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.