Weather

Have you ever noticed how obsessed our society is with the weather? This seems so strange to me because finding out the weather is as easy as stepping outside, and predicting the weather is as simple as thinking tomorrow will be pretty similar today with perhaps some possibility of precipitation. And yet we have entire television stations devoted to the weather, and the "weather" section takes up a major chunk of all local news.

Which brings me to my next point - I despise local tv weather people. I despise all local news people because they are so full of cheese, but I especially dislike the weather people. The news anchors all sit around that desk so smug and pretending to be friends. When it comes time for the weather, they all pretend that what the weatherperson is about to say actually affects their lives. "Well Bill, do you have any good news for us today?" "I wish I did Monica, but things are going to be a little rough for awhile (weather people always use negative adjectives to describe a forecast that is not sunny and warm)." They then spend the next 7-9 minutes talking about all of these graphs and charts that basically say that tomorrow will be pretty similar to today, but next week holds the possibility of being different although there is no way of knowing for sure. And how many times have you watched the weather and the predictions end up being totally wrong. Weather people have a knack for getting the public all worked up over chances of rain or snow or extreme temperatures, and it seems that all too often not much happens. Perhaps weather people have a little intelligence based on the fact that they have chosen a profession where they can be dead wrong much of the time and it is perfectly acceptable.

While we are on the subject of weather, it also annoys me how much I find myself slipping into conversations with other people concerning the weather. Whenever I talk to people that I really have nothing in common with, I often let the words "How about this weather?" slip out of my mouth. Every time I do this, I secretly wish that I was alone so I could punch myself in the stomach. Am I that boring of a person that talking about the weather is the most interesting subject I can think of to discuss? Are we that shallow of a society that our only point of commonality is something beyond our control that only externally affects us?