Some Like it Hot...Do you?

New Berlin reader, friend and Suburpia connoisseur, Michael Vukovic alertly called today’s column topic.  He did so last Monday.

“How can you not write about the weather?” Mike asked. “People will be thinking of nothing else this week.”

Mike is right.  As proof of weather preoccupation, I picked his wallet. Four bucks and an expired car wash coupon. He can have it back when the temps drop back to the 70’s.

Weather is a huge business – one with an impressive marketing budget, dedicated cable networks, and whenever it wants it, lead-story status.  Weather has Viper Radar.  Do you?  No, I didn’t think so.

We are taught this lesson at a young age: Don’t mess with weather. 

And we do not.  We revere weather.  We want to tease John Malan for his silly hairpiece, but we do not.  Why?  He is one fine Weatherman.  Weathermen are, without question, special. Miraculously, Weathermen can take 30 seconds of material and stretch it into a 17 minute broadcast. It is not Jesus and a loaf of bread, but it is right up there.

Weather is serious stuff.  We have weather clichés.  We have weather idioms.  We have weather quizzes. Look, here comes one now…

ITB Weather Quiz:

1)       Is it ___

1. the heat
2. the humidity
3. the end of the world as we know it
4. July

2)       Relative humidity describes ___

1. just how wet Uncle Ted gets at the Summer Family Reunion.
2. the amount of water vapor in a mixture of air and water vapor. It is defined as the partial pressure of water vapor in the air-water mixture, given as a percentage of the saturated vapor pressure under those conditions.
3. the reason your hair looks like that.
4. What is up with choice “b”?

3)       Before praying for cooler weather it is best to ___

1. check Pope Benedict XVI’s 7 day forecast.
2. get it straight… Is it “hot as hell” or “cold as hell”?
3. remember January.
4. check with the cicadas and see if they had enough quality shrill time.

4)       It is rude to ___

1. dew point.
2. point out other people’s pit stains (Each salt ring means one hour of profuse sweating).
3. write a column with no actual point.
4. not adore graduates of UW – Stevens Point.

5)       At -370 F, Uranus is the coldest place in our Solar System. Why is it so cold on Uranus? ___

1. Unlike the other Gas Giants, Uranus is not generating any heat.
2. Don’t be embarrassed, but Uranus has a bizarre rotation.
3. Uranus was involved in a violent collision which left your Uranus sideways.
4. All of the above.

6)       Talk about hot, the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T is ___

1. $12.00 at Old Navy.
2. Bob Marley’s band before The Wailers.
3. at 1,476,300 Scoville Heat Units, it is the hottest pepper in the world, a zillion times hotter than Tabasco sauce.  Yes, a zillion.  Pop a couple in your mouth to find out if I am making that up.
4. A spider that, while evil, will eat the Japanese beetles that – at this very moment – are devastating your Flowering Plum.

7)       ‘Extended forecast’ is to ‘accuracy’ as ___

1. ‘Cubs’ is to ‘winning’
2. ‘Vikings’ is to ‘Super Bowl Champions’
3. ‘Dusk’ is to ‘dawn’
4. All the above

8)       When it is 35 degrees Celsius, it is ___

1. time to tell your kids to quit playing with the ‘F/C’ button on the dash.
2. time to whip out that pocket calculator and impress your friends with a little ‘Tf = (9/5)*(Tc+32)’ action.
3. 95 degrees Fahrenheit.
4. This is America, damn it.  Stuff that metric crap on a light rail train headed to France.

9)       Mark Twain is credited with saying ___

1. “That wasn’t me with your wife.  That was Samuel Clemens.”
2. “Playoff plans abort when Bentancourt is at short.”
3. “Kiss me. Ki-ki-kiss me. Infect me with your love and fill me with your poison.”
4. “Everyone talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.”

10)   Thermometers ___

1. should be avoided until September.
2. must be really big on Uranus.
3. measure temperature, a physical property that quantitatively expresses the common notion of hot and cold.
4. make fine wedding gifts when you really do not know the couple all that well.

That is it.  Pencils down. 

Hey, you got an ‘A’… You are, despite the weather,  so cool!