The role of hamsters in Pacific Northwest weather prediction
posted July 20th, 2010 by EverywhereistI recently asked my husband what my site was lacking, and his response was infographs. Lucky for you, I don’t really know what those are so instead, I drew pictures of hamsters. Unfortunately, I drew it on the back of some crappy scrap paper left over from a job I had, like, four years ago – meaning that you can occasionally see the writing on the other side. But anyway …
Living in the Pacific Northwest, you learn to live with some pretty insane weather. You can generally tell that the meteorologist on the evening news is guessing, at best, as to what the next few days will bring. Ultimately, I think their prediction method falls somewhere along these lines.
Step 1: Create iconography for different weather forecasts, and place them on the floor of a room.

I swear there's a documented case of it raining frogs, but Rand says that I made that up.
-
-
Step 2: Feed prunes to a bunch of constipated hamsters. You probably have some spare constipated hamsters lying around your house right now.

Everyone knows that one out of every four hamsters is evil. It's a fact.
-
-
Step 3: Unleash the hamsters in the same room where you’ve placed the iconography. See which picture they poop on the most.

Have an unpaid intern clean up afterward.
-
-
Step 4: Determine the weather for the next day based on which iconography is covered with the most hamster feces. If two of the symbols have roughly the same amount of poop on them, expect some sort of combination of the two. This can lead to some unusual weather patterns.

"Expect golfball-sized hail followed by a crapload of RAINBOWS!"
-
-
And if your predictions turn out to be woefully inaccurate? Simply blame the evil hamster.

Jerk.


July 20th, 2010 at 10:56 am
This has made my day, I’m even slightly jealous and feel like my site too lacks iconography. But could I really match your evil hamster depiction, alas I can not.
[Reply]
Everywhereist Reply:
July 20th, 2010 at 11:43 pm
Cornelius – Oh, your site can have iconography as cool as these. Just give me 30 sec and a marker.
Celeste – Thanks! HAmStEr FeCes!
[Reply]
July 20th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
Oh man, do more of these. This totally reminds me of http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/ but funnier to me, because I imagine your voice saying “hamster feces.” Nuff said.
[Reply]
July 21st, 2010 at 10:17 am
I loved this! Do more!
You know what they say in NY: “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.” (Then again, I have a feeling they say that everywhere.)
[Reply]
July 21st, 2010 at 10:26 am
Jane – Yup – we totally say that here, too.
[Reply]
July 21st, 2010 at 5:22 pm
Brilliant. And now I’m going to use this method to make general decisions in my life from now on …
[Reply]
Everywhereist Reply:
July 21st, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Jon – as long as you are cool with your decisions have a 25% chance of being evil, I say go for it (for me, this technique would actually yield a lower level of evil than normal).
[Reply]
July 21st, 2010 at 5:45 pm
Wow – I’m impressed with your skill at drawing – those hamsters are totally lifelike (especially the pooping ones)! And I would guess that they are at least as accurate as most of the TV weather-people I’ve ever seen.
I think you should hand-draw illustrations for all of your posts.
[Reply]
July 22nd, 2010 at 6:30 am
LOL! This is great! Even if I hadn’t read the text, I would have understood what that one hamster with the scrunched up eyes was doing. Awesome.
[Reply]
August 2nd, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Your hampsters are eerily good.
[Reply]
August 19th, 2011 at 3:00 pm
I absolutely love this. I’ll have you know, I just forwarded it to my friend, who happens to be a weatherman. Living in Central Nebraska, I’m pretty sure this would end up being totally accurate.
[Reply]