Hey Freak!

I'm suffering from fire burnout, pardon the pun. All day, for the past two days, on every local channel, it's been all about FIRESTORM 2007. No other programming. No commercials. Just fire. All fire, all the time. I feel kinda bad for saying that, since the fire is pretty important, and many people have lost their homes, but damn... do we really need fire coverage for 48 hours straight? On five different channels? I mean, why not just go with your normal programming, except with a news crawl with important fire info (numbers to call for evacuation status, etc), and then just have an update during every commercial break? As it is now, like I said, it's non-stop fire news. And really, most of it consists of the same fire-related stories played over and over and over. You know how you can turn CNN on, and they re-run basically the same stories every half hour? Well, that's what this fire news is like... except they re-run the stories every ten minutes or so.

I dunno. It's like the local media wants us to be in a panic. Oh, wait.

So, with that in mind, here's something that's pretty much meaningless, but it's necessary. To me. As a fun diversion. Travelandleisure.com has put up a few lists, ranking major cities in various categories. I don't know how they compiled these lists, so don't ask me. I'm just reporting, so to speak.

Who's got the most attractive people? San Diego is in there at #2. Miami, Fl, holds the top spot in that one.

Who's got the friendliest people? Bah, San Diego's down at #13? Behind Chicago? Really? Obviously, these surveys were done by white folks. Seriously, I've never met so many racist people (and xenophobes) than when I lived in Chicago. I never experienced the legendary "midwest hospitality" that I had heard so much about. But, OK, maybe I'm wrong. Chicago's friendlier than San Diego. And who's #1... Charleston, SC? Really? OK, so maybe I'm right about the surveys being done by only white folks. (I kid! I kid! Calm down, SCarolinans)

There are a number of listed categories. Most Intelligent (people). Most Stylish. Most Fun. You can check 'em out yourself, but the big tamale, the Best People (overall)... well, San Diego's in there at #4. Not bad. San Diego, represent!

And now, back to fire coverage...

BTW... "meaningless, but necessary." I think I just found my new tagline.

Hey, well you may not be able to AFFORD to live in Seattle but we have the best coffee. Woot. Go Coffee!

Hahahah....

Hey! Seattle's got the most intelligent people, lacroix...booyah!

yeah, well, i live in the most affordable and least stylish city. woohoo!

love,
your cheap and (apparently) ugly friend in texass!

Thanks for checking in and letting us know you're ok.

THERE! Now you know at least ONE friendly person in Chicago. But yeah, for the most part, people here are total butt munches.

What?! How did SB not make the list of most attractive people?! Seriously, whenever people visit, it's one of the things they always marvel over...how every chick walking down the street is hot.

This list is obviously biased!

Sorry about the lack of regular programming--that would be really annoying. I agree--best way would be to flash updates during breaks and have a scrollbar with updates and phone numbers.

I lived in Chicago for a few years and I'm surprised you found the people to be racist. Course, I'm white so what do I know? But, my husband is not white and he never sensed any racism either. I love Chicago. (I love San Diego more though.)

Cool lists!

They didn't use very many cities. I'm always surprised people choose to poll Dallas over Houston. Dallas isn't as big as Houston (hi, fourth largest city, y'all) and it's still stuck in the 80s. Acid wash denim and aqua net, dude.

And anyway--that Los Angeles was even in the vicinity of the "Friendliest People" listing shows how flawed their polling is. Unless by friendly, they mean helping to lodge that knife further into someone's back.

hey, just thought Id say thanks for stopping by my blog--and then read your blog--and now I have 'Rich Girl' from Hall and Oats stuck in my head. Gah! If H and O, couldnt it at least be Outta Touch in my head?

laters

i'll tell you, though, when they were evacuating north of us, you better believe i had that shit on 24/7.

i guess it all depends on how close you were to the fires? i was glad for the 24/7 coverage, because it let us know what was going on, so we'd have plenty of time to leave if we needed to.

fortunately, it changed direction and we didn't need to. but the knowledge helped, for me at least.

Glad to hear you're okay.

All the TV and radio stations went wall-to-wall because if they hadn't, they would've been accused of being insensitive and how dare they not cover this pressing news story when everyone else was. No one wanted to be the odd man out who would seem like they didn't care enough.

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