Sept. 13 Tropics Report

Ike at 3PM CDT, 9/13/08

Tropical Storm Ike (Yes, it's been downgraded!!!) is now moving to the east of Dallas with top winds of 60mph. It made landfall at 2AM local time, right over Galveston. So far, there are four deaths related to the storm, which is miraculous considering how many people remained in their homes. There does seem to be widespread, but not catastrophic damage.

Downtown Houston got the broken glass they expected. In the JP Morgan Chase building, the windows blew out, and office furniture was blown over to the parking structure across the street.

As Ike dissipates, it will merge with a frontal system and bring plenty of rain to the already-drenched Midwest.

Otherwise, the tropics are quiet, especially for this time of year.

Because You All Love It So Much...Introducing "Benny Lava"!

Another Indian music video with funny English "translations"!

This one from the original, buffalax. Have you been high today? (Click the video to get the joke).

Random Video #5

Who knows what you'll get? I know there's a Missy Elliott video in there somewhere, if you look.

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

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.