The Humour Club discussion

Other groups have a weather topic. In the US, there is an entire TV network devoted to covering it. It must be a fascinating subject, right?

As a Welsh and British woman and ecologist who ends up drenched a hell of a lot, I love the weather in all its connotations (apart from that really annoying drizzly stuff that just seems to hang in the air and soak you to the skin!).

It just poured buckets this weekend and I let the kids run in the backyard to get soaked...it's fun to run in the rain?! I didn't really notice, but, I guess they were just in their underpants...what? It was hot, they didn't want to wear clothes?!

I'm not a fan of drizzle, either. I use my birdbath to determine whether or not it's raining. If I don't see any drops - it's fine to walk. But the drizzle doesn't show up. You don't notice it til you step outside - and by then the dog is in such a frenzy over his upcoming W-A-L-K...you kind of have to go anyway. And you're right - you get soaked to the bone.

Apparently Bookworm is not the only Smith who likes to go outdoors in underpants.

I live in the San Francisco area. Today the forecast high in the paper is "65-101". Sadly, I live in the "65" area, where the fog has sat heavily on us all day.

I just took a look, and I think you had to get pretty far east (away from the coast) to get out of the 70s. Maybe not as hot as predicted, but either way it's child and grim here.

But what the heck. For the last6 weeks I've been in places like Colorado and Wyoming where there is not only sunshine, but mountains!

For the third year in a row, massive cloud cover kept me from viewing the meteor shower. Luckily, I saw one earlier in the week when I went out to watch the space station flyover.

No sun here, and no meteors, either. We drove down the Peninsula yesterday to bike and run in the sun. 80 deg. down there. Got home, 20 miles away, and it was 54.

A great fall day today - warm, rainy, and windy. It made me want to put on my yellow rain slicker and my boots, and go out and splash in puddles. So I did.
Screw those disapproving neighbors, anyway. Maybe if they think I'm nuts they'll stop asking me for so many favors!

I'm impressed you've actually got a yellow rain slicker! I've got a massive bright orange high visibility waterproof coat that I favour when the heavens open...you could probably spot me from the moon when I've got it on!

And there's nothing wrong with splashing in puddles, you should see me when I'm out on my bike, I peddle frantically before the puddle so I can ride through at top speed with my legs sticking out! :-D

Hey, we finally got some sun, and now we're getting something that could almost be called rain. Finally, the end of the fog season!

Had to get out the 'scraper' today - heavy frost on my van window Friday morning...by getting out the scraper I mean, turning the van on, realizing I can't see out the window b/c it's covered in ice, running back into the house, eventually ending up in the basement, finding the scraper hanging on a forgotten hook I put up last spring just to hold the scraper (in that place I'd never forget!)

Oh, and the F*%^ frost killed the last of my tomato plants, including the green tomatoes that were still on them...now I have about 20 dark green mush tomatoes.
Is this the rant topic by the way?

Weather and ranting seem to go together.

I do not own a frost scraper.

I always get a kick out of watching the "unprepared" trying to scrape their cars with their credit cards.

Why do you take your scraper out of your car, mine lives in my glove box permanently just in case (you never know with the weather nowadays).

My favourite are the people who clear their windows of snow but forget that the large amount of snow on the roof will fall forward the first time they brake, I find that so hysterical, especially the look of shock on their faces when they get out of the car to clear it off!

OR it blows back onto the car behind them!

You can now get a fine here for not COMPLETELY clearing your car.

Unfortunately, we still get people who scrape a tiny three-inch hole in the frost and attempt to drive that way.

Oh I love the letterbox drivers, how can they possibly think that's a good idea. Personally I clear every window completely and get as much off the roof as possible. It is funny when they get pulled over and fined though, they always seem to be really surprised...strange strange people!

That's where your going wrong Kyle, your spending hours shovelling snow out! ;-)

Melki wrote: "I always get a kick out of watching the "unprepared" trying to scrape their cars with their credit cards."

Or air miles card...then it breaks and you have to order a new one. But, in the meantime you still use the broken one because you don't want to lose out on points.
It's kind of funny to explain to a cashier why you have a broken air miles card...right?

Or you could clean out the garage so you can park under cover. . .

Or, you can just stick your head out the window until the defroster unfreezes your window...but, I'd only recommend this method if you live outside city limits. I'm serious about that.

Anyone have a run in with Hurricane Sandy last night?

I believe Melki, you live right in the middle of the storm's inland path? You ok?

You are not answering...I'm assuming you are one of the millions without power and internet?

We are far enough north that we only caught the tail end of it, but, what a tail! Very windy. Took out the power to our neighborhood. We were off the grid for a good twelve hours. I'm hoping it will make a difference on this month's power bill?

Coastal areas got the worst of it. We had wind and rain, but were very lucky to miss out on most of the destruction. I never lost power, though relatives about 100 miles away did. The worst thing that happened to me was having the kids home from school for two days.

Snow...about three flakes.

I figured you would be the first to get the white stuff. We may get some Wednesday, depending on what the latest storm does.

We've had a few hailstones, does that count? They are white after all ;-)

Ranting about the weather? Hailstones? There is a blog for that.... bloody weather!
http://jonnygibbings.wordpress.com/20...

Nice rant Jonny - so true about the weather forecast. Those forecaster guys (or gals) are muther....or whatever word you used.

Third day I've had to scrape the van window. Yes, I used a real scraper (a foot long one with a cushy handle) and not my airmiles card.

The right tool for the job. Red Green would be proud.

For the first time ever, I was glad when the hubby's snoring woke me at 3:15, since I bundled up and went out to see the meteor shower. The dog is now permanently befuddled as it's not often he sees me drag a chair out onto the lawn in the middle of the night. I saw 8 in 15 minutes, then got too cold and came back in. Definiitely worth the effort and loss of sleep.

Clouded up overnight here, so even if I'd remembered when I got up at three I wouldn't have seen any. Besides, I live in the stupid city--too many lights for good viewing!

The other day the weather report was bang on correct..

Early evening - a few centimetres of snow -10 degrees

Late evening/midnight - freezing rain 0 degrees

Early morning - Warm front +10 degrees

My experience...

Early evening - shovel snow off the step with mittens on

Late evening - take the garbage out, swear at the coating of ice on the ground and van

Morning - Leave house armed with window scraper to attack the ice coating on van, only to find puddles of water.

It's SNOWING snowflaked that stay on my nose and eyelashes!!!

Rain and wind here. As wintery as it gets.

Had a nice dusting of snow Christmas eve and the next morning was very Currier & Ives with nice white trees, grass and bushes, but nothing on the sidewalks and roads. Then snow the next two days, and more on Saturday. Now we've got over a foot - that's more than we got during ALL of last winter.

We had a ton of snow - seems to be back to normal. I told you all, the global warming thing is just a natural blip.

We had a nice surprise, the snowplow piled all the snow from the road and parking lot in the front yard of our house. Yes! 8 foot high pile to have some winter fun with - er I mean, for the kids to have fun with.
So, I made a tunnel, for the kids of course, in this giant pile and then decided I would try to squeeze through. What? It looked fun, and the other kids were doing it! Unfortunately, I'm bigger than I think.
I managed to make it through most of the tunnel, but, the end had a funny angle. I'm not as flexible as I used to be I guess? The tunnel was too small to get my arm out, and my feet kept sliding on the snow.
The kids asked if I was stuck.
I imagined them running into the house 'telling on me' that I was stuck. Then my nine month pregnant wife having to come and dig me out...so I lied. "No kids, I'm not stuck, just taking a break."
After some vigorous squirming I managed to make it through after a few minutes.
I have since enlarged the hole, but, have yet to attempt to go through again. Maybe this weekend?

Thanks for the chuckle, Bookworm!

I remember W-A-Y back in elementary school when WE got to play on the giant snow piles in the parking lot. Those were the days when nobody worried about lawsuits from parents whose kids were injured on the playground. Kids got their fingers pinched in the chains on the swings, fractured their skulls falling off the giant slide...they just dusted themselves off and kept on playing...sniff...those were the days...

I'm jealous, all we had over the holidays was wind and rain!! :-(

So want it to snow!

I'm in New Jersey and we haven't had winter for two years or so where the median temperature has been 50 degrees, it seems. And for anyone who doesn't believe global warming isn't real, I gave three of my kids snow globes for Christmas and when they shook them, nothing happened.

I am laughing and crying at that comment. It's good my kids prefer playing indoors since I fear the outdoors may one day be too radioactive to spend much time enjoying.

I allow my kids to play outside in the summer, but, only if they are wearing big oversided dorky hats. And, since most sunscreen has terrible cancer causing chemicals in it, I coat them in zinc oxide (that white chalk like stuff that doesn't soak in)...poor kids, they are going to get made fun of so bad.

Until the day they outlive their peers. Kind of an O'Henry vibe...

My boys think of the outdoors as that "thing" you have to pass through to get from the house to the car. The youngest one spent about 20 minutes outside last summer and managed to get a brush-burn, 2 splinters, and stung by a yellow jacket. The worst thing that happens to him indoors is inertia cramps from sitting still too long.

Sad, Melki. We were just looking at pictures from our 7-day backpack last summer. Our boys enjoy being out--in places like that. At home, during the school year, they mostly get out just to get to school (one bikes, the other walks 1/2 a mile to catch the bus).

My kids are always crying when I drive them to school - "we wanna walk", they screech as I tie them into their five point oversized carseats with the side impact airbags.
They love the snow, adore the rain, worship rainbows, and relish sunny weather...I'm always saying, sit still and just watch some tv. Geez, what is this world coming to?

They seem a little young to be embarrassed to be seen with their father, so it's PROBABLY not that...

Winter thaw right now. Warm enough that I gave in and barbequed some hot dogs.

There is a backstory here. One, I never give my kids crap food like hot dogs (not even those two bit veggie ones). Two, my son's favourite food is now hot dogs (probably b/c I'm anal about them). Three, it was my son's birthday and I said he could choose whatever he wanted to eat...even hot dogs.


Sadly, I ate about half a dozen. They were so good!

My youngest son won't touch hot dogs, though he is quite the connoisseur of the chicken nugget, which I believe contains the same amount of ground up animals snouts and rodent hairs as the average weiner.

We've also had a January thaw. The snow melted long enough for me to clean up all the dog poo that has been deposited in the back yard. Ah, remembrances of things passed...

I discovered that my hair is now long enough to touch the ground when I bend at the waist. That's not really a good thing when you're scooping poo.

Now I'm assuming when you guys say hot dogs you mean the really processed scary looking things that don't resemble any kind of actual food?

Personally I love a proper sausage hot dog in a fresh bread roll with proper English mustard that makes your eyes water and your noise run. Now that is worth having!

On the weather front we are finally getting a bit of snow and are forecast for between 5-10cm (which for us is loads) and I can't wait to see the chaos it causes!!

And Melki, all I can say is ewwwwwwww!