Last night was a great opportunity to zip through the dial and see who gives you the best weather coverage. The combination of lots of storms and violent ones at that, allowed us to see who was at the top of their game.

Channel 3

Kling makes a strong case for being calm and not at all panicky. Although she kept using the phrase "place of safety", which I guess means your basement, closet or bathroom on your lowest floor. Not very compelling to see someone watching a computer, so they had the irritant of Ramona and then the 7:00 crew sit by and offer up some tidbits. Kling must have the stalkers though, because she showed her phone after receiving an alert from Channel 3 Weather. "I get alerts for Cuyahoga County because that's where I work. You can also choose additional counties. I have the "county where I live" and two adjacent counties, as well."

Channel 5

OK, Mark Johnson has the Power of 5 on his side. Too much begging for photos and interrupting the broadcast with them. Did a decent job, but had the line of the night, early on in the proceedings, when the wind and hail were issues for the western counties. "Three-inch hail? How'd you like that coming down on your car? Three-inch hail. How'd you like that coming down on your kids? What are they doing outside? Get'em indoors!"

Channel 8

Didn't linger here too much. But I did hear Andre Bernier at 7:45 mention we would not miss a minute of "American Idol". Even as storms were closing in on Cuyahoga Falls.

Channel 19

Easily the clusterfuck of the evening. It seemed that every storm chaser that went west got there after the storm had already passed. Tanchak had to redirect everyone eastward. The Vampire, Eddie Gallek, sent in some video that was not even legible. I guess they filmed from the car, but who could tell. Even Tanchak looked like he was gonna comment, but bit his tongue. Tanchak's highlight was demanding that a Tornado Warning be called for Portage County and actually said, "If the Weather Service is watching us...". No wonder they have no upticks in ratings when the weather turns sour.

Kling is probably the winner, with 5 and 8 reasonably close and 19 huddled somewhere in it's "place for safety".

Meal of Links

Friends of Jeff Bridges talk about Jeff Bridges. Good stuff.

Palin is making noise again about entering the fray. I'd like to see her in a legitimate Republican primary season with no holds barred.

Guinness does taste better in Ireland. Why? Crazy little thing called freshness.

Oh, boy. VH-1 decides it wants more "Pop-Up Video".

Outstanding. Mugatu will be back for "Zoolander 2".

Vermont adds another first. They go to single-payer health care.

The 10 Greatest War Movies. I've seen 9 of them. This is actually a very good list.

Gov. Kasich's poll numbers are pretty bad. And they are still dropping. I think part of it is he never seems happy. Always mad or grousing about something.

The Ted Williams Bio is on tonight. Wonder how that Cavs job is going.

Exercise Yard

It was rather interesting to see David Beckham back at Old Trafford for the Gary Neville Testimonial. The fans
still love him there.

Hey, I know it was a friendly, but he looked pretty good. Did a lot of passing to the opposite side of the pitch and was on target virtually all the time. And almost put in a free kick. Odd that he played the full 90 minutes, but they Probably figured if he got hurt, he doesn't play there anymore.

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