S06.E26: Weather

[PrincessPurrsALot]

Weather forecasting. Also, Stupid Watergate II: The Stupidest Watergate; NBA and China; Shepard Smith goodbye

Original air date 2019.10.13

[Lantern7]

Thanks to HBO finales, the episode starts at 11:35 p.m.

[Lantern7]

So . . . John Oliver has an impression of Eddie Vedder. I'm not sure if that's awesome or horrific. Even funnier than the old graphic of reindeer hanging off Santa's sled over the roof.

[Annber03]

Okay, John Oliver's Eddie Vedder impression is everything :D. 

Man, between the bizarre graphics and that local forecaster sarcastically ranting and whatnot, this episode had me cracking up so much. Also, "Winter Storm Anus" :p. 

But wow. Yeah, I am completely and totally shocked, I tell you, that Trump would pick somebody to work at an organization that a) has zero experience or qualifications for the job, and b) has a history of sexual harassment around them. He'd probably have Meyers making sharpie drawings for weather forecasts as well. Good lord. I'm no expert meteorologist, but hell, I'd do a better job working for the NWS. At least I actually have a genuine interest in the subject of weather. 

I seem to remember reading some grumblings online about AccuWeather's site and how it's run a while back, too. Now I know more about who's involved, that would explain a lot. Hopefully something will happen to keep Meyers from ever being able to accept that nomination-frankly, the fact that Trump's currently under investigation should be enough to render this pick invalid right there. 

(And speaking of "Stupid Watergate", here's what I want to know: do these people completely fail to understand how video and photographs work? Do they think that those videos and photos won't ever resurface or something? It's just absolutely mystifying. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the one saving grace in this whole scandal is how completely inept everyone involved is in trying to cover it all up. Certainly makes the investigation that much easier.)

Edited October 14, 2019 by Annber03

[scarynikki12]

That local weatherman was cracking me up. Ollie should include clips of him regularly. 

[Jediknight]

That bill that was presented before Congress in 2005, was introduced by Rick Santorum.  Oliver should have mentioned that, he's been on a crusade to make sure people don't get free weather data, and of course is a big supporter of AccuWeather.

Gotta love AccuWeather's hatred of other countries's models.  Weather Channel will always show both the American and Euro Models, and they've got no issue doing it, but there's AccuWeather pitching a fit.  Hell, even local stations will show 2 different models if they show something different.

I think Meyers hasn't gotten the nomination yet, is because the Republican Senators realize that people will be pissed if the weather data they got for free, is now something they have to pay for.  And for states like Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska, those forecasts are necessary.  First time a tornado cuts through a town, and people have no warning because the NWS won't share data for free, they'd be in deep deep shit.

[Annber03]

14 minutes ago, Jediknight said:

Gotta love AccuWeather's hatred of other countries's models.  Weather Channel will always show both the American and Euro Models, and they've got no issue doing it, but there's AccuWeather pitching a fit. 

That argument was insane. "Oh, no, we might look weak to other countries." Just shut up with that nonsense. 

Thanks for the backstory on Santorum's involvement as well. That definitely explains a LOT. Ugh. 

[swanpride]

Thanks to Rachel Maddows I already know that there was an issue, but pointing out the relationship between the Weather service and commerce was very interesting.

[Frisson]

Oliver’s Vedder impression especially made me laugh because he randomly had a Scottish drawl in there at some points. 

[Hooper]

I am a geek.  I am a geek in general, but I am particularly a weather geek.  So after Sharpiegate, my dearest fantasy was that it would end up being the National Weather Service that would take down the current occupant of the oval office*.   Although I have to grudgingly admit that blackmailing a foreign government into providing dirt on a political opponent is MAYBE a more serious offense than defacing a weather map, this segment of LWT gave me hope that it may yet be meteorologists who finally blow this administration and its blizzard of corruption and cruelty out to sea.  

* Well, even better would be if it were a pack of rangers with the National Park Service, but a bunch of folks who probably still know how to use a slide ruler and can wax poetic about the significance of shifting isobars for hours (ask me how I know this) striking down this administration would be nearly as sweet.

[Annber03]

2 hours ago, Hooper said:

I am a geek.  I am a geek in general, but I am particularly a weather geek.  So after Sharpiegate, my dearest fantasy was that it would end up being the National Weather Service that would take down the current occupant of the oval office*.   Although I have to grudgingly admit that blackmailing a foreign government into providing dirt on a political opponent is MAYBE a more serious offense than defacing a weather map, this segment of LWT gave me hope that it may yet be meteorologists who finally blow this administration and its blizzard of corruption and cruelty out to sea.  

* Well, even better would be if it were a pack of rangers with the National Park Service, but a bunch of folks who probably still know how to use a slide ruler and can wax poetic about the significance of shifting isobars for hours (ask me how I know this) striking down this administration would be nearly as sweet.

I am a fellow weather geek and I share in your hopes :D. That'd be awesome. 

(Random aside, but the talk of local weathermen reminded me that when I was really little, I used to love watching the weatherman on our local news program (apparently my interest in the topic has been there from an early age!). He was a kindly grandfatherly sort, and I think that's part of why I liked him. Anyway, somehow he found out I liked watching him and he actually sent me an autographed photo in response :).)

The ranting weatherman also made me think of how, after one of the tornado outbreaks that hit various states earlier this year, a local forecaster in one of those areas went off on viewers who'd been griping about them interrupting their TV shows to report on the dangerous weather. Local forecasters do not hold back with their thoughts, it seems!

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I’m glad that he brought up the absolute insanity of the Houston Rockets coach’s tweet resulting in China freaking the fuck out. As for [dramatic pause] that Smith guy going on and on about how adults think about the impact of their actions on others, uh, yeah, that’s exactly what the coach was doing. He was thinking about the millions of people in Hong Kong. 

In related news, DJ Zedd liked a tweet posted by South Park (which has been banned in China as a result of the episode that aired recently) and as a result he has been banned from China. It wasn’t even an offensive tweet. It was a tweet celebrating their 300th episode. 

[Annber03]

2 minutes ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I’m glad that he brought up the absolute insanity of the Houston Rockets coach’s tweet resulting in China freaking the fuck out. As for [dramatic pause] that Smith guy going on and on about how adults think about the impact of their actions on others, uh, yeah, that’s exactly what the coach was doing. He was thinking about the millions of people in Hong Kong. 

Seriously, I like how the athletes get dumped on and criticized for daring to express their views, but these corporate higher ups kowtowing to political demands as they do is perfectly okay. 

I don't follow sports (I was sitting here during Oliver's rant about those players like, "...'kay, I got as far as you mentioning the guy's wingspan and then I got lost" :p), so that was my introduction to Smith. He seems...interesting, to say the least. 

[meowmommy]

8 minutes ago, Annber03 said:

I don't follow sports (I was sitting here during Oliver's rant about those players like, "...'kay, I got as far as you mentioning the guy's wingspan and then I got lost" :p), so that was my introduction to Smith.

Stephen A. has quite the reputation, none of it good.  How so many others at ESPN have lost their jobs and he's kept his is a mystery for the ages.

20 hours ago, Annber03 said:

Okay, John Oliver's Eddie Vedder impression is everything :D.

If only I'd ever heard of him.  So the impression was completely lost on me.

I thought when John said it was a bad idea to name a storm Janus, he was going to launch into the shitstorm coming from Janice in Accounting.  But yes, the naming of winter storms irks the shit out of me.  And I'm not within 200 miles of anywhere a winter storm might arrive.  (But where I live, it's so relentlessly sunny that the Weather Channel app doesn't predict thunderstorms until we're in mid-drench.)

I remember AccuWeather from my college days in the 70s, only because they're based in State College, PA, which is where my alma mater resides.  

Weather forecasting and information dissemination should be the one area free from private sector competition and public sector interference, but after the Sharpie disaster, it seems that's not possible.

Probably it's just me, but the whole show felt flat to me.  Not terribly funny and not terribly interesting.

[Annber03]

6 minutes ago, meowmommy said:

If only I'd ever heard of him.  So the impression was completely lost on me.

He's the lead singer of the rock band Pearl Jam :). 

Quote

I thought when John said it was a bad idea to name a storm Janus, he was going to launch into the shitstorm coming from Janice in Accounting.  But yes, the naming of winter storms irks the shit out of me.  And I'm not within 200 miles of anywhere a winter storm might arrive.  (But where I live, it's so relentlessly sunny that the Weather Channel app doesn't predict thunderstorms until we're in mid-drench.)

Hell, I do live in an area that gets hit by snowstorms often and I guarantee nobody here gives a shit about what a winter storm is called :p. Everyone's too busy grumbling about the snow they're going to shovel and the ice they'll have to scrape off their windshields and whatnot. I'm not really sure why they needed to start that trend, either. 

[meowmommy]

29 minutes ago, Annber03 said:

I do live in an area that gets hit by snowstorms often

I used to.  That's why I don't live there any more.

Last time I cared about a winter storm, I was getting ready to drive from Winston-Salem, NC to Rochester, NY in February, and DirecTV had dropped the Weather Channel in a dispute.  I was not a happy camper.

But I know you're not old enough to remember when if you missed your 6 o'clock local news, you missed the weather forecast until 11 pm.  If you needed it on demand, you dialed a number (which I forget, but it was the same everywhere) and listened to a recording.

[Annber03]

Just now, meowmommy said:

Last time I cared about a winter storm, I was getting ready to drive from Winston-Salem, NC to Rochester, NY in February, and DirecTV had dropped the Weather Channel in a dispute.  I was not a happy camper.

I heard about that, yeah. That kind of thing seems to happen a lot with DirecTV. 

I loved them showing more of the Weather Channel's ridiculous graphics. I was talking about this episode with somebody who lived in another country and I was like, "That's not an exaggeration, they really are that bonkers."

Quote

But I know you're not old enough to remember when if you missed your 6 o'clock local news, you missed the weather forecast until 11 pm.  If you needed it on demand, you dialed a number (which I forget, but it was the same everywhere) and listened to a recording.

Oh, man. That does sound like a pain. Must've been especially fun for truckers and other people who had to travel cross-country for some reason :/. 

[xaxat]

17 hours ago, Jediknight said:

That bill that was presented before Congress in 2005, was introduced by Rick Santorum. 

That's the first name that came to mind when I saw this. He's been working on privatizing the info from the NWS for decades.

One thing John failed to mention is that tropical storms get names because the meet certain definitions. Meeting those definitions is what makes them dangerous. It's not a bunch of meteorologists saying "Wow, that's a big storm."

So McConnell is sitting on Meyers' nomination? That's a vote of no confidence. Mitch managed to get Carson in as head of HUD even after Carson publicly said was wasn't qualified.

Believe it or not, that was actually the "calm" version of Stephen A. Smith.

Shep Smith's comment about wanting to bring back the porn stores to Times Square made me laugh. I remember those days. One time I was walking with a friend there and laughed at a joke he told. A nearby pimp yelled that he was going to cut me because he thought I was laughing at him. Good times.

[purist]

11 hours ago, meowmommy said:

Probably it's just me, but the whole show felt flat to me.  Not terribly funny and not terribly interesting.

Huh. I found this episode absolutely fascinating. Funny, too!

[walnutqueen]

14 hours ago, meowmommy said:

But I know you're not old enough to remember when if you missed your 6 o'clock local news, you missed the weather forecast until 11 pm.  If you needed it on demand, you dialed a number (which I forget, but it was the same everywhere) and listened to a recording.

The good ole days of dial up weather.  We also had dial up time ("at the tone, Pacific Daylight Time will be  10:45 and 20 seconds").

14 hours ago, Annber03 said:

Oh, man. That does sound like a pain. Must've been especially fun for truckers and other people who had to travel cross-country for some reason :/. 

And yet, we survived.  It's a fucking miracle, eh!

[DoctorAtomic]

Truckers had CB radio though. They could get road and weather. 

[RedbirdNelly]

It was called "time and temperature" where I lived and you called to simply get the time and the temperature. Nothing more.

I use the weather channel online to check forecasts so every time he shows their crazy graphics I'm really shocked by it. Those are crazy. I thought one he showed on an earlier show made some sense (or maybe I saw it somewhere else?) where they showed what 3 feet of flooding looked like, then 8 feet or something. . .it actually provided some value because on some level it's hard to picture "if that storm surge is actually X feet, what does that mean"--not that I would sit around to find out.

I loved his Eddie impression because it matched what I hear every time I hear that song. Mumble mumble. It's why I've never gotten Pearl Jam or a lot of grunge bands.

[meowmommy]

6 minutes ago, RedbirdNelly said:

It was called "time and temperature" where I lived and you called to simply get the time and the temperature. Nothing more.

We had time and temperature, for sure, but there was also a number specifically to get a short weather forecast.  You could even call the number in another city, just by changing the area code, to see what the weather would be there.  

[RedbirdNelly]

21 minutes ago, meowmommy said:

We had time and temperature, for sure, but there was also a number specifically to get a short weather forecast.  You could even call the number in another city, just by changing the area code, to see what the weather would be there.  

we had no such thing. I grew up before dopplar radar warnings, so tornado warning meant "someone actually saw a funnel on the ground." By the time the local news people told you that, in my rural area 1 hour away we were most likely without electricity so you never heard it. When we were hit by a tornado, the only advance warning was because my dad was a volunteer firefighter. The "real" firefighters in town 15 minutes away would call out on this box in our house when there was a fire. That day, it was pouring rain/bad storming--the box went off and heard "there's  a tornado coming your way." we had enough time to run from the kitchen to the hallway (our "safe"place) and it was there. Luckily not doing major damage on our house but it took out a few house down the road.

[xaxat]

On 10/15/2019 at 12:19 PM, walnutqueen said:

We also had dial up time ("at the tone, Pacific Daylight Time will be  10:45 and 20 seconds").

I loved the US Navy version. "This is the Master Clock!"

[ElectricBoogaloo]

On 10/14/2019 at 5:36 PM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I’m glad that he brought up the absolute insanity of the Houston Rockets coach’s tweet resulting in China freaking the fuck out. As for [dramatic pause] that Smith guy going on and on about how adults think about the impact of their actions on others, uh, yeah, that’s exactly what the coach was doing. He was thinking about the millions of people in Hong Kong. 

In related news, DJ Zedd liked a tweet posted by South Park (which has been banned in China as a result of the episode that aired recently) and as a result he has been banned from China. It wasn’t even an offensive tweet. It was a tweet celebrating their 300th episode. 

On 10/14/2019 at 5:41 PM, Annber03 said:

Seriously, I like how the athletes get dumped on and criticized for daring to express their views, but these corporate higher ups kowtowing to political demands as they do is perfectly okay.

And now LeBron James is getting in on this. He said that he Daryl Morey wasn't "educated on the situation at hand" when he tweeted about Hong Kong. Uhhhh, and how educated are you on the situation at hand, LeBron? What exactly do you think all of these people have been protesting about since March?

He also said Morey was only thinking about himself and not others when he tweeted about Hong Kong, which is just absurd. Yeah, sorry that Morey was being selfish and thinking about the people in Hong Kong who are being oppressed instead of putting your bank account ahead of them.

According to this article, LeBron wanted Morey to be punished for his comments.

And South Park managed to get in a dig at LeBron and his comment in this week's episode. Heh, I guess South Park figured well, we're already banned in China so why not?

Edited October 17, 2019 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Jediknight]

On 10/16/2019 at 10:55 AM, RedbirdNelly said:

I use the weather channel online to check forecasts so every time he shows their crazy graphics I'm really shocked by it. Those are crazy. I thought one he showed on an earlier show made some sense (or maybe I saw it somewhere else?) where they showed what 3 feet of flooding looked like, then 8 feet or something. . .it actually provided some value because on some level it's hard to picture "if that storm surge is actually X feet, what does that mean"--not that I would sit around to find out.

The crazy graphics are because some people will think that the current weather situation isn't a big issue, and the Weather Channel is showing them that yeah, it is a big freaking issue.  So take cover, or drive slowly.

I will admit that I do use AccuWeather's free site sometimes.  Of course, that's during the summer and when storms are firing up.  I'll be checking Weather Channel, KAKE's website (outing myself as a Kansas peep), and AccuWeather, to see what each is saying.  You want as much data as possible to know what's going down.

Edited October 19, 2019 by Jediknight

[MaryPatShelby]

On 10/14/2019 at 8:04 PM, meowmommy said:

If only I'd ever heard of him.  So the impression was completely lost on me.

Trust us; the impression was dead on. 

[ebk57]

On 10/16/2019 at 12:03 PM, meowmommy said:

We had time and temperature, for sure, but there was also a number specifically to get a short weather forecast.  You could even call the number in another city, just by changing the area code, to see what the weather would be there.  

It was WEA (938)-1212 for weather and TII (844)-1212 here.  Clever, huh...  I'm tempted to dial them up to see if they still work, but I think I'll pass just in case those are real phone numbers and I piss someone off. 

[Lantern7]

On 10/14/2019 at 9:04 PM, meowmommy said:

If only I'd ever heard of [Eddie Vedder].  So the impression was completely lost on me.

Are you a Millennial? A Boomer? Basically, he's the front man for the band Pearl Jam, which gained prominence in the early-Nineties era of grunge rock. This is the video from "Alive," the song that John was "singing":

[xaxat]

On 10/20/2019 at 12:10 PM, MaryPatShelby said:

Trust us; the impression was dead on. 

The funny thing is that everyone of a certain age has done that exact same impersonation. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

9 minutes ago, xaxat said:

The funny thing is that everyone of a certain age has done that exact same impersonation. 

[DoctorAtomic]

Pearl Jam was playing in the airport bathroom and I totally died. 

[Manda317]

On 10/20/2019 at 1:51 PM, ebk57 said:

It was WEA (938)-1212 for weather and TII (844)-1212 here.  Clever, huh...  I'm tempted to dial them up to see if they still work, but I think I'll pass just in case those are real phone numbers and I piss someone off. 

I remember this!! I believe the number here was 345-2121, and you got temp and time. I am not sure if you got a forecast or not. I don't know if I am sad or excited that I have reached an age (29) when I can remember things that younger people would find stupid lol.

On 10/23/2019 at 9:04 AM, Lantern7 said:

Are you a Millennial? A Boomer? Basically, he's the front man for the band Pearl Jam, which gained prominence in the early-Nineties era of grunge rock. This is the video from "Alive," the song that John was "singing":

I didn't know who he was either lol. I did recognize Pearl Jam though, but I have never heard any of their music. Now I have.

[xaxat]

The US Naval Observatory master clock phone number is still live.

202-762-1401

I'm pretty sure it's the same voice recording from decades ago.

[b2H]

On 10/14/2019 at 8:53 PM, meowmommy said:

......

But I know you're not old enough to remember when if you missed your 6 o'clock local news, you missed the weather forecast until 11 pm.  If you needed it on demand, you dialed a number (which I forget, but it was the same everywhere) and listened to a recording.

 I the category of ‘Dumb Stuff I Remember’. In Philadelphia, the number was WE7-1212.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Ha, this kid got on the dance cam at a Clippers game and then held up a shirt supporting Hong Kong.

[xaxat]

The Washington Post takes on AccuWeather's bogus thirty day plus "forecasts".