Ernesto, You Slob

It's a good soak anyway. Forty hours of solid pre-storm coverage and Channel 10 was off the air just about ten minutes after the storm began affecting Lauderdale, in time for Wheel of Fucking Fortune. The TV guys just looked at each other and started stammering. One on Channel 6 -- I don't know most of their names -- said, "This is just weird." A meteorologist on Channel 10 was flat disappointed. "This just isn't doing what we expected," he said. "You have to call a spade a spade."

Where's the death and destruction? Well, some guy in a white Mercedes got killed while driving. It was perhaps the most overplayed road fatality in South Florida history. One TV guy said solemnly, "It's a tragedy." Yeah, one that happens every single goddamn day.

To people who know Florida, this is called "business as usual." For 13 years after Andrew, this was basically the way most every storm went. But hey, this thing was our first brush with M.N. after Wilma gave us a thorough reeming. It's okay that everybody went batshit after that. Let's just be happy there weren't any gas rage incidents that led to a tire iron beating, decapitation, or some other type of grotesque death.

The one guy I think who must want another go at it -- Ben Graber. The Broward County Mayor started yesterday as a quivering mass of flesh, but his delivery got better as the day went on. He's got to be ready to show his shit during a real tragedy now. Problem is he's got an election next week.