Wonder if Anyone Will Mention Climate Change?

Hurricane Sandy broke a lot of records this year. Also, this is the second year in a row a hurricane has hit NYC. This is not some freak accident or fluke - this is clearly the effect of global warming (more extreme weather events, more destruction, enormous costs, more lives lost...), but I have a sneaking suspicion neither of our presidential candidates will mention it, and that the media will largely ignore it (except for ThinkProgress, of course!).

Eerily Dark Downtown

Check out how spooky and dark downtown looked last night over at TPM. It's really weird seeing the city in total darkness. The sound of the wind through the World Trade Center's new tower was especially creepy.

Jimmy Fallon Also Taped Last Night!

Good for him! It's really funny watching these guys perform with no audience. He's doing a great job!



(Or too bad for him/his staff that his network forced him to tape in a hurricane!)

[via The Comic's Comic]

Letterman - Still Kickin' It!

Even during hurricane Sandy, Letterman taped!



Thankfully, I got to spend yesterday snuggled up in blankets with candles, and the fiance had plenty of "Modern Family" and "California's Gold" on his iPad to keep up occupied.

10:25am: Hurricalypse Overcalypse?

Earlier this morning, around seven or eight, the wind and rain woke up the boyfriend and me. We watched it for a little while, but it wasn't too bad or scary. We went back to sleep, and when we woke up again it had all passed.

No more rain, no more wind, just quiet. We just saw a greyhound being walked outside. The weather reporters are commenting on trees falling in Brooklyn (I thought they only grew there?... Get it?) and low level flooding outside of New York. I think their main purpose now is to give kids and joggers a chance to get on TV.

Manhattan seems to have escaped the worst, which is great. The subway may still take a day or two to work properly, which may make businesses slow to reopen, but it looks like we made it!

What are we going to do with all those burger buns and peanut butter? PB BBQ!

1:18am: The Hurricane Hurrican't

So our rain is still moderate to heavy, but nothing crazy yet. Looks like I won't be relaying any interesting coverage tonight.

We've grown tired of Settlers and moved onto The Twilight Zone and laptop time.

I think we're hitting the hay soon, and then who knows? We may be awoken by hurricane sounds in the morning, or it may be so tame we sleep through the whole thing, wake up tomorrow and just hope the power's still on.

We shall see!

10:50pm: The News Really Tries to Make the Hurricalypse Interesting

After two games of Settlers of Cattan, I've lost by the most twice - TWICE! How shameful.

The only good news besides the fact that it's still only raining outside is that it's been pretty fun watching the reporters try to make it sound interesting. The same reporters have been outside with umbrellas and raincoats all day, just standing there and sometimes talking to un-evacuated people watching the storm - I can't imagine how impossibly boring and uncomfortable that must be. How wet are their socks?? Very wet, is my guess.

My favorite moment was when they talked about some guys who were surfing back before the rain got too hard. "Now, I want to stress. No one should be surfing right now. That being said, the waves are the perfect condition for surfing."

Also, watching Mayor Bloomberg try to speak Spanish is gold. His saying that "New York is the greatest city in the world" in a dejected, "Why do I have to do a press conference right now?" voice was also excellent.

8:35pm: The Hurricalypse Slowly Continues

So far, so much of nothing. It's rain slowly and intermittently. We've had a delicious dinner of pasta, vegetables, and bread. Now we're settling in to play a few rounds of Settlers of Cattan. I've never played before, but it's really fun, if somewhat frustrating.

Really I feel like we're more or else having a fun slumber party than anything else, but the weather guys are thinking we're not going to have any real problems until tomorrow morning at high tide.

We shall see!

12:00pm: The Hurricalypse Begins

The subways just shut down.

It's official.

Hurricalypse 2011 has begun.

So far, we've had a little rain. We went out to brunch (as did everyone else in Manhattan, apparently). The place was packed. We got our food 45 minutes after we ordered it and we never got napkins, or my order of scrambled eggs on the side. Clearly, they were understaffed and overbooked.

Afterwards, we headed over to the Duane Reade and picked up a few last-minute supplies. The usual: band-aids, matches, Diet Coke, and Starburst FaveREDS (the ones where all the flavors are red: cherry, strawberry, watermelon, and fruit punch - they're awesome). We're all set.

Now we're all settled in to not leave the apartment for at least 24 hours. I'll be posting non-hurricane-related posts, as well, since, quite frankly, I've got nothing else going on today besides sitting at my computer and maybe playing Taboo later.