Irene Gets Nekkid!!

Is it safe to come out? Its Wednesday, August 31, 2011, my brother's birthday is tomorrow, and this is The Side. I was driving home the other day when I got a phone call. I didn't recognize the number. A little girl was on the other end and queried, "Can I ask you a question about super heroes?" For a brief time I figured that my nerd rep had spread to the point that my phone number was being distributed to anyone who may have a burning question concerning super heroes. The question was asked. I answered. I was thanked. And it was over leaving me to wonder who the heck I had just talked to.

Part of me didn't want to know, as it was a blissful moment. Turns out it was my dear niece, who knows full well that her uncle is a big old nerd. She knows this because my brother, who is soon to be old like me, told her.

STORMY WEATHER!!

Hurricane Irene was pretty anti-climatic here at the Nozz Compound. We never lost power, and had a reliable internet connection all day. Clean up afterwards wasn't terrible. Had a couple branches land on the roof, but no damage. Now I feel a little bit silly not posting on Sunday, but at the same time you don't know what's going to happen with these things. You can get through most of the storm and then a tree comes down and hits your house, or you lose power and not get it back for a week. So I pretty much just hung out and kept an eye on things. I actually had a two day weekend. Felt kinda weird.

There wasn't a ton of damage, and there was quite a bit of overhyping the storm. I think everyone is afraid now of not giving one of these storms enough attention and then we get another Katrina. Yes, it was kinda overblown with the coverage, although the guy flashing the live Weather Channel camera was hilarious, but it wasn't much ado about nothing. It was still a hurricane. People still died. People did have stuff destroyed. An old family friend lost trees in their yard. Best we can figure is a tornado or something did a touch and go. His house is wrecked and he and his wife could have been seriously hurt. Fortunately both of them are fine.

When I did finally get to Sandbridge a lot of people were still without power, but the power company was really on top of things and by the time this gets posted they should all have their power back down there. The damage was worse the further south I went down there. A tornado had touched down out there and turned a two story beach house into a one story beach house.

I did run into a reporter as I was doing damage assessments. Real nice guy, and a very tired one too. he had 26 hours of overtime the prior week and this week was looking like a long one too. He agreed that calling this storm "the storm of the century" was pretty dumb, but in his business they're damned if they and they're damned if they don't. If they stress heavily how dangerous these storms are they're accused of "overhyping", and if they treat it like "OK, we've been through these before, you people know the drill, watch yourselves and stay safe" they get accused of not doing their jobs and warning people.

I guess we'll see if there's any adjustments to their coverage with Katia on her way.

PR0N!!

Let's talk about some porn. And no I'm not talking about the HIV case that has temporarily shut down the LA porn industry thus leaving poor pervies to have to watch skanky amateurs for new material to rough up the suspect to. Not too long ago you could actually find a few comic books on the magazine racks in the 7-11s around here. Then I noticed that the magazine racks started to go missing from the stores, and I asked about it.

7-11 was phasing out of having magazine racks. They were still planning on carrying a few magazines at the counter, but racks were on their way out. I though about this, and I guess will people getting more and more information through electronic means, it was inevitable, but I didn't think it would happen this soon. It was so odd to me because I always glance at the magazine racks. I also always check out book shelves. But I figured that this was coming to an end, at least at 7-11.

But then last week, I went to the 7-11 around the corner to grab a couple things and saw the magazine rack had returned. I was happy and then went to engage my slightly OCD habit of seeing what magazines they had. No comics this time around, which bummed me out a little bit. Then I looked at the top shelf, and it was porn mags. Not just a few copies of Playboy either. I'm talking the smutty smut! Club, Hustler, and Cheri were all there. Holy crap.

I've got no beef with the smutty smut but, I'm not comfortable with it in my 7-11. It needs to be over at Getty Mart, because that's the convenience store of choice for your smutty smut needs. I go to that 7-11 all the time. The people who work there recognize me. I always check out the magazine rack, and I probably still will to see what articles are in Men's Health or maybe check out a video game magazine. But I'm not cool with the nice girl behind the counter thinking that I'm over there ogling the smutty smut. We have our little pseudo-relationship, and it does not involve smutty smut. Now there's a smutty smut peripheral.

I'm also kinda bummed that there's no comics on the rack anymore. They didn't have many, but having a little something over there might lure in a new a reader or two, and that's important. I got nearly all my comics from 7-11s and grocery stores when I was a kid. I'm kinda sad that a kid can't see a Spider-man comic randomly in a 7-11 and maybe get his dad to buy it for him.

Of course, he'd only be able to buy it if he had money left over after buying a copy of Hustler.

MUSIC!!

This is another one of those times in which I dug the video and the song was alright. Here we go.



That's all for today. Once again, Happy Birthday to Big Matt Nozz tomorrow! We'll see y'all Friday.