The Peter Files Blog of Comedy's Top 10 Jokes About Yesterday's Downstate Illinois Earthquake

The Peter Files Blog Top 10 Jokes About Yesterday's Downstate Illinois Earthquake

• 10. Mick: Did you get satisfaction Daisy-May?
•  9.  I guess Britney's off her diet.
•  8.  Elvis! It's not safe to jump onto that trampoline from the balcony! I don't care if you want to make your jail-house rock!
•  7.  Farm radio: There's a surprise pre-dawn 2-for-1 on overalls at Ethyl's Downstate Big & Tall where "We open, before your rooster crows."
•  6.  Liz: Michael! I love your new hideaway farmland play land! Where does this little chute go? The playroom?   Michael: No! Wait! It's the laundry!
•  5.  (Downstate Radio: The rumors that Hillary Clinton will be driving through town on her way to her next campaign stop are untrue. It is safe to return to your homes.)
•  4. Biker bar near the end of an impromptu road stop on the way to Chicago:  Whoa! Somebody stomp on that little pink iguana! It stole my stash!
• 3: (Whispered for a YouTube.com video camera: Going for a new world's record, now, 500 frat-boys, 500 cows.  When the gun goes off, tip!
• 2. Alright, who had the garbanzo beans with dinner last night?

And the Number One Line heard during last night's earthquake:

• 1. Shhh! We're filming the surprise early morning wake-up call for the 2009 Season Premier of NBC's The Biggest Loser - Boot Camp.  We're here in the secret men's barracks somewhere in downstate Illinois. Guest host Ty Pennington gets out his bull-horn....
  

More on the Illinois Earthquake from CNN.com.

Hope you liked them!
 

Peter, Chief Editor and Spelling Wrecker
The Peter Files Blog of Comedy, Jokes, Satire, Commentary and Videos
Http://ThePeterFiles.blogspot.com

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More Comments on the Illinois Earthquake

I've seen some comments in blogs from Alaska and California asking why an Illinois or Midwest earthquake should be such a big deal if its only a 5.2.

My main response is this.

Unlike their regions, where earthquakes are commonplace and expected, earthquakes here are rare, and are outside the experience of most people. More, most people in the Midwest until now have been completely unaware of even the possibility of an earthquake here.

This means that most homes in major cities that could be affected by a very large earthquake, such as a 7.0 - 8.0, including St. Louis, Memphis, Kansas City, Atlanta, Gary and Chicago have not been built to the kind of building codes used in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Anchorage, etc., where earthquakes are known to occur.

There are exceptions that I know about. Sears Tower for example, even though it was built to be the World's tallest building in the 1970's was deliberately built to be earthquake resistant through its basic design. It sways in heavy winds and in a major earthquake would rock heavily, but it would take the ground splitting underneath it, which as far as we know, due to the large distance between Chicago and the fault line, is extremely unlikely, to knock it down.

Many other major structures might not fare so well here. Which ones? How much damage they might take? Who knows?

The fact that it has not happened here and that people are very upset makes it newsworthy.

The fact that we are less prepared than you makes it newsworthy.

The fact that the press was surprised probably gave it an extra bump in the news.

But really, anyone who complains that our earthquakes are getting more attention than their earthquakes is really being petty. Very petty. Or are maybe being what are known in the newsgroups as "trolls" people deliberately stirring up trouble, just to do so. For their own sake.

In the matter of earthquakes, this is not funny. I am a comedy writer, so I did a piece today on earthquakes which I hope is funny. That's a good thing, it relieves stress about something that really worries people.

But what we really should be doing about it is thinking, O.K., this is something that really could happen here, what should we as individuals and family members or neighbors be ready to do about it. What's our PLAN?

"I survived Hurricane Frederick - 1979" were the pins that my College gave out after the storm. I've been through a natural disaster, not as bad as some hurricanes go, but bad enough to be without lights, running water for days and to have very significant storm damage to deal with for months. The college (Spring Hill College) was very prepared. It had a great disaster plan.

We were safe during the storm, or as safe as we could be, in highly reinforced buildings, there were ample emergency supplies, electricity was back up through emergency generators in a few critical areas quickly, and emergency volunteer clean-up efforts were safely organized so that in hours any dangerous overhanging tree-fall was gone in walking paths, and in a day or two all roads and pathways on the campus were clear enough for traffic. Psychological damage and stress relief programs were in place right away too.

So, what's your plan. Does your family know where to meet, how to get together if the cells go out and your cell phones don't work because all the towers are down or unpowered. Expect that this will happen in a major earthquake and a significant amount of stress will be relieved if you have a plan for it. 

Fire is a major problem in earthquakes.

Where is it safest to be in an earthquake?

That might be a critical issues during one and might vary by building downtown in Chicago. If I was in Sears Tower I wouldn't leave it and if I was just outside I would try to duck inside immediately before the sheets of glass began to fall from 103 stories up. Or they might not. It would have to be a mammoth quake to do that.

But you have to think about the worst sometimes and plan for it so that you can think clearly if it does happen. Then, forget about it except to keep your emergency supplies like fresh water up to date.

I'll try to update this post with some disaster prep links or info in this post.

Cheers.

For more blogger's comments on the earthquake go to:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/18/quake.irpt/index.html


Peter, Chief Editor and Spelling Wrecker
The Peter Files Blog of Comedy, Jokes, Satire, Commentary and Videos
Http://ThePeterFiles.blogspot.com

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Aftershock 1014 hours 4/18/08 - Just my Imagination? NO!

I think there was just an earthquake aftershock. Shorter, but perhaps more powerful? None of the earlier warning kind of things, just shaking though there was some vibration through my feet. Could the difference in part be that I am now wearing shoes?

My dad said that he felt the first one and timed it at 3 minutes. He lives in a brick house though. He recognized it immediately from one he experienced the first day he got to Japan in the 1950's.

Revised: 10:50

Nothing on the media or USGS Looks like it was just my imagination?

Revised: 10:54 I was right! http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/cus/ Reports that there was a 4.5 magnitude earthquake 18 miles SE of Olney Illinois. It was not my imagination (KEN!) even if there is no word on CNN, yet. Perhaps my blog is just a better news source on this stuff. hah! I run rings around you logically.

(My sense that it was smaller was also surprisingly correct.)

For more blogger's comments on the earthquake go to:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/18/quake.irpt/index.html

Peter, Chief Editor and Spelling Wrecker
The Peter Files Blog of Comedy, Jokes, Satire, Commentary and Videos
Http://ThePeterFiles.blogspot.com

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===> We love comments about our posts good or bad!

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Peter's Files Experiences of The Illinois Earthquake on 4/18/08

I'm hoping that the lack of information about injuries and deaths so far is a sign that the earthquake early this morning resulted in none.

An Earthquake hit the State of Illinois according to the USGS at 4:36 Central Standard time with an Epicenter in far downstate Illinois with a Magnitude of 5.2 (revised at 10:51) on the Richter Scale.

At the time I was having trouble sleeping. This is not unusual. Chronic pain sufferers endure sleep problems. So I was awake when I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Suddenly, I had this odd sensation like someone else had entered the room from behind me, which happened to be SSSE the direction of the quake's epicenter from my home in Chicago.

The lights were off in my bedroom so I turned them on, but no one was there.

Suddenly there was an odd feeling of pressure, as if our 1880 frame house was feeling a strong breeze.

I then realized the pressure had a rhythmic quality and I had trouble figuring out what it was for perhaps a second and then it hit me, the odds were strong that I was feeling a low magnitude earthquake!

I had a flash sense that it had to be from the Missouri Fault Line - I think that's what it is called - which runs on a line through or just south of Southern Illinois From Missouri to Kentucky or Ohio. CNN probably has the details out by now.

That gave me a flash worry about people who I knew from St. Louis who I knew from Spring Hill College, many of whom I had not seen for 28 years Jim, Bill, Karen, Mary Sue, Carl's family (I think Carl is in Toronto now) - all their families - even some I had seen more recently, like Vinny.

That took me about a microsecond after realizing that it was an earthquake.

In another instant I debated waking the others in the house: was that an increase in the quake's intensity?

Then I felt some actual movement or swaying in the house. The ceiling fan above me had begun to sway just a little and I could feel a bassy vibration through the floor through my socks. Not enough for real swaying of the house, but enough to know that something was there. Kind of like the subway running by underground. Of course, we don't live over the subway, and this was a lot more powerful.

This feeling was probably a component wave of the earthquake as it spread in all directions from either the surface above the origin of the quake, or the actual underground source, but unlike that actual shaking you would feel much closer to the quake, was more like the thump-thump-thump base of the speakers that you might feel through the walls of your dorm from a band in the quad.

But this thump was slow. Earthquakes must have a very low frequency a long distance away. But not too low. There was a vibrato in the thicker vibrations that I felt coming up through the floor. I'm taking a long time to describe something that only took seconds to experience.

No - I stayed put - it seemed that what I was feeling was as much as we were going to feel. This time.

The richter scale is a scale where each digit is geometrically higher than the one above it. So a 6 on the scale is a lot stronger than a 5, and a 7 is a whole lot stronger than a 6. And no one wants to be anywhere near an 8 or 9.

Living in the Beverly Hills neighborhood of Chicago, which is just west of the I-57/I-94 split, that is on the far southwest side, the fact that this quake could be felt here means that it must have been a doozy downstate. Not enough to bring down all the houses, better watch the news to make sure, but let's hope that this is a tension relief earthquake that gets us by for a few decades and is not the precursor to something a lot stronger.

I hate to think like this, but in the buying wood or buying brick house debate, I'm glad I'm living in a wood house right now. They flex better in earthquakes. But it looks like I might just need to check out the fine print in my homeowners insurance right about now.

I predict increased interest in earthquake insurance in the Midwest, if we can get it.

For more blogger's comments on the earthquake go to:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/18/quake.irpt/index.html



Peter, Chief Editor and Spelling Wrecker
The Peter Files Blog of Comedy, Jokes, Satire, Commentary and Videos
Http://ThePeterFiles.blogspot.com

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