Your Moment in the Sun

We've had some severe weather recently in the land of YIFY (check local listings). Lots of storms and flooding and all of that stuff that the rest of you have seen on the national news. I don't mind the weather for the most part, but I do mind the increased focus on the local weatherman. Specifically the interruptions to my regularly scheduled programming.

It starts with the crawl on the bottom of the screen. Basically just a list of counties that can expect bad weather in the next few hours. This isn't too bad, unless I'm watching a something like golf that has its own crawl across the bottom of the screen. It's when they cut into my television for the local weatherman to come on and show me a graphical representation of what the crawl on the bottom of the screen has already told me. This is big time stuff for the local weatherman. It's his moment in the sun. He's breaking in during prime time to tell us all about the storms that are coming. There's no need for banter with the anchors and he doesn't even have to talk about pressure systems or anything coming down from Canada. Nope, all he has to do is point to the green, yellow, and red blots on the screen and say that we can expect winds, rain, hail, and maybe a funnel cloud. You can see how excited the weatherman gets during this moment in the sun. He'll zoom in on the storms, do a little highlighting and circling with the telestrator, and maybe even instruct us to go to the basement or lay down in a ditch. This is the moment that weathermen dream about during weather school.

Side note: Why do they have to refer to different areas by county? I know this is what the national weather service does, but you'd think that the local weather guy could add some value here by actually naming some cities. Instead of saying that this band of storms stretches from Southeastern Putnam County to Northern Monroe County, he could add value by saying that you should watch out if you live between Greencastle and Bloomington. Or does everyone have a better grasp on counties than I do?

Anyway, the weatherman plays up his moment in the sun. No more waiting for his four minutes in a 30 minute broadcast...this is all about him and he's drunk with power. There are other examples of people playing up there moment in the sun. Scrubs did a bit about the time when the dermatologist gets called in for a surgical consult and that's his moment in the sun. I love that show.

Weddings present several opportunities for moments in the sun. First, there's the priest/minister/reverend guy who has a new audience. His power trip usually starts during rehearsal. At a wedding this weekend I had to practice walking my bridesmaid down the aisle three times because I was doing it wrong. I'm pretty sure the minister guy was just trying to prolong his moment. Then there's the deejay at the reception. He's the only one with a microphone, which gives him lots of power and lots of opportunities for a moment in the sun. Fortunately the deejay this weekend didn't abuse his power. He was willing to give me his microphone (which he was sure to turn off) long enough for me to fake karaoke to a couple of songs and tell all of the young children that they should go home and download the entire Journey catalog.

Oh, and then there's the guy who knows the entire Thriller dance. His moment in the sun involves him going solo on the dance floor and dancing like a zombie. His moment lasts about 7 minutes. This is about 6 minutes too long.

There are plenty of other examples of people with their moment in the sun. It's not quite Andy Warhol's 15 minutes, because the individual didn't really do anything to deserve their moment, it doesn't really bring them 'fame' and it usually is over in less than 15 minutes. Like the guy who works for the hurricane bureau or whatever national agency looks at hurricanes. Most of the year he just sits around coming up with names for hurricanes, but there's that one night per year when he gets interviewed by Brian Williams and tells us that he thinks it's going to be a bad storm season this year. Thanks man, we'll see you again next year. Now get back to thinking of a female name that starts with Y.

So my apologies to RJ for going away from the blog charter/mission statement on this post. He isn't allowed to complain until he posts something again. Let me know if you guys have any other examples of people enjoying their moment in the sun. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.