James Bond 23 Cancelled?

The next James Bond movie was quietly moved from being a delayed project to a cancelled project this week.

Now, knowing that the project is basically gone for the moment, and not merely put off for a year or so, makes me a little sad. I was hoping the unpleasant economic circumstances behind this whole saga would have eased by now and that there would have been a light at the end of the tunnel. Alas, it seems that is not to be.

There is also talk that if the next James Bond movie does not arrive for a few years, the producers may recast the part when the series returns.

My question to everyone is, if Daniel Craig was no longer James Bond, who would you like to see replace him in the role?

Tags: daniel craig, james bond, mgm, financial distress, cancelled

Funny Conan/Emmy Nomination Tweet

Congrats to my staff on 4 Emmy nominations. This bodes well for the future of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. -Conan O'Brien

TBS certainly put some money into getting those nominations. I hope they pay off.

Granted, that Even Stephens segment on The Colbert Report last night was pretty sweet.

Tags: stephen colbert, conan o'brien, tonight show, twitter, emmy nomination, even stevens, steve carell, jon stewart

The Perfect Heat Wave

Thursday AM Update: Temps this morning are running about 5-7F ahead of yesterday, so today will peak in the lower to mid 90s for most. Low clouds on the coast, where it is much cooler today...a sign of the changes coming

This week we are having the perfect heat wave--long enough to get the feeling of warmth, but short enough that our homes and apartment won't heat up completely before the cool-down occurs...and there will be a substantial one on Saturday.

Tonight I am cooling down my house with lots of fans. I find that by putting on all the bathroom fans (which draw heat out of the house), coupled with four box fans in windows blowing cool air in, I can quickly get the house down to a decent temperature. The key with heat waves is to cool the house down at night...and to get shades down on the sunny side during the day. If the interior spaces warm up, you are toast...so to speak. I just watched Jeff Renner and he also suggests eating spicy foods. The theory is that it makes you sweat (as if we needed help doing that in hot weather!). So buy some fans and some 5-star Thai food and you should be good.

As advertised, today we warmed up into the upper 80s to lower 90s in the region. Take a look at the regional temperatures at 5 PM...near the time of maximum warmth. Click on the image to expand it. With offshore flow, even the coast was warm and Portland and Willamette Valley was way warmer than Puget Sound country. Why is the Willamette so torrid? The reason is that they don't have the proximity to water through a low-level passage. It is often 5-10F warmer there than near Seattle.

The warmth will continue tomorrow (Thursday)....I expect the temps to be very similar to today.

Below are the pressure and temperature plots for this afternoon and Thursday afternoon.....warm temperatures for both. At 5 PM today the thermal trough extends from the Willamette Valley into western Washington and easterly flow descends the western slopes of the Cascades. A very warm pattern.


Thursday afternoon we are still warm and the thermal trough appears split between western and eastern Washington.

On Friday, the trough of low pressure over western Washington "jumps" into eastern Washington and greater onshore flow will occur.

Expect Friday to a be a few degrees cooler. This process continues over Friday night and Saturday should be WAY cooler, with low clouds in the morning and temperatures in the upper seventies.

One final thing...some people like to make fun of meteorologists...saying their forecasts are wrong 50% of the time. Lets face it, my profession nailed this one....days ahead!

Want to Follow the Redesign?

As I am slowly working on bringing this blog into the future, you can follow how the redesign is going by visiting another hidden blog called Culture Kills Test Lab.

Basically, I am trying out everything over there before I bring a finished design overhear, which means a lot less messing around over here when I finally make the changeover.

Midweek Video: An Unusual Weather Report

Andrew WK does the weather in Oklahoma.

Surreal.

Tags: andrew wk, oklahoma, weather report, spaz, fox

An Epic Animated GIF

Gamers of a certain age will get a kick out of this. The picture is over 1 Mb, so there may be a delay while it loads (and it is a lot of frames).



Awesome stuff.

EDIT: Blogger didn't like the animated version, so I put it up on another site.

Tags: tetris, contra, flamethrower, l-shaped, nintendo, nes, old school, puzzle, bowser, animated gif, geekypic, video games

Upcoming Heat Wave and the Start of Summer

This year it will be very easy to note the start of summer in western Washington---it will be Tuesday, July 7th. We are just about to make the big summer transition and the change will startle you....somewhat like a meteorological slap to the face.

Today, it got to 65 at the airport, when 74F is typical...9 degrees below normal. But for the remainder of the week we will be on the other side of the climatological divide, with temperatures rising into the mid-seventies tomorrow, 80s on Wednesday, and near 90F on Thursday.
Let me show you some of the weather maps and describe a key feature of our heat waves...the west coast thermal trough...an area of low pressure associated with low-level hot air. I have written quite a bit about the thermal trough in scientific papers and in my book, and currently a graduate student of mine is doing a comprehensive study of this key feature of nearly all NW heat waves.
Take a look at surface pressure maps for the next few days. These maps also include near surface winds and low level temperatures (color shading). Temps are in C (20C is 68F, 30C is 86F)
Lets start with this afternoon at 5 PM. Warm over the SW U.S. (red and brown colors!), but yellow (cool) over the NW with higher pressure offshore. There is a huge pressure difference off of N. coastal CA with very high winds...but that is another story. No heat wave for us.

Next tomorrow (Tuesday) at the same time. See the difference, we have gone from yellow to orange. See the tongue of lower pressure moving northward into the Willamette Valley...that is the thermal trough. Why a trough? Because warm temps are associated with less dense air which results in lower surface pressure. Why is the air warming? Two reasons: high pressure aloft is producing general sinking and warming of air (by compression) is the first. And there is easterly flow developing over the Cascades, which produces enhanced sinking (warming) on the western slopes.
Here is Wednesday afternoon: we are now in pinks and the thermal trough is right over us, with easterly flow over the Cascades. We could get to the upper 80s with this pattern, especially over the eastern PS suburbs. Portland will be very, very warm with this....well into the 90s.

And then finally Thursday afternoon....very warm over the whole region. Certainly upper 80s, lower 90s for the PS region away from the cold water. But something subtle is changing...pressure is falling more over eastern Washington. Might the thermal trough jump the Cascade, leading to a cool down on Friday or Saturday? Keep tuned!