Rumors of Seattle Downpours Greatly Exaggerated

I recently watched the first season of The Killing, a show centering around the murder of a seventeen year old girl in Seattle. It's a great show with fantastic acting, but it perpetuates one of the greatest misconceptions about the Puget Sound area. Contrary to popular belief, it is not constantly pouring rain here.


Look! It's even kind of sunny right now! Look at all that blue sky!


Seriously, in just about every episode of that show it looks like Seattle is in the middle of monsoon season.


Here's an excerpt from a Wikipedia article (which we know is always super accurate).


"At 944mm (37.49 in.), in reality, the city receives less precipitation annually than New York City (1201 mm, 47.28 in.), Atlanta (1290 mm, 50.79 in.), Boston (1055 mm, 41.53 in.), Baltimore (1038 mm, 40.87 in.), Portland, Maine (1128 mm, 44.41 in.), Jacksonville, Florida(1304 mm, 51.34 in.), and most cities on the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. Seattle was also not listed in a study that revealed the 10 rainiest cities in the continental United States."


It certainly does rain in Seattle, and we joke that only tourists use umbrellas because we're hardened to being constantly drenched.  But even in October/November, the months this show is set in, I'm pretty sure (and seeing as how I live in the area my 'pretty sure' is basically 'I know for a fact') that it doesn't rain as much as they would like us to think.


But seeing as how these poor sods live in a fictional Seattle that is constantly plagued by torrential downpours, I'd like to suggest some rain gear that I first came across in April of 2008:




I think everyone in The Killing should wear this every time they go outside.  The Nubrella is now only $49.99!  I mean, just check out this promotional video and tell me this wouldn't be a brilliantly effective, stylish, and practical solution for our sad, dripping wet friends as they rush around the city trying to catch a murderer:




Ah, yes.  Such an elegant solution.

In: ,

The Hornet in the Kitchen

I took a late lunch break today.  Not suspecting the horror that was about to transpire, I calmly wandered into the kitchen with my cell phone, thinking about my frozen lean cuisine lunch and wondering if maybe, just maybe, this time it wouldn't taste like cardboard.

All was proceeding as it should. The frozen lunch went into the microwave and I sat down at the table to wait when I heard something, something that didn't belong.  Something.... buzzing.  Slowly, filled with dread, I turned and looked over at the window directly behind me, only to come face to face with a hornet.


My mind froze, but thankfully my body didn't.  I leapt to my feet and yanked the blinds closed, trapping the wretched thing, and bolted towards my boss's office.  I paused in his doorway, breathing hard, my eyes wild.  He was on the phone, but gave me a concerned look.  I rushed past his office into mine, snatched up a pad of paper and a sharpie, and hurriedly scribbled an urgent missive to make him aware of the situation.



Recognizing this simply could not wait, my boss got off the phone and bravely marched into battle.  Rolling up a magazine, standing at the ready, he yanked the blinds open.

"There!  It's there!"  I hovered in the doorway, pointing unnecessarily.

"Yep, that's a hornet," my boss said.  He mustered more courage than I had dreamed possible and slammed the magazine into the wicked yellow and black beast.  I let out a small shriek and my boss stepped back, magazine still in hand, prepared to strike again...

But the hornet was simply gone.

We searched in vain for the body, but found nothing.

I've seen enough horror movies to know what that means.