the thing about the superbowl

The Superbowl was kind of lame. I was rooting for the underdog, but no cigar...Alas. Most people don't really care about the game so much it seems. If you dig deep, or perhaps dig very little, in the collective American Psyche, one discovers that it isn't so much about The Superbowl. No. It's about The Superparty and Super Commercials. On a side note, this PETA ad was banned from the Superbowl (NSFW). Its intention is supposedly to encourage vegetarianism, though the FCC (or was it NBC?) disagreed. Either way, the true hilarity was uncovered when the CNN reporter charged with covering the story used a butternut squash to imitate a gun but ironically fell short, making an odd, somewhat phallic gesture with the vegetable herself.

Anyway, I keep getting hits on The Lake Effect Affect from people referred from google searching for "roof icicle removal." Obviously my blog is popping up in their query results due to this entry in which I talk about our Icicle of Death (which, by the way, remains and grows daily--it was almost within arm's reach the other day. I obviously had little luck with my removal techniques, so I'm not sure if I'm a good source of tips...However, I keep seeing commercials for cool stuff like this so that's my only icicle tip...I also dumped about 8 lbs. of salt on the driveway yesterday, focusing major effort under The Icicle where a large mound of ice (almost a stalagmite itself) has formed making driving precarious. Unfortunately, salt melt does not defy gravity and melt vertically.

I'll let you know. More snow is on the way.

The thing about icicles

The Icicle of Death isn't going anywhere.

Thanks to the non-stop snowfall our roof has started accumulating vast amounts of ice. I've always found icicles quite pretty, but those of Buffalo take on a gargantuan quality that is at once impressive and intimidating. The largest of the icicles hangs over the driveway and our entrance to the house.

For the last 48 hours we've had a bit of a reprieve from the snow, even a heat wave on Thursday when we made it all the way up to 32°F/0°C!! I took the opportunity to wash my car which has taken a beating from all the salt on the roads, but the "warmth" didn't touch the giant ice stalactite. Today it's back to 11°F, and thus the Icicle of Death isn't going anywhere.

Fearing for my car, and more importantly, my life, I decided I needed to cut the icicle down to size a bit. I vertically chucked tennis balls at it for a while, hoping to knock it loose, with very limited success. Finally, I turned to a running shoe for better leverage, but still no luck. If it wasn't for the nearby windows, I would have resorted to something heavier, like a part of the Icicle of Death's smaller predecessor, the Icicle of Near Death, which fell last week from the same location:

Anyway, if anyone has any icicle removal suggestions, please let me know. I'm fairly certain one of these days I'm going to drive under it and it will come plummeting down, crushing my car and maiming anyone in my passenger seat. Seriously, this thing is huge! Since this picture was taken it's grown---now at least a foot in circumference!
Anyway, the snow is pretty at least. :)