Fuck the eclipse. Fuck it right in it’s light-obscuring ass. It’s been subject number one on the local news and in the paper for weeks now, and I’m sick to death of it. The hysteria over this has reached proportions usually reserved for a papal visit or a volcanic eruption. It dominates the weather forecast, the traffic reports, the consumer news; predictions of near-apocalyptic traffic jams, dire dark hints about people in danger from rogue waves at the beaches and people wandering about in traffic, unmindful of the danger abound. And don’t get me started on all the hand flapping over GLASSES THAT DON’T PROTECT YOU FROM INSTANTLY FRYING YOUR EYEBALLS!!!
I agree that the only way I’m going to see the eclipse at all is if everybody in my workplace rushes outside to stare at it (because apathetic or not, I’ll happily take a work break). I’m certainly not going to drive north enough to be completely in shadow, as apparently a lot of people here are planning to do.
That said, I’m afraid that I don’t share the OP’s vitriol about the event’s very existence. Probably because it hasn’t eclipsed the rest of the news and such around these parts.
Wait, the Solar Eclipse just posted something to twitter: Gonna have the biggest crowd in history on my American tour! Make Astronomy Great Again!!! Some losers can’t stand it though. Sad!
My wedding anniversary is August 20. I already made plans for that weekend long before I heard about the eclipse, and it’s too late to change them now.
Seen a couple, and honestly? I would rather go to that ice hotel/igloo hotel in Norway or wherever so I can screw under the Northern Lights. Seen the Northern Lights once when I was a kid and they are spectacular. If I had a fantasy, it would probably end up being something like ‘snuggling’ with my husband outside wrapped in our heavy fur lined cloaks with hot cocoa doped with brandy and watching the stars and Northern Lights … [but since I have joint and pain issues, wallowing around on the ground isn’t going to happen unless we have a handy hoyer lift for getting me up afterwards…]
Saw the 1970 eclipse from my backyard in Charleston. If I still lived there, I’d be able to do it again. Cosmic.
Looking forward to getting up Monday morning and traveling to SC with my son to see this one.
I would like to propose a prank that we did on at least one occasion – and I really can’t remember anything about the occasion other than it may have been as simple as the “spread the word” type of thing that at the 12th bong of the campus bell EVERYBODY would slam their dorm door.
Talk about a bodacious racket! And dust!
What if everybody directly in the path of the total eclipse made some sort of noise when it got total dark…
As Bob and Ray said in one of their radio commercials/promos (paraphrasing):
“If all the radios in the world were turned on in the same place it would make a noise loud enough to be heard in Lima, Peru.”