Saturday, February 9, 2013

The Weather Channel has pissed off practically the entire meteorologist community by their decisions to begin to start naming ordinary here-today-gone-tomorrow winter storms like the one that’s presently surging over the northeast side of the country day rather than reserving to tag more severe weather anomalies like the tropical storm Sandy that hit last year. And what’s worse is that the execs at the station made this decision without any confirmation from the rest of the more, shall we say professional, forecasting community. “The idea,” according to Bryan Norcross, senior executive director of weather content for the company, “was to draw more attention to storms and get people to prepare.” But irate meteorologists across the land, who are lamenting publicly on what they think is just a publicity stunt for the station, say that the potential danger of making a big whoopdedoo about every seasonable winter storm could eventually numb the public to responding appropriately to more dangerous weather. Aaah! The old Boy-Who-Cried-Wolf syndrome… 

A spokeswoman for the National Weather Service, which names tropical storms like hurricanes, said the agency has no position on the Weather Channel’s decision to name winter storms. Also no word on which Nemo the brain trust at TWC had in mind when naming this present storm. Was it the  cute little clown fish from the Disney Pixar movie or the ancient mariner, Captain Nemo from the literary works of science fiction writer Jules Verne?…I’m guessing the clown fish.

LITTLE KNOWN FACT: Nemo also means “The Man” in the African Oromo language, which would also be another silly name for a storm.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

The Golden Age of Hip-Hop: Radio Station 107.5 WBLS spins “Golden Era Radio” every Friday night from 8pm to 10pm, featuring the best of 70’s, 80’s and 90’s hip-hop music with the legendary MarleyMarl and RoxanneShante. Damn, there are times when living in the past could be a good thing. I would love for these so called present day rap artists to assimilate just one iota of what the old crew used to throw down in the day. You would think that rapping about Bitches, Money & Hoes would have played itself out by now, wouldn’t it?

Actor Will Smith‘s daughter, Willow, turned turned down the role to play the little orphan girl Annie in her father’s remake of  “Annie”. Will’s production company Overbrook Entertainment recently hired “Easy A” director Will Gluck to guide the production to the big screen, as well as Willow in the lead role. Speaking at Temple University in Philadelphia this week, Smith said that Willow herself ask to not be put in the film: