…head on over to ifitwasmyhome.com and map a scale image of the oil plume onto your current city or town. Here you can see the result for my location:

The site admins update the image of the oil plume regularly using satellite data from NOAA. They also have a live video feed of the spill and a running total of gallons leaked, just in case the visualization of an oil plume covering your home and the surrounding vicinity wasn’t enough to ruin your day.

via flowingdata

This depressing photo was taken from my apartment balcony this afternoon. No retouching was required to make it a black and white shot.

Upstaters may be amused to know that this dusting of snow was enough to collapse the entire city. Schools sent children home early; city buses were called back to the depot. Some minister of something is on TV warning everyone to stay in their homes.

The Catalonian Snow Plan is in full effect. It is called NEUCAT. Neu (pronounced ‘NAY-oo’) is the Catalan word for snow. The fact that the national snow emergency plan has part of my name in it just adds insult to injury. It seems that even moving to a sun-drenched Mediterranean paradise, my fate is inextricably linked to the white beasties. Touché, winter. Touché.

Download your very own copy of the 38-page NEUCAT snow emergency plan

Here is a video that’s now been sent to me twice – it’s Stephen Fry discussing the tradition of placing a caganer in the nativity scene. Happy holidays everyone!