The Year Without Summer

Main article: The Year Without Summer

Ah, summer. The season of fair days, harvests, young love, rainbows, unicorns, and gumdrops...

But when you look beyond that, summer, at its core, is really just a tilt in the earth’s axis, resulting in increased solar output to a particular hemisphere; making one man’s summer another guy’s winter. I know that sounds pretty unromantic. Nevertheless, it’s always been pretty fashionable for people to love on summer. Currently, summer is almost as celebrated as popular cultures love of vampires, which is at least slightly ironic.

This is what popular culture has done to a

legend of hungry, bloated corpses. :\

Now, I gotta admit, summer to me primarily means bright sun glare, a state of perma-sweating, and a marked increase in the urge to go yell at kids to get off my lawn (particularly disconcerting considering that I have no lawn). Not to sound too Andy Rooney, but I’m pretty sure I could do without the season were it an option...

...Apparently however, completely lacking a summer is, according to this article at least, not really such a good thing. Famine, disease, riots, death, you get the idea. So maybe I was wrong. Maybe I'm a cold, heartless bastard. F you. Get off my lawn.

Enter Wikipedia, the consummate goddess of wisdom and neutrality. She warms my icy cardiac organ by not only covering negative effects of the "year without summer", but in the last section of the article, many of the positive cultural effects too. Granted, many thousands, if not millions of people died and suffered as a result, but I got to see some sweet sunset pictures! :D

You may also note that the article makes reference to "brown" and even "red" snow falling in certain locales. You may have been under the impression that colored snow, particularly colors like brown, red, and yellow were solely caused by biological forces, but you were wrong. Odd colored snow may, in fact, be a perfectly natural part of an extremely rare meteorological event. You should probably taste it to find out.

Returning to vampires for a moment, I am however sad to report that the article is, much like the shadow people, very anthropocentric. It fails to take into consideration the notion that what was definitely a really sucky year for humans, was likely a phenomenal year for vampires, and perhaps undead everywhere.

What’s worse? Undead all summer or those door-to-door Mormon missionaries?

Awesomeness tip: Read the short article, just be careful not to identify too closely with the promise of a ridiculously mild summer. For one, it’s not likely to happen again any time soon, and two, in Wikipedia land they call people with our tendencies “photophobic”. A quick visit to that article will inform you that your condition is perhaps due to your undiagnosed dyslexia or autism. :(

Just another dark secret to repress deep down into that icy, black heart of yours (and mine) as we scurry through the shadows this summer...