to be Roman.

The other flavor of pax that you might have encountered is Pax Christi, which means "the peace of Christ" and it has its origins in Pax Romana...er...sorta.  Pax Christi was an attempt in 1945 to help normalize relations between France and Germany after WWII.  The notion was that the two largely Christian nations should try to emulate the teachings of Christ so that they could work together moving forward and avoid these types of conflagrations again.  You know, war, invasion, death...those kind of things that Jesus was pretty much against.  From there, the notion that people live a peaceful life based on the teachings of Christ really took hold in the churches--both Catholic and Protestant--and so Pax Christi has become a thing where Christians attempt to better emulate the lessons Jesus passed along to his followers.  Novel concept, I know.

So, clearly, it makes sense that a dangerous, potentially 'catastrophic' winter storm would garner the name "Pax" as it leaves frozen roads, closed schools and businesses, wrecked cars, and dead bodies in its wake.  Way to pick 'em, Weather Channel!

For reference, other weather outlets such as NOAA have largely dismissed the notion of naming winter storms, describing the practice as silly and potentially dangerous.  This is pretty much just a Weather Channel thing, though the supplicants at Time Warner Cable (another group of people renowned for their brilliance) have thrown their support in with the Weather Channel.  I guess this means the practice won't go away anytime soon, no matter how many people make fun of them.  If so, I hope they think a couple of moments before grabbing any old Latin word out of the lexicon in order to name their storm.  Next time, might I suggest "Pugnax."

Friday Morning Latin Lesson: Vol. CVII

Salvete, amici!  Here we are again at the end of another week, and what a week it's been, eh?  Is your bracket already busted?  Are you asshole deep in snow yet?  How about that new Pope, eh?  That covers pretty much the sum total of all the news that was this past week, doesn't it? 

This is, of course, the greatest time of the year for me, being that the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments are going right now.  The men's tournament, of course, tipped off on Tuesday with the "first four", the four in this case being the first four games, otherwise known as the "play-in" games.  However, "purists" don't count these first four games (because purists are dumb) and you probably have to look long and hard to find someone who actually counts these games in their office pool brackets.  I guess it's understandable; only the truly sick and depraved would watch these games and hold an actual interest in them.  I don't have a problem.  I swear!

The tournament itself has picked up the moniker "March Madness" (even though half of it this year will be played in April...) which stems, somewhat, from the phrase "mad as a March hare".  March is the month in which rabbits get it on, which would be one reason for those hares to be acting all harebrained; sweet, sweet cunnus cuniculi is on the line!  March Madness originally was the nickname for the Illinois state high school tournament--a Land of Lincoln version of Hoosier Hysteria (so much alliteration...).  It was lifted by noted national sportscasting perv and Webb-family hero, Brent Musburger, who probably thought it his own creation when he spewed it forth in a drunken broadcast during 1982.  We thank you for that, Brent, as well as the gift of Katherine Webb in a bikini um, diving, or whatever shit she's doing in that television show.  Shut up and close the blinds--I'm watching here!

The term "Sweet Sixteen" showed up sometime in the 90s, and was once again lifted from a high school tournament.  Several lawsuits with much legalese being bandied about came from the state of Kentucky, where Sweet Sixteen was used for many, many years to describe the final sixteen teams playing in their state high school tournament.  Final Four, also, was stolen from a high school tournament, this time going back to the hotbed of high school hoops, the great state of Indiana, where "final four" was used to describe the last quartet of teams that survived the semistate rounds of the tournament before class basketball ruined Indiana high school athletics forever.  Someone claimed that "final four" was used in the late 70s to describe when Marquette was one of the final four schools left in the tournament, but Marquette can go fuck themselves for all I care.

Oh, thanks for Tom Crean, by the way.

March, of course, gets its name from the Roman God of war, Mars.  Martius was the first month of the Roman Calendar, and it was ruled over by Mars--the embodiment of bloodlust and battle of warfare, as opposed to Minerva who was the strategist--because Martius was the time for planting crops and for making war.  Mars was originally an agrarian god, one who looked over the soil, the crops and the land.  The connection between the soil and battle was made glaringly clear in the movie Gladiator, where Maximus is constantly rubbing the soil on his face and fingers before battle.

Mars also gave us the name for Tuesday (in a round-about way).  The Romans thought that Mars, the planet in the sky, commanded the second day of the week, and so they named it dies Martis or "day of Mars".  When the Romans came in contact with some of the Germanic folk, the Germans liked this idea and so they began calling the second day of the week after their God of War, Tyr.  Thus, the name of the second day of the week became "Tyr's day" which eventually morphed into Tuesday.  And with the first four tipping off on Tuesdays, we've brought this bitch full circle.  All praise Mars!

Tempus est Furori Martis!

Pronounced:  "Tem-poose est fyoo-roar-ee Mar-teese!"

There's some serious meta stuff going on in this picture.  Also, hovertext!

March, of course, has the reputation of "coming in like a lion" and going "out like a lamb."  We're three weeks into March, with the first full day of Spring being yesterday.  This weekend, most of the country is bracing for another major snowstorm.  Yep.  Totally going out like a lamb!  I thought maybe this other phrase would be helpful while you're shoveling your car out of yet another bank of snow left in the wake of the plows.

Te pedicabo, Philippe...

Pronounced:  "Tay pay-dee-cah-boh, Phil-lee-pay"

A translation more accurate that weather prognosticating rodents in the hovertext

Lay in some alcohol and have the pizza man on speed dial:  it's going to be a long weekend.  Might as well get drunk, watch some basketball, and have cholesterol-laden regret coursing through your veins on Monday morning!  Valete, omnes!

Down to Nine

We had some weather last night.

Hur hur hur. We have weather every night.

Last night, however, we had WEATHER, the kind Jim Cantore stands around in and masturbates to just out of the camera's eye and under a thick, blue Lands End jacket. And don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about; I know you've seen the video.

Holy smoke, Robby! Bring me another towel! I've gotta wipe up! This shit's gonna freeze and then I'll have to sandblast it out of my underwear!

After I got home from Otherwork last night, my wife and I were snuggling down into bed, she on her back, me with my hands in places they ought not to be. Bands of heavy rain had been lashing the house off-and-on for hours, sprinkled with intermittent flashes of lightning and dull roars of thunder. In short, it was a perfect rainy night in early spring.

As things were getting more sexytime in the bedroom, there was a brilliant flash of light. It was the kind that announces that a deity of some kind has just arrived and you better sit up, pay attention and write this down: There's some serious news about to be imparted from on high.

This was followed almost immediately by a crack of thunder like the world was splitting in half, and the house shook tremendously for a period of at least fifteen seconds. The roar of thunder slowly spread out across the sky, rolling away through the rain-soaked heavens, reminding others that the fury was just coming toward them and they, too, had better be ready to receive word from above.

We immediately heard the shufflings and snifflings in the hallway, and I gingerly removed my hands from those places that might lead to trouble. A moment later, a child was in the room, and a second child was standing in her room, wondering just what the fuck had happened and why is my father scribbling things down in Aramaic so furiously.

The wife returned the children to their beds, tucked them in. I looked out the window to ensure that the house was not ablaze. This seemed like enough at the time. I turned on the television, hoping to get an update on the weather. Our oh-so-reliable Time Warner Cable...was out. It took the internet with it, as we soon discovered, when the wife tried to pull the radar up on her laptop. We called Time Warner Cable, told them what happened, and then decided it was time for bed.

I carried the laptop back over to its roost. The lights were extinguished. Perhaps sexytime would start again, after Thor/Zeus/Quetzalcoatl had rudely interrupted earlier. As I was returning to bed, it happened.

I kicked the clothes basket next to the bed with my bare foot. More, I kicked the side with the open slots for vents with my pinky toe. Immediately, pain shot up my leg as my pinky toe was ripped off by the plastic edge and thrust up the side of my calf. I screamed in agony, stumbled, zombie-like, to the bed, and fell, my foot aching a sweetly sharp ache, phantom-limb-pain confusing my foot and its sudden lack of toe.

After forcing back tears--I'm a man, dammit!--exhaustion finally got the better of me, the pain finally ebbing enough for me to sleep. When the morning's light shone, I examined my once proud right foot now it all its mangled glory. A nasty gash, a toenail bent back, possible infection with gangrene. And a low, dull ache that is my new, constant companion.

Someone bring me some whisky and the bolt cutters: it's time to end this pain once and for all.

Snow Effin' Way!

Sorry. I should have written up something somewhat interesting for today. But I didn't. I was writing other things last night (when I wasn't napping on the couch in front of the Vanderbilt vs Florida game), and then when fatigue finally began to settle in, I didn't feel like writing much.

And then we learned (rather late) that my kids had a two hour delay this morning for the winter weather storm that wasn't. The 2-5 inches that was forecast for the area turned into 2-5 flakes. At least in our part of the county. To be fair, when I drove to work, the "no appreciable snow accumulation" turned into "a very light dusting that you could almost see if you squinted in just the right light".

The public schools in my county, not to be outdone by trifles like "roads with no ice or snow" or "really no ice or snow anywhere on the roads" and "wow, did the forecast miss badly...again" not to mention "safe driving conditions", decided to delay the start of school for two hours. They just, apparently, decided not to tell anyone about it. Watching the news this morning, there was nothing on the crawl at the bottom of the screen. We didn't get a phone call from the automated service (at least, we didn't hear one if it came through). It was like some vast secret.

To that end, I have to skate out of work early today (oh, wow, does that suck...) to make sure that there is someone home to meet the kids when they get off the bus. Because, you know, we feel kind of bad leaving an 8-year-old to mind a 5-year-old...although I'm fairly certain that my daughter doesn't know the "fill the gin bottle back with water--they'll never expect" trick just yet.

Who knows? Maybe. She's a bit of a prodigy.

Except when it comes to fractions.

But, I blame that one on the schools.

Anyway, a quick post. That's what this was supposed to be.

I like to rag on Adam and Jamie's "scientific method" on Mythbusters all the time. What? One data point is enough to either prove or disprove something? Certainly! That's a win for science!

Anyway, I remember watching an episode where they decided that you can't get electrocuted simply by peeing on something carrying an electric current, either an electric rail, an electric fence...fill in the blank.

Apparently, this poor man in Washington didn't get the memo. The poor guy skidded off the road in his car and hit a pole holding up power lines. He survived, was uninjured, and called for help. However, apparently, while he was waiting for help to arrive, he needed to take a piss. He ended up pissing accidentally on a downed, live wire. The urine stream connected him to the current and he was killed. Hopefully (for his sake) instantly.

Perhaps the worst part? From the article: "there will be an autopsy, but burn marks indicated how the electricity traveled through [the victim's] body."

Hands down. Worst. Death. Ever.

Dear Weather Channel

Dear Weather Channel:

Suck it.

Do you know what your main role in life is? Here's a hint: it's in your name, and I'm not talking about the word "channel" nor am I speaking of the word "the". That's right! Weather! Perhaps we can sink through that thick concrete cranium of yours yet.

Now, I understand that, much like every other network in the entire world you focus on New York and Boston all the time. I also understand that you're centered in Atlanta, so we get to see that oh-so-exciting weather prospectus for such exotic locales as Macon and Warner-Robins and Screven possibly more than, you know, we should. And then there's the inexplicable "Hey, Omaha, the sun is coming up! Whee!!!" I'm willing to overlook all this because every ten minutes, you show me the local radar, at what time the sun will rise tomorrow, and what phase the moon will be in for the next four weeks.

Ah, see, here's the rub: you're not showing me those things every ten minutes. Instead, I sit through five minutes of commercials for whatever piece of contrite kitsch that the Late Billy Mays would (or still is...eerie) hock in that delightfully endearing brazen and brash fashion of his. When it's not a commercial for the latest and greatest (and shittiest) piece of detritus that I'm opting not to purchase and to clutter up my home, it's a commercial for one of your other shows, which are only peripherally involved in the weather. Or it's a commercial featuring Al Roker.

Mother.
Fucking.
Al.
Roker.

Do you know when Al Roker was last cool? It's when he was interviewed on Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast. And that might have been because I was drunk and maybe had a bit of a contact high: my year in Merlini Hall seems to just fly by (in hindsight). And I'm pretty sure Al Roker was cool only because Zorak called his ass out and subsequently fried him with whatever energy weapon Zorak wielded with impunity.

And yet, here I am, tuning in to see if I have to grab a jacket on my way out the door, and instead of an extended forecast, I get Al Roker's face on my screen. "Aren't I funny?" he says into the camera. "Laugh with me! Hyuk hyuk hyuk!!!" No, you're not funny. Go back to wherever you escaped and stop ruining my weather channel viewing experience!

While I'm speaking of Al Roker, could you have found perhaps a slightly more annoying co-host to go along with his aw-shucks hokum? Yes, Stephanie Abrams is easy on the eye, is probably a nice person, but damn, is there another person on national television screaming to be featured on "What Not to Wear" more than she? Even I can see that, and I can barely dress myself without looking like a clown--a drunken clown at that.

And seriously, if you're going to continue to feature programs revolving around the Stephanie Abrams experience (*shudder*), can you do us all a favor and turn her fucking microphone off. I've heard dogs with diarrhea that are more engaging in conversation than she. Not that I want to say that she's a touch...insipid...but when I hear the word "vapid", immediately her image comes to mind. I hope you've got a good insurance plan for your employees, because I'm sure Mike Bettes goes home every night and drinks himself to the point where he no longer desires the sweet release that opening his veins would provide.

Okay, okay, I might have gotten a bit off track. I originally began penning this letter so that you would stop with the fucking "specialty" programming. Seriously, I spent way too fucking long today trying to catch a glimpse of the immediate weather forecast, and yet all I got was commercials for your shitty shows embedded within those same shitty shows!

And let's discuss these shows, shall we? You call it "When Weather Changed History", but I can only guess that it's because "When Weather Didn't Really Have Much of an Affect on the Somewhat Historical Events Outlined in Our Programs" doesn't have much of a ring to it. But, that would be what we refer to as "truth in advertising". Besides, the History Channel is where I typically go if I want to see documentaries about historical events.

And then there's "Storm Stories." *sigh* This could be about five minutes worth of a show, to be honest. I realize that it's supposed to be about human hardship, so that we feel sorry for our fellow human beings, but after so many minutes of footage of bemulleted billhillies who try to drive their truck through the raging flood waters of the Chattahoochee, the program becomes a touch...repetitive.

(That means "the same thing over and over again", Stephanie).

We won't even go into the failed experiment of showing us weather-themed movies on Friday night. When did that finally sink in that it was a bad idea? After the second showing of The Perfect Storm or the third replay of March of the Penguins? Somewhere, Morgan Freeman is shaking his head, ashamed that he was involved in such a farcical attempt at garnering an audience.

And now, you're springing more shows on us. Not satisfied with drowning inbreds, you've ratcheted things up a level with "Cantore Stories". Apparently, Jim Cantore, perhaps the least charismatic cast member of the Weather Channel's vast array of meteorologists (barring Greg Forbes), will now be interviewing the wives and mothers of those drowned rednecks. Scintillating! Derivative!!! I can certainly see why the seven-day forecast is being preempted for this!

And then there's Weather Proof, which features our favorite socially-inept Weather Bunny, Stephanie Abrams. From what I can gather in the previews (which are often and typically shown in place of the weather I tune in to learn about), this features someone with a giant fan and a wall with a window in it, and they throw shit at the wall and window. Wow! Look! Glass breaks when hit with a terra cotta pot! That's edge-of-my-seat excitement right there. And then, wow, Stephanie Abrams yells out something about how she didn't expect that! Yes, I'll be sure to stop tuning into Mythbusters for this. Can we get Stephanie Abrams to wear a beret like Jamie Hyneman? Preferably shoved down her throat?

In short, please, stop with the shitty "programming". You are the Weather Channel. Please show us weather.

And, perhaps, the occasional mud wrestling match between Heather Tesch and Jenn Carfagno.

Sincerely,

A Weather Fan

P.S. Bring back Sharon Resultan, like, yesterday. And give her some more really tight leopard-print tops.