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Holy Maple Syrup, Batman!
Looks like it's going to be anywhere from a 1-Slice to a 3-Slice Alert, depending on where you live. I'll split the difference and call it a 2-Slicer!
Wait... what?
Wait, what is a 'french toast alert system,' and why do I get the WBZ website when I Google it?
Pls. advise. I grew up in Maine.
OK, I'll have an alerting page up later today
In the meantime:
The French Toast Alert System helps you plan for emergencies by giving you a ready gauge to determine the likelihood you'll have to rush to the store to buy milk, eggs and bread.
Something like:
Cart Line
Red means you have to stand in a line outside Roche Brothers waiting for carts to come back in from the parking lot.
I guess it's our special form of regional storm-related hysteria. I lived in rural Kentucky as a kid, and down there you get a snow day from school if there's as much as an inch on the roads - with good reason, because an inch of snow on the road will make Bo and Luke crash the General Lee through the widow's shithouse.
But this doesn't stack up to the hysterical mobs I see emptying shelves at Roche Bros the day before a storm. The part I don't get is that most of the people there dumping shelves into carts could walk there if they had to, and it would be substantially more fun.
So next time somebody makes fun of Southerners who can't drive on snow and cancel school at the first flake, let's reflect on the madness of crowds trying to buy all the eggs before somebody else does.
Ok...
Ok, so we're not measuring snow in French toast sized increments, just in the liklihood that we get to stay home and eat French toast?
Luckily, I work at home. Every day is French toast day.
Also, in case of emergency, there's a nice mom&pop store/meth front across the street.
p.s. @Gareth - I firmly believe it is still alright to make fun of anyone who can't do 55 on sheer ice. It's called northern resolve, people. Let's shape up, pray for snow, and go bang out some donuts in the Shaws parking lot.
Snow in Boston is still measured in shelbyscotts
Where have you gone, Shelby Scott? Our Nation turns its panicked eyes to you:
Resolved
I learned to drive in Massachusetts, in the winter, in a large, rear-wheel drive car. I'm ready for all of it.
But I'm not ready for Roche Bros the day before a promised Northeaster. You won't be able to find Northern Resolve there, let alone eggs.
If you're doing donuts in a car full of enough food to equip a fallout shelter for a month, maybe you're the funny one.
Slip Sliding Away
Two days after I got my first minivan, a much larger, ABS-equipped vehicle than I had ever driven before, I exited my evening lecture to find it parked alone in a vast empty parking lot covered with 2" of fresh snow!
After I dug it out, you better believe I made more donuts than dunkin before I headed 25 miles home! Acres of snow-covered pavement to play with! The campus cops thought I was nuts until I explained that:
I had had the car for two days
It was my first automatic trans
It was bigger than previous vehicles
It had ABS, which I was NOT used to
As I was leaving, they had taken their cruiser into an adjacent parking lot, and were having some of the same fun.
It is something I try to do every year so that I know what my vehicle will do and can decide what how to make it do what I want it to. I recommended it to an Austrailian friend who lived in Boston when he got his first vehicle - he later said that the practice runs probably saved his life on a skiing trip.
The one thing you gotta
The one thing you gotta watch out for are the lightposts... I almost lost a game of parking lot slalom one snowy winter morn...
Harrumph!
What is all this buying bread - if we are that stuck in the house, we make bread! We use the fireplace if the power goes out.
Then we eat it along side bowls of nice clean deep snow decorated with maple syrup and pure cranberry juice.
Except we don't have a kitchen right now ... so I guess we'll use the toaster oven with that scali bread from the Piantadosi factory.
French toast alert?
French toast is like snow: you never know how many slices you'll get, or how long it will last?
Well....(chuckling aloud to myself)
That's one way to look at it.
Hey Adam
Would it be possible for you to make the alert box an embeddable object?
Oooh
I was thinking of an RSS feed, but, sure, let me see what I can do.
Embeddable French Toast advisory
Paste the following where you want it to go:
<script src="http://www.universalhub.com/frenchtoast.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
It'll create an alert box 125px by roughly 130px. If you do try it, let me know how it works; this is the first time I've ever built something like this.
RSS? Of course:
http://www.universalhub.com/taxonomy/term/2564/0/feed
As with the widget, if you grab this, let me know if you run into any problems - it has embedded styles, which should work in most RSS readers, but ...
Works on my blog
It's a thing of beauty...
http://www.jarretthousenorth.com/2007/11/30.html#a...
Mine, too!
I LOVE it. Only thing missing is having David Ropeik's successor at Channel 5 appearing on the shoulder of Route 128 in a storm saying, "Well, [Natalie's successor], I am out here on Route 128 and, as you can see behind me, it is snowing."
Excellent!
The script works like a charm, thank you!
It shall remain at the top of my sidebar until the danger has passed for the season!