Respect Authority

The relentless onslaught of snow and wind let up for about five seconds this weekend, so I ventured out into the unforgiving wasteland in the hopes of getting some photos, actually interacting with the living, and throwing snowballs at the school bus and then running away before my mom finds out.

Of course, you remember what they told you about the yellow snow. That’s right, it has great lymon taste! You know what to do — obey your thirst^TM.
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Did you know that at the height of World War II, Soviet Russia would send its prisoners of war to brutal forced labor camps buried deep in the tundra of Chicago, Illinois? The inhospitable environment there lent itself to the demoralization of the inmates and provided a general atmosphere of hopelessness and dread. It’s true, and maybe you’d know that if you read a book once and a while, hm?

Fast forward to the present, and it’s not hard to imagine what those conditions must have been like. It snowed Tuesday and Wednesday. I can’t really remember if it snowed Thursday, but it snowed yesterday. And, oh, get this, the weather forecast has just informed me that it will snow for the next four days in a row as well. Looking out my window into the white abyss, it’s easy to feel like a prisoner myself, hot tears streaming down my face like rivulets of spilled borscht.

Having a lot of snow on the forecast in Chicago doesn’t hold quite the same meaning as it does in a cramped, sweaty Williamsburg party. Fortunately, Chicago’s only advantage in this arena is that I can at least sleep through the nightmare, which is, absolutely, my intention. Frankly, I’ve really grown an appreciation for this whole “hibernation” thing our mammalian cousins enjoy this time of year.

Granted, even when it’s all you ever see, snow has a kind of desolate, serene beauty to it. And everybody is always thrilled at the first magical snowfall of the year (even when that happened to take place in October, and is, more importantly, a dark portent of the next six months of your life). But let’s not get to fooling ourselves — femmes fatales are beautiful too, it’s precisely where they derive their power. If you want to see the true side of snow, think about the slop of ice, slush, and mud you have to trod through on the sidewalk every day while you’re going to work. Doodoo water. That’s what I call it.

Also, a surplus of snow only makes it easier for the Abominable Snowman to hide. NOT GOOD.

Honestly, I don’t care if each individual snowflake is unique. When there are this many of them falling at once, they all just look like the same pain in the ass.

The Pheonix Lander has observed A FLAKE OF SNOW FALLING FROM A MARTIAN CLOUD ON MARS.

Fuck my cat and call me Carl Sagan!

In other space news, Pharrell presented Quincy Jones an award for being alive when Fly Me To The Moon was recorded.

[thanks nasa!]