Sept. 12 Tropics Report

Hurricane Ike is still bearing down on the north Texas coast, now with 110mph winds. The center is still 90 miles offshore, but the storm surge has been flooding Galveston Island for hours. Most of the Texas and Louisiana coast are experiencing tropical storm force gusts now, if not sustained winds.

The core of the storm is not far off now. The weather should really start disintegrating soon.

The approximate path that Ike is heading on. This will take it just to the west of Galveston, a worst-case scenario for the city.

Other than Ike, not much brewing in the tropics aside from a couple of shower clusters in the Atlantic.

Tropical Alert: Galveston Flooding

This isn't the main tropical report for the day - that's coming up. I've got CNN on in the background, and while Hurricane Ike is still 8-10 hours from landfall, and they're only getting the outer rain bands so far...but the issue is the storm surge, which could reach 20-25 feet. The waves are already so high, that they're coming over Galveston's seawall, flooding this city of 58,000.

The scary part? An estimated 15,000 residents decided not to heed the mandatory evacuations, and now face a very real risk of drowning in their homes. :(

Main tropical report coming later this afternoon.

Poll: Is This Racist?

I have recently made an interesting but hilarious discovery on YouTube. You see, there's this little group on there that likes to take music videos from India, and "translate" them into English. What this really means is that the subtitles are what the Hindi (or Telugu) words sound like if they were singing in English.

For example...well, check this out. Here is the Telugu version of Michael Jackson's "Thriller":



OK, that video really was looking for that. That was just hilarious, even without the "translation". It was done by the YouTube user "buffalax", who now has a wave of followers, such as the person who did the next video. Here's a sexy number that was, again, "translated" into English. *WARNING* May be NSFW. Depends on how much of a tightass your boss is. Rated PG-13.



Here's the thing. I think the whole thing is hilarious, but does that make me racist? Does that make the "translators" racist? I think probably not. I think it's just fun wordplay. I really like Indian music videos, even though I never know what the hell is going on in any of them. This just gives them a...twist!

Please correct me if I'm wrong, though.

Sept. 11 Tropics Report

Ike at 4PM CDT, 9/11/08

Hurricane Ike hasn't changed much in the past 24 (OK, 27) hours. Ike is still a Category 2 hurricane packing 100mph winds. It's also a HUGE storm, covering an area in the Gulf from Florida to Cancun to New Orleans.

What HAS changed is the projected path of the storm. Now, the track has shifted back northward, with the Cone Of Uncertainty reaching from Corpus Christi to Cameron, LA. right in the middle lie Galveston and Houston, which would get a direct hit based on this path.

Ike's projected path as of Sept. 11, 2008. The line goes about 30 miles from Galveston and Houston, but could strike as far as 150 miles away in either direction.

Sadly, that means that a lot of people who were affected by Katrina have to go through this all over again. Houston is where a great deal of Katrina survivors settled, including people who were stuck in the Superdome.

It also means that oil rigs are going to be shut down for a while.

The Galveston area is already under an evacuation order, as this article discusses. If you live in or near this area, PLEASE be on alert. We may have a Category 3 or 4 storm before this is all said and done.

Remembering 9/11

It was seven years ago today that the course of world history was radically changed by some terrorists and a few hijacked airplanes. Let's have a moment of silence if you haven't gone there already.

Done? OK. Let's continue.

We all know the history, and while I feel the need to pay tribute on this day (I did grow up in and near NYC, after all), I don't want my blog to turn into anything morbid. I was one of those people who nearly drove themselves crazy being glued to the news for the remainder of the year, so I don't want to go back to that dark, dark place. Despite this tragedy, there is life out there and a lot of things in the world to make us smile. That is why I am posting this video of a very lovable cat.



You can check out some 9/11 videos by clicking on this sentence.

Please leave a comment and tell me where you were on that day.

Random Video #4: The YouTube Gossip Show Edition

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com