sNOw News

I know all my New York friends will laugh at how excited I am that snow has fallen in Portland.  I don't blame them really, they got hit hard this year. What's really funny to me is what happens to this city when barely a few inches fall and the mania that occurs in anticipation. Our Mayor, Sam Adams - yes, that's really his name - even tweeted the Winter Weather Advisory report. That's ok, he's just passing on the alerts he gets. It's the news coverage that really cracks me up.

To be fair, the news coverage in Portland makes me laugh on a daily basis. A nice change if I do say so myself. I'm not one to watch the news typically. This is because it's always bad news: "If it bleeds, it leads." Not here. There are often reports of firemen getting cats out of trees. Of course, there's bad news like the week long report on a girl from a local high school who had a person in a car drive up to her after school and say a lewd remark. This was cause for a week-long report on stalking and a man hunt for the driver of the car. Stalking is nothing to shirk, but one comment does not a stalker a make. I'm just sayin'.

Anyway, I think the news humor meter for me hit an all time high last night, when I watched a full half hour of coverage of snow in Vancouver (about 20 minutes away). You'd think it was a blizzard with the constant replay of the traffic camera showing flakes falling from the sky. Then the news decided to focus on a bridge that had maybe 3-inches of snow. This story was repeated about every 5 minutes in the newscast. Oh, and I can't forget the reporter that was outside a Starbucks wiping very little snow off a table, correctly calling it a "dusting." At one point in the coverage before a commercial break, the anchor said, "We'll be back with more snow coverage." I swear I thought I heard a tinge of sarcasm in her voice.

I mock, it's true. I can't help myself and if you ever come to Portland, do yourself a favor and watch the local news at least once. That said, it's kind of nice living in a place where the news organizations need to work at finding news and it's really nice that in the end it's not all bad news.

Anyway, I better go check out what's left of the snow because even as I write this the snow melts. I wonder if tonight's headline story is: "Portland gets snow and it melts... stay tuned for news at 11."