Funny thing. It was a miserably rainy day the last time I was inspired to post an iPod Random 8 list, and so it is again today. Must be a trend.

Anyway, here’s the latest shuffle-determined string of output from my iPod Touch (or “iTouch”, if you prefer). Length of said string synced to 8trk, which I’m told is progressing nicely.

1. “Let Me Think About It (club mix)”, Ida Corr vs. Fedde Le Grand - That I am the true way towards ecstasy.

2. “F-cking Boyfriend (Peaches Remix)”, The Bird And The Bee - When you lay down with me, you never slept that night.

3. “Mysterious Ways”, Angelique Kidjo - She sees the man inside the child.

4. “Mer du Japon (Remix by Kris Menace)”, AIR - J’en perds la raison (I lost my mind).

5. “Relaxation Spa Treatment”, Dan the Automator - [instrumental, no lyrics]

6. “Good Love”, Isaac Hayes (as Chef from “South Park”) - You’ll recommend me to your mother, your sisters, your aunts and your nieces.

7. “Let’s Stay Together”, Al Green - Loving you whether, whether.

8. “Colours”, Donovan - Freedom is a word I rarely use.

You learn something new every day. Like about the existence of vog, a volcanic smog that’s currently plaguing the Hawaiian islands:

Kilauea on the Big Island has been erupting continuously since 1983. But in mid-March, a new vent formed at the summit, giving Kilauea two large sulfur dioxide outlets instead of one.

Sulfur dioxide, a pollutant that is also generated by burning coal and oil, can lead to asthma and other respiratory illnesses and aggravate lung and heart disease. When combined with dust and sunlight, it makes vog.

I guess the lava and debris that vulcan activity coughs up isn’t enough — air pollution completes the environmental trifecta.

It’s a soaking-wet day in New York, with a steady downpour that’s forecasted to last the whole day. Far from optimal conditions for someone who’s got client meetings to flit to and from all day long.

Is it just me, or does it seem like there’s no such thing as a “normal” rainy day anymore? Specifically, I can’t remember the last time I’ve experienced a rainstorm without moderate-to-heavy winds being in the mix. Today’s no exception — it’s far from hurricane strength, but there’s enough windplay going on to swirl the raindrops all around, making even the best umbrella coverage only iffy.

It wasn’t always this way, was it? My memory’s failing me on more and more things these days, but I could swear I remember rainy days that didn’t practically assault you.

I’m thinking we can chalk this up to another manifestation of global weirding.

Today was the Easter holiday for most of Christendom — but not all of it.

And since I’m aligned with that other Church, this Sunday was just another free day for me. No familial obligations to fulfill (they were pointedly avoided, in fact, in what amounts to a silent signification of the Eastern Orthodox divergence on this holiday), so I took advantage by getting out of the house and wandering the streets, with nothing particularly pressing to drive me.

Frankly, o counter-Christians, I’m not impressed with this late March observation of Jesus’ comeback. Resurrection is supposed to coincide with Spring, renewal and all that; and while the calendar might align that way, the day’s weather sure didn’t. Temperatures in the mid-40s in midtown Manhattan don’t jibe with rejuvenation, either spiritual or physical.

I’m thinking that Orthodox Easter, scheduled for April 27th, is going to be a lot more Springlike around here, provided we don’t get a freak extension of Winter weather (you never know, in this age of global weirding). So for once, the “other” Easter will seem more appropriate, at least climate-wise. I’ll take it, on style points.

Just how cold was it today in Gotham? I could give you the gory details by the numbers, but instead, let me illustrate thusly:

I walk into a client’s office this morning, and note to a colleague how I’m still chilly from the walk over.

She says, Maybe a hot cup of tea will thaw you out?

I say, I’m more thinking that setting myself on fire will do the trick.

She laughed. I rubbed my hands together quickly. Ba-dum-dum.

A fairly lousy day today culminated with the discovery tonight that my cellphone wasn’t working. Apparently, the wet weather that was dumping on NYC this evening sufficiently soaked through my winter coat to somehow short out the phone. (Curiously — and luckily — my iPod Touch, which was also in one of the coat pockets, wasn’t affected.)

Sucks. I’ve had my problems with this phone, and frankly haven’t been particularly careful while handling it. But still — I need a phone.

The timing is pretty bad, too. My Verizon Wireless plan provides for a replacement/upgrade phone, but — oh the irony — it doesn’t kick in until December 27th. Meaning that if I want the discounted new handset, I’ll have to go two weeks without a phone.

So, I’m doing the only thing I can do tonight: I’m turning to my blog’s archives to attempt a resuscitation. What have I got to lose? Either the phone is dead, or a few hours overnight on low-level heat can cure what ails it. In the meantime, I’ll have to bum phone calls from various sources, including for voicemail checks.

I wonder: Can I actually go a couple of weeks without a phone? My chief concerns are business-related, but realistically, the end of the year should be fairly slow for me anyway. And I could use the imposed excuse to make myself less accessible. We’ll see.

UPDATE, 12/14/2007: Hoorah! I put the battery back in this morning, fired the phone up, and it came to life! No apparent ill effects. That low-level heat application seems to work. Crisis averted.

Like many people, my mood tends to darken with the onset of foul weather. Translation: Dank, sun-less days bum me out, man.

I’ve yet to be bummed out to the point where I write an iconic horror novel. Then again, I didn’t live through 1816’s “Year Without a Summer” climactic phenomenon. If I had, like Mary Shelley did, my washed-out Swiss vacation might have yielded the heavily weather-inspired “Frankenstein”.

Mary Shelley started writing the book in 1816, when she was just a teenager. It wasn’t too long after she had run off with the married poet Percy Shelley. They went to Switzerland for a summer vacation.

“I think the plan had been to be tourists and go climbing mountains and things like that,” Phillips says. “And they couldn’t, because of the weather.”

The weather was beyond bad. It was unbelievable…

“It actually really was dark, for days if not weeks on end,” Phillips says. “It was one of the coldest periods in modern history, so it was extremely serious.”

He says that in many places, the harvests failed for three consecutive years. There were food riots, and many people were dying from starvation.

And the cold, always the cold. With which the creature is persistently linked, up to and including the climax:

“He invariably meets his creator at the tops of mountains, in icy caves,” he says. “Then at the end of the novel, they go into the Arctic Ocean and we’re led to believe that they die as they drift off on an ice floe.”

Now, maybe Mary Shelley would have sent her creature to the Arctic no matter what kind of weather was outside her window. But John Clubbe doesn’t think so.

An emeritus professor of English at the University of Kentucky, he has written about Frankenstein’s link to The Year Without a Summer. He points out that in 1816, it was snowing in July.

“Seeing this world of ice and snow at close hand, when you should be seeing green fields and trees in bloom, this is so unusual,” Clubbe says. “It has to affect the way you feel and want to write.”

Proving that, ultimately, we can’t help but be impacted by the way the wind blows.

Yup, a concentrated burst of rain really does a number on NYC’s subway system.

It looks like the average New Yorker had an extra hour tacked onto his/her commute this morning. Really underlines how critical the subways are to the basic clockwork of this town.

Myself? I got to the office a whole 10 minutes later than usual.

(Dodging the brickbats coming my way)

I guess I lead a charmed life. I managed to sleep through the early-morning thunder show (directly attributable to conditioning myself to sleep through far worse and more frequent storming during my 15 years in Tampa). And while I had to wait around the train platform about twice as long as usual, and the F train moved at half-speed after it did arrive, I still got to my usual stop without much incident. Really amazing, considering the F is usually one of the crappier lines — exemplifying the topsy-turvy kind of day it was.

As for the larger implications… I’ve bitched before about New York’s lack of rain-proofing. Honestly, I realize the aging underground network can’t be fixed overnight, and ultimately the weather’s going to have its way with us. Still. Even a moderate rainstorm causes substantial delays underground; obviously something needs fixing. And MTA’s communications skills, from the top on down, needs a concurrent overhaul.

Being all too familiar with Gulf Coast weather patterns, I’m not surprised to learn that Mobile, Alabama tops the list of the Ten Wettest U.S. Cities, measured by average annual rainfall over the past 30 years. (I am surprised that the Tampa Bay area, where I used to live, didn’t make the list; on the other hand, plenty of other Florida metros are in there.)

Mobile’s showing of 67 inches of rain and 59 rainy days annually reminds me of a brief comedic episode I witnessed in the southern Alabama city many moons ago:

I was at the family home of my college roommate Flipper. His mom was there, ragging on him for some of the goofy things he had done as a kid. One of those things somehow involved going to a local fortuneteller and then spending a day at a cemetery, based on the prediction they received (I don’t recall the details now).

Flipper got a little defensive, and offered up, “But she wasn’t totally full of it! She did predict that it was going to rain that day, and it really did rain later that day!”

Flipper’s mom started cackling, and said, “Some prediction! You know it rains every day in Mobile!”

Which is/was an exaggeration, based on the scientific data. But I guess it’s close enough to the mark for a scam fortuneteller to convince some kid of her predictive powers.

I’ll admit it: I was a bit flip regarding the impending hazard of this past weekend’s big storm. Not only did it make for a generally ugly couple of days, it also brought more than enough flooding and related damage.

The preponderance of the wet stuff certainly put me in mind of the many Florida dousings I experienced, courtesy of hurricane/tropical storm near-misses (or even a particularly harsh Gulf Coast thunderstorm). A further mirroring of that mood was provided by this writeup, which I’ll assume was a collaborative effort among all the NYTimes reporters who were on this beat yesterday:

The day was, in a way, like great theater: the drama of the approaching storm, the searching wind at the panes and rain dancing on the pavement, the smudged sky, the iron-gray day like a movie in black and white. The overcast was solid, great plates of corrugated iron fused from horizon to horizon, and the streets glistened in the rain: a metallic futureworld.

No, it won’t win any poetry awards. But there’s a lyrical appropriateness to it, especially the “drama of the approaching storm”, reminiscent of the days-long hurricane landfall anticipation in the Sunshine State. Obviously, it’s as close as I’d care to get to emulating that experience up here.

Silly me. I thought that when I moved away from Florida, one of the things I could leave behind was the annual extreme-weather panic that came with hurricane season.

No hurricanes here in New York, but a late-arriving nor’easter has stirred up a familiar jitteriness:

In the New York area, heavy rains are expected. Officials are worried that the combination of high winds and high tides could cause coastal flooding. “Let us hope it doesn’t happen, but we have to prepare for the worst while we’re hoping for the best,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said at a news conference yesterday.

The mayor said evacuations were unlikely, but in a cautionary move, city emergency planners have identified possible shelters in the highest-risk areas and have alerted hospitals and nursing homes there to be prepared to relocate patients and elderly residents in the event of severe flooding.

I’m all for cautionary measures, but come on — we’re talking about a load of rain. Waterproof your ass, and move on. Heck, it’s not even a lightning storm, so no threat of your household grid getting fried.

It is pretty ugly outside at the moment, and I’m certainly not inclined to leave the house today if I can help it. But I’m not prepping an evac kit, either.

Proving that people will wager money on absolutely anything, folks in northern climes hold town-wide “ice-out” betting pools on the date and time that a local body of water will thaw out.

The basic drill: As Spring approaches, some object — cinder block, tripod, dummy in a beach chair — is placed on a patch of the ice. That object is attached by a string to a clock. When the ice thins sufficiently and the object cracks through the surface, the string yanks the clock, marking the exact time of the blessed event.

As spectator sports go, it’s not exactly riveting. But in 1988, the first year the [Joe’s Pond] contest was held, 421 tickets were sold. Last year, 8,386 tickets were sold to people in 41 states and two foreign countries. The ice went out April 16 at 3:20 p.m., the earliest ever. The deadline for entering the 20th annual contest is Sunday.

I guess the watching-paint-dry competition wasn’t exciting enough?

A couple of additional jokes come to mind: Native Americans getting into the act via casino extension, global warming as the handicapper… But I’ll refrain.

If you feel compelled to join the madness, you’ve got options. The deadline on some of these have already passed, so good luck for next year:

- From New Hampshire, the Lake Winnipesaukee Ice-Out Guess Contest

- From Alaska, the Nenana Ice Classic

- From Vermont, the Joe’s Pond Ice Out

- From Wisconsin, Black’s Cliff Ice Out Contest on Lower Kaubashine Lake

- From Minnesota, the Ely Echo Shagawa Lake Ice Out Contest

With the calendar edging into April, this relocated Floridian has no desire to see any more snow come down on New York.

But I suppose I could tolerate one more dose of snowfall — provided it came in the form of freakishly large flakes, measuring anywhere from 2 to 6 inches wide.

For instance, weather officials in Berlin reported a winter storm of January 1915 that produced snowflakes up to four inches wide.

The big flakes, German officials said in The Meteorologischen Zeitschrift, “not only fell more rapidly than the small flakes, but also did not swirl about to the same extent.” The officials added that “most were shaped like round or oval bowls or dishes with upturned rims. They did rock to and fro in the wind but at no time were they observed to turn over completely so that the concave side would face downward.”

[British weather observer Williams S.] Pike also reports on a winter storm that hit Laramie, Wyo., in September 1970, producing flakes up to three inches wide. A witness watched two relatively small flakes collide and merge to form a large snowflake. Using a stopwatch, the observer also found that the big flakes fell more than twice as fast as smaller ones.

Mr. Pike, generalizing from the reports, concluded that the big flakes tended to form when the temperature was just above freezing, making them wet and sticky. “Ideally,” he wrote, “winds should also be relatively light to avoid ‘bunches’ disintegrating.”

It sounds like the amount of snow is actually the same, it just comes earthward as bigger individual packages. If it’s going to fall anyway, I’ve got no problem with a super-sized crystalline presentation. I wouldn’t stick my tongue out to catch these extra-larges, though.

So, St. Patrick’s Day.

Last night’s freakish snowstorm certainly made it interesting. Thankfully, the weather calmed down enough for a nice green-festooned parade down Fifth Avenue, of which I was able to catch a bit.

Other than that, I think this holiday calls for a rerun of last year’s story of the shamrock and the Christian trinity:

This Plant [white clover] is worn by the People in their Hats upon the 17 Day of March yearly (which is called St. Patrick’s Day.) it being a Current Tradition, that by this Three Leafed Grass, he emblematically set forth to them the Mystery of the Holy Trinity…

Which brings up an interesting point: If the common three-leafed clover symbolizes the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, then what does the sought-after four-leafed sprout symbolize? And why should such a blatant departure from Christian symbolism be considered lucky? Theologicially speaking, it should be a shunned pagan offshoot.

I continue to stand by this religious assessment, despite my affinity for all things green. And with that, I think I’ll head out for a Shamrock Shake.

Having lived through too many hurricane seasons in Florida, I’m sure I must have heard tell of La Niña before.

If I did, I don’t recall it being such a nasty bitch:

Forecasters don’t know how strong this La Nina will be. However, it typically means more hurricanes in the Atlantic, fewer in the Pacific, less rain and more heat for the already drought-stricken South, and a milder spring and summer in the north, Lautenbacher said. The central plains of the United States tend be drier in the fall during La Ninas, while the Pacific Northwest tends to be wetter in the late fall and early winter.

Since 2006 was so uneventful storm-wise, it figures that this year would make up for that lull. Hang onto your hats.

In an attempt to refute the idea that “people think there’s nothing going on” in North Dakota, some 8,910 people dropped onto their backs in Bismarck to set the world record for the most snow angels in one spot.

Large-scale snow-angeling. Yeah, that’s what makes the Dakotas the place to be!

Allow me to add a small measure of yin to this mass yang: A snow demon. Bet there’s no Guinness Book of World Records category for that one!

Yep, today’s Valentine’s Day Blizzard is leaving behind a fine mess.

I myself wound up snowbound. I could have ventured out, but I really didn’t see the point — the freezing/wet/windy weather never really let up here all day, and I couldn’t see a compelling need to expose myself. Since we had plenty of forecasting warning yesterday, I had the foresight to bring my office notebook computer home. And, miracle of miracles, I actually found a way to remotely connect to the company’s network! A little technical assistance, and I was up and running by mid-morning.

It was a mixed blessing. I got a good deal of work done, but as usual, found myself overly distracted by the home-office setting. Plus, I’m now a little stir crazy. I’m definitely stepping out tomorrow, snow or no snow.

My other advantage: I didn’t have a Valentine’s agenda for the day. That automatically keeps me out of trouble, since I’ve often let the holiday lapse in the past, to dire consequences. But this year, it would have been downright treacherous to remember.

With that in mind, a quasi-official reprieve, for both consumer and merchant, is catching on:

Mayors in at least three northern Ohio towns declared it Valentine’s Week, hoping to help flower shops and restaurants recover some of their lost business.

“There are some husbands out there who now have a couple extra days to make it right,” said Fremont Mayor Terry Overmyer.

Makes sense, although the concept of an entire week of romantic demonstration seems like a risky precedent. That might end up being the longest-term damage from this storm…

Another reason to be bothered by this damnably cold weather:

Because everyone’s wearing gloves, you can’t spot whether or not there’s a wedding band on that otherwise appealing woman standing next to you on the subway platform.

So winter is making me work even harder. It’s not a welcomed development.

I didn’t realize that bringing the Vince Lombardi Trophy to Indianapolis for the first time ever entailed Hell freezing over. And after Coach Dungy thanked the Lord and everything.

What? Like that’s not the explanation for this damnable cold wave hitting the U.S. northern tier, mere hours after the Colts brought home the NFL’s ultimate bling? Not that the Midwest and Northeast are Hell, exactly; but I can’t think of another reason.

Yes, I am bitching about the cold wintery weather, again. Bite me. Seriously. Because I’m so chilled to the bone right now, that I likely won’t feel it.

The thermometer here currently reads 20 degrees Fahrenheit. And folks, that’s an improvement from earlier in the day, when the mercury dipped to 9 degrees.

Just to prove this isn’t merely the carping of a displaced Floridian, there is official confirmation that it was, indeed, remarkably cold in the Big Apple today:

The last time it was this cold in the New York metropolitan area, [Penn State meteorologist Todd] Miner said, was Jan. 28, 2005, when the low temperature reached 5 degrees in Central Park.

Mr. Miner said that a mass of arctic air descended on parts of the Northeast overnight, pushing temperatures 10 to 20 degrees below normal over an area stretching from the northern Appalachians to the New England coast.

So winter’s bite finally makes an appearance, albeit without snow. Good thing I broke down a couple of days ago and bought a pair of gloves. (Yes, I already had a pair, but they were raggedy things, that I’m not sure were even mine to begin with; my new ones are nice, black leather by Calvin Klein, surprisingly a size Medium.)

I’m wearing a sweater that I recently got from The Gap’s collection. It looked good in the store. But now that I’m wearing it, it’s not working out for me. It’s got interlaced, uneven horizontal stripes of brown all over — giving me something of a juvenile look, I think.

I’ll have to straighten out my sense of sweater style soon, because winter tends to barge in suddenly. Just ask Buffalo, which got walloped by an early-year two feet of snow this week. No sign of the white stuff downstate, but it’s definitely chillier than it’s been. Only a matter of time.