Ah, it’s that time of the year again. Grandma’s knee is acting up, you’ve changed your dog into his slicker, office ladies are coming to work in garbage bags, reporters are filming thrashing trees... yes, it’s the first typhoon of the year. THE BIGGEST TYPHOON EVER TO ENTER THE SOUTH CHINA SEA!!! (in May). May seems unusually early for THE BIGGEST TYPHOON EVER TO ENTER THE SOUTH CHINA SEA (in May). It may be global warming, but the early arrival of THE BIGGEST TYPHOON EVER TO ENTER THE SOUTH CHINA SEA (in May) heralds something more foreboding for the year ahead: An impending deluge of media hype. All summer long, expect squalls of satellite images, Doppler effects (not the twins in the other galaxy thing) and little angry storm cloud pictures saturating your newspaper. Experts predict that almost 40 feet of editorial space may be forever lost to the storms. They also expect font sizes to drastically increase, perhaps spiking at four-inch letters during the hoisting of the first Typhoon 8 signal. You may begin to see intermittent showers of coverage as early as one week before an actual storm. It may even get so bad that Freddy quits and moves to the Bahamas. It’s advised during this season, and especially during this, THE BIGGEST TYPHOON EVER TO ENTER THE SOUTH CHINA SEA (in May), that you take special care to rein in the elderly and the gullible, keeping them at least 40 feet from the nearest media source - otherwise, you may precipitate torrential bouts of complaining and nagging. And if you don’t believe us, consider this: The BIGGEST STORM EVER TO ENTER THE SOUTH CHINA SEA DURING JUNE 2006 is already gathering steam on the horizon. Fortunately, experts have worked out a finely honed method of educating the public about typhoons: letters - followed by numbers. This is such a simplistic and sensible warning system that we suggest applying it to the everyday situations far more frightening than any typhoon. T1. Tamar being discussed within an 800km radius of Hong Kong, which may cause extreme adverse affects to your attention span. Action : If indoors, turn unrelated radio or TV broadcasts up to maximum. If outdoors, seek shelter near construction sites or gatherings of domestic helpers. If nagging noises persist, perforate eardrums with nearest sharp implement. T3. T-back hanging out of nearby fat girl’s pants. This is usually brought on by a fashion victim kneeling in your immediate vicinity. Actio n: Close your eyes, hope, and count to ten. T2.0. You’ve surfed to a gweilo’s obnoxious blog . You will be exposed to unfounded opinions and complaints about English spellings and an insufferable air of superiority. Picture galleries of gross people open in streams of pop-ups. Action : Shut down all power to your household. Move to another room, boil a cup of tea, light some candles and wrap yourself in an afghan.
