Sharknado: Everything that’s wrong with society in one made-up word

Sharknado. Or perhaps we should write it, #Sharknado.

If you have zero idea what a sharknado is, count yourself lucky and click away, dear reader — click away and save your very soul.

Still here? OK…

“Sharknado” is, assuming you don’t already know and are a weird, masochistic glutton for cultural punishment, a SyFy channel original movie in which, thanks to the help of a massive storm, thousands of man-eating great whites come raining down, mouths agape, upon an unsuspecting populace.

Really.

Here at DTOTW, we believe this heralds the coming of the apocalypse. When the trailer, below, premiered Twitter was, well, all a-twitter with the news. The story was covered by National Public Radio, among other respectable news outlets. Will Wheaton got into the act, as did Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker.

Sharknado is a designed-to-be-bad movie featuring terrible actors — all apologies to Ms. Tara Reid, whose recent portrayal of Lady Macbeth at London’s Globe theater we heard was positively divine (not really). And yet folks — intelligent, successful, talented people (some of them, anyway) — line up to be a part of the fun.

The movie will do very well. People will tune in by the millions, knowing full well that it’s going to be unwatchable.

Now, we are not the first to suggest that filmmakers are following the “Snakes on a Plane” formula, combining two frightening things into one horrible amalgam of idiocy.

But “Snakes on a Plan” should have been the end. When, dear God, will it stop? Tarantulacane? ZombieNaziquake (in which the ground opens up to allow swarms of zombified Nazis the chance to take over San Diego)?

Now, the odd thing is, a sharknado is a real possibility. Not likely, per se, but possible. It has happened. There is, for example, a town in the Philippines that dealt with a rain of fish as recently as last year. Hell, there’s a burg in Honduras that has an annual festival devoted to fish-rain.

And, lo, the people gazed toward Heaven as the rivers ran with maple syrup and fish did fly as birds, and the people knew the end was nigh.

 

Will the real groundhog please stand up?

The complete and utter idiocy of the pagan-esque tradition known as Groundhog Day has grown exponentially. You can’t turn around without smacking a groundhog in his weather-predicting mouth.

We all know Punxutawney Phil, or however the Hell you spell the name of the small town in Pennsylvania with only that one dumb claim to fame. But did you know about Western Maryland Murray?

How about Nibbles? No?

Well, you must know about Smith Lake Jake, Patty Pagoda, Shubenacadie Sam, General Beauregard Lee and Wiarton Willie.

Groundhog Day itself is idiotic, like Paganism-lite, a way for God-fearing Christians to dabble in a bit of Nature worship on the side. But the proliferation of rodent weather prediction takes the dumbness to a level only the Tooth Fairy could reach.

Each town, and that’s only a small selection, relies to some degree on a rodent for weather prediction and/or tourism dollars.

And it’s just dumb. I mean, look at that a picture of a groundhog.

Look at his face. Cute, you say? I say that’s not the visage of a trained meteorologist. Ol’ Phil in Pennsylvania is only right 39

percent of the time, anyway.

Animals are stupid: Dogs can’t stop going in circles

Here’s out Animals are Stupid post this week, featuring the dog who can’t stop going in circles. Metaphor for life? Maybe.

Connecticut’s mountain lion tweets his banality

It started with the Bronx Zoo’s cobra, which supposedly escaped.

Then other people — and we must stress this point, they are people — started Twitter feeds for various animals and inanimate objects. Teddy bears have had Twitter pages, as have cats, mice and God only knows what else.

Now the Connecticut mountain lion has gotten into the act.

The debate of whether or not Connecticut is home to mountain lions has raged for years. The Department of Environmental Protection has denied the fact while residents across the state have sworn up and down that the “big cat” they saw was a real, honest-to-goodness mountain lion.

Meet Connecticut's newest social media guru.

But now the DEP has changed its tune — the department issued a statement confirming that a big cat sighted in Greenwich is, in fact, a mountain lion.

And all of two hours later it was sending out tweets. Here’s a sample:

“You said I didn’t exist #DEP but I do – This is my coming out ceremony! ROAR baby!”

Which, we have to admit, is pretty funny.

But, really, who has time for this sort of thing? One imagines some fat, bored journalist, vainly attempting to interject a bit of excitement into his banal existence, and maybe create something viral, too.

But, then, who are we to judge?

Animals are stupid — vid of the week

We’re embarking on a new weekly segment we like to call “Animals are Stupid/Kids Are Dumb,” in which each week we’ll bring you a video that displays exactly how much smarter we humans are than our four-legged friends or, alternately, how much smarter adults are than children.

Here’s the first video in the series, showing how something as simple as ice can fool a cat. Enjoy!