Mo' weather, mo' problems

The following weather column is in loving memory of Anna Nicole Smith, Barbaro and the dignity of the American space program.

Brrrr, Weather Fans, it's dog sweater cold: I fervently hope you spent Intersession in a toasty fashion, much as I did. In addition to watching ample quantities of NFL Films and Degrassi, I acquired a Clapper (in mint packaging) for $1 at a Sanibel Island garage sale, for calculated post-inflationary savings of 98 percent off the original 1984 retail price of $19.95. Since arriving back in Princeton, I've spent most of my time disconsolately clapping lights off and on (while humming the jingle, mind you), and occasionally pondering the fate of the "I've fallen and I can't get up" lady. I miss break.

Anyhow, this being the year's first column, it's time for a long-range forecast for 2007, which includes a serious threat of snow. If you recall, the weather early this winter was warm, rainy and generally lacking in joementum, which physicists loosely define as jelocity time jmass. Well, in your absence, a near-total overhaul of the jet stream pattern went down, bringing a fearsome polar vortex into the northeastern United States. This weekend's weather will retain the icy mien of Dagny Taggart, scarcely cracking 30 degrees in the afternoons with lows in the teens but will remain precipitation-free until late Monday. However, on Tuesday into Wednesday, there is potential for the year's first significant snowfall of six inches or more. As a matter of fact, the National Weather Service in Mount Holly has issued an Ugg Boot Warning for Mercer County, with 3 to 6 sightings per hour expected north of Woodbridge Mall and localized accumulations of up to 20 pairs per hour in the vicinity of Cottage, where whiteout conditions are likely.

What else does 2007 have in store? In June, citing a sacred commitment to the security of celebreality, George W. Bush deploys 21,000 troops to intervene in the Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump feud, which claims hundreds of lives a week after an incendiary April 3 press release in which Trump likens O'Donnell to "fast-food ogre Grimace." Doing so, Bush ignores the advice of top generals, most of whom believe that rather than a troop surge, deployed troops should be given Surge to vastly increase wakefulness and productivity and subsequently slides to an all-time job approval nadir of negative zero percent.

All is not geopolitical doom and gloom, however. Proving the cultural isolation of Iran's ultra-religious ruling cabal is the Iranian Pog Craze of 2007, touched off by an illegal shipment of Zelzal-3 missiles hidden within a container packed with Charles Barkley slammers. In fact, while aggressive nuclear saber-rattling continues through the summer, most Iranians shun belligerence in favor of raucous nights of Pog accompanied by the danceable apostasy of Young MC's 1989 debut "Stone Cold Rhymin'."

And finally, dear reader, your odds of repeating as Time magazine's Person of the Year are poor, at best. In the time it took you read this column, did you also upload a video of yourself tapping the "Super Mario 3" theme song on twin Fenders to YouTube? No? Guess it's finally Yngwie's year in the sun, then.