Fallout Shelter

Ouch!

Yesterday, as best I can remember, regular gasoline in Durham cost somewhere around $3.60-something a gallon.  This morning in Chapel Hill, where it's usually a few cents more expensive, it was $3.70-something.  I thought "Ok, gas prices are climbing again."  Heh.  Little did I know. 

I just went to fill up. 

Gas is $4.29 a gallon. 

Fuck me. 

Yes, I know about the hurricane.  But fuck me.

Edit:  Tonight, a day later, the service station that had gas at $4.29 was down to $3.99.  But the station across the street that also went up to $4.20-something was up to $4.59.

Edit 2:  Ok, all you folks who cranked your gas prices through the ceiling can just crank them right back down now.

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While I'm complaining:  Crude oil prices peaked in Early July at about $145/barrel.  Since then, the price of oil has come down below $100/barrel.  That's a little over a 30% drop.  In the same period, gas (ignoring today's swing) has dropped from $4.00-something a gallon to $3.60-something a gallon.  That's only a 10% drop. 

I imagine the oil companies are going to say that gas prices lag crude oil prices.  But that lag only seems to happen when prices are dropping, not when they're going up.  Today's display is just more of the same. 

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I'm not usually one to complain about commodity prices, especially considering there's  two Middle East wars going on and a big-ass hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico.  But if someone breaks something off in my ass, I feel the need to say ouch. 

Just go die somewhere and leave the rest of us alone

Does anyone remember when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson got together after 9/11 and crowed about how it was God's retribution on a sinful U.S.?  I thought they were a couple of huge assholes, and now I think the same thing about Michael Moore's talking about Gustav coming during the Republican Convention being some sort of retribution.  Except in Moore's case, it's even worse: he's crowing about it and enjoying it even before it happens.  Fuck him.  "Fuck him" doesn't even begin to cover it, but fuck him anyway.  Michael Moore is an embarrassment to the rest of humanity.  If you liked Roger and Me, or agree with some of MM's politics, fine.  But the guy is a disgrace. 

[via vee_ecks.]

For those of you wondering about all the smoke...

this map might be helpful:

View Larger Map

[Thanks to jmgl, whoever they are.]

I also take a certain amount of Schadenfreude in knowing that the smoke is disturbing people in Virginia.  I'm a bad person.

I'll weather this

In the "Things I'm Thankful For" department: the weather around here lately.  Right now it's 77°F. and sunny, with enough fair-weather cumulus to cast an occasional pleasant bit o' shade.  Humidity is low, despite the fact that we've had enough rain to almost move us out of the drought category.  Today's weather makes me want to run nekkid through the grass, but I'm not going to do that, because I like and respect my neighbors too much.  ;)

Wow. Just wow.

Chilean Volcano Erupts With Ash, Lava, Lightning

Rain on me

Thank god we're getting this rain when we do: it's not much, but it's washing the effing pollen out of the air.  No yellow haze!  Woo-hoo!

Ice ice baby

There's some kind of icy crap coming down outside.  It was coming down a little after 10 p.m. when I left a friend's place.  It's mixed in with rain, so it's not obvious immediately, but it's there.  It's still there now at 11, although now it's more like snow and less like rain/ice pellets.  NWS says we're going to wake up to an inch or so of snow.  I'd be more excited if I had a job to stay home from.  :)

I'm not so much worried about the possible 1 to 3 inches of snow called for tomorrow.  I'm a little more concerned about a forecast 12° F. low later in the week, with more precipitation behind that.  I thought that I saw a TV weather channel predicting more snow later in the week, but their online maps don't confirm that, nor do anyone else's I looked at. 

I guess as long as we get precipitation, I should be happy: we're still running about a 9 inch rainfall deficit since the beginning of 2007.  Maybe that's just compensation for the 10½ inch excess we got in 2006.  :/  In any case,  Lake Michie is still about 14 feet below "full."

Links:

"Little River" and Lake Michie reservoirs: 1999-2008 water levels

snow

It was actually snowing a little bit here an hour or two ago.  I think it's stopped now.  :(

Rain on me

From the NWS via Weather Underground's Durham page:

	Record Report
Statement as of 5:20 PM EST on December 30, 2007 ... Record daily maximum rainfall set at Raleigh-Durham International Airport today... A record rainfall of 1.69 inches was set at Raleigh-Durham international Airport today. This breaks the previous record of 1.23 inches for this date... set in 1948. This product will be updated later tonight.

Edit: We finally wound up with 1.92 inches of rain yesterday at RDU.  That nowhere near digs us out of our hole, but it's a lot.