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Nov. 4th, 2009 09:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marydellAre any of you watching Stormchasers on Discovery? It's pretty much the only show we watch in realtime here at Casa Dell. It follows a couple of groups of tornado chasers, and has awesome footage of tornadoes and also some fun personality stuff and some annoying personality stuff. And vehicular geekery as well, since all their equipment has to be mobile.
So, currently we have 2 main guys who are the focus of the show. Reed Timmer is a sort of frat-guy, overenthusiastic, narcissistic guy who is technically a meteorology grad student but is super focused on getting and selling extreme video. He says "dominate" so often that it would not be safe to base a drinking game on it. "We totallyl dominated today!" "dominatedominatedominatedominate" etc. Right now his story is basically about other people being annoyed with him--his driver, Joel, keeps wanting to sit out chases and is taking him to task for bad forecasting. I don't know what Joel is smoking, because Reed is incredibly obnoxious but also appears to be an AMAZING forecaster. He is at all the awesome tornadoes, and is generally positioned well. Joel stayed home and missed a really cool tornado in the last episode. In this episode Joel seems to be focused on being a dick to Reed. I think the next episode will be about Reed replacing him as a driver. I am sympathetic to people who hate Reed for being a d-bag but I am surprised that anyone takes issue with his forecasting. Since these guys are all highly educated meteorologists, though, I can see that over time a sidekick guy would want to have a voice in the forecasting. Anyway Mike keeps cringing when we watch these segments (he is pretty much in it just for the tornadoes) but I'm eager to see what happens next. Oh also the interesting thing about Reed is that he says nice stuff about people, even sucky people who are shitty to him, and generally seems to be a nice person, just so full of himself that he's completely intolerable.
Clearly I am struggling with mixed feelings about Reed Timmer. He certainly gives good TV.
Meanwhile we have Sean Casey, an incredibly whiny filmmaker who is trying to get a particular amazing shot for his IMAX film, and the tornadoes are not cooperating. He wants to shoot from inside a tornado, and has a custom-built tank that goes about 10 miles an hour that he's trying to use for the purpose. Last season he finally got inside a tornado, but it was too dark to shoot. Huh, dark? in a tornado? How about that. Also if you spend all day driving 10 miles an hour to get to something, it might be sunset by the time you reach it. Anyway he complains constantly, he is openly a dick to Reed (detecting a trend here...however I can't overestimate how much Reed would be a dead man if I had to spend more than 5 minutes sharing a car with him, so I do see why it happens) (also Reed totally ripped off his tank idea, but Reed's tank is built on a regular car and is less tank-like so goes fast enough to get to tornadoes, which pisses Sean off. He named it the "Dominator," which pisses me off.). But last season Sean didn't hesitate to follow Reed to a storm instead of sticking with his own meteorologist partner. Anyway there is a scene in the latest episode where Sean and co. show up late to a big meeting of weather scientists, and proceed to call attention to themselves, pissing off the leader of the science group . What I notice most about the scene is how the guys from the Discovery Channel are able to stand around with giant cameras in the meeting without bothering anyone, despite also being filmakers. So apparently being an ass isn't a requirement. Likewise when the chasers are having close calls with lightning and hail and running for their cars, there is a Discovery channel guy standing out in that weather filming them and running to the car after getting the shot. Seriously mas macho, those camera guys.
My favorite storm chaser isn't a regular this season because he's too cool: Josh Wurman, who has an awesome truck with a mobile radar dish on top that he invented. Last season he was in every episode but this season he's just going to be in a few because he's busy. He's the lead scientist in the giant meeting of scientists scenes--he is one of the leaders of a government-funded project called Vortex 2 that has 100 scientists and 40 specialized vehicles working together to capture full 360 radar on supercell storms and tornadoes. He is committed to saving lives, makes sure to keep his teams as safe as possible while chasing, and grumps about Reed not being sufficiently serious about science and criticizes Sean's tank. He is AWESOME.
There's one other guy this season, who is so laid-back I forget his name, but he's pretty cool too; another serious scientist. He doesn't have a fancy truck but has interesting little probes that he and his partner drop in the line of tornadoes, and he does stuff like spreading his arms out to feel the wind and then correctly predicts what the storm will do next. At one point he teams up with a couple of younger guys in a shitty little Hyundai-type car that has a probe mounted on top. If you like scientists, you will instantly fall in love with half of the guys on this show and instantly fall in hate with Sean and Reed....except that Reed really always brings us to the coolest tornadoes, and his enthusiasm for them is pretty fun, so I find it's a love/hate thing with him. And he's sort of on the cusp of wanting to be more of a scientist, but can he get over his desire to compete with the awesome Josh Wurman (who was once his teacher)? It's sort of like Anakin and Obi Wan, the way I imagine their relationship being, instead of the utterly sucky version of the movies.
Anyway. It's an awesome show and if you like science, storms, or seeing hyperactive boys channel their energy into a totally insane pursuit*, you should check it out.
*there are a few women in the chase as well, but they are mostly calm, as are many of the men. The hyper ones get more camera time, though.
So, currently we have 2 main guys who are the focus of the show. Reed Timmer is a sort of frat-guy, overenthusiastic, narcissistic guy who is technically a meteorology grad student but is super focused on getting and selling extreme video. He says "dominate" so often that it would not be safe to base a drinking game on it. "We totallyl dominated today!" "dominatedominatedominatedominate" etc. Right now his story is basically about other people being annoyed with him--his driver, Joel, keeps wanting to sit out chases and is taking him to task for bad forecasting. I don't know what Joel is smoking, because Reed is incredibly obnoxious but also appears to be an AMAZING forecaster. He is at all the awesome tornadoes, and is generally positioned well. Joel stayed home and missed a really cool tornado in the last episode. In this episode Joel seems to be focused on being a dick to Reed. I think the next episode will be about Reed replacing him as a driver. I am sympathetic to people who hate Reed for being a d-bag but I am surprised that anyone takes issue with his forecasting. Since these guys are all highly educated meteorologists, though, I can see that over time a sidekick guy would want to have a voice in the forecasting. Anyway Mike keeps cringing when we watch these segments (he is pretty much in it just for the tornadoes) but I'm eager to see what happens next. Oh also the interesting thing about Reed is that he says nice stuff about people, even sucky people who are shitty to him, and generally seems to be a nice person, just so full of himself that he's completely intolerable.
Clearly I am struggling with mixed feelings about Reed Timmer. He certainly gives good TV.
Meanwhile we have Sean Casey, an incredibly whiny filmmaker who is trying to get a particular amazing shot for his IMAX film, and the tornadoes are not cooperating. He wants to shoot from inside a tornado, and has a custom-built tank that goes about 10 miles an hour that he's trying to use for the purpose. Last season he finally got inside a tornado, but it was too dark to shoot. Huh, dark? in a tornado? How about that. Also if you spend all day driving 10 miles an hour to get to something, it might be sunset by the time you reach it. Anyway he complains constantly, he is openly a dick to Reed (detecting a trend here...however I can't overestimate how much Reed would be a dead man if I had to spend more than 5 minutes sharing a car with him, so I do see why it happens) (also Reed totally ripped off his tank idea, but Reed's tank is built on a regular car and is less tank-like so goes fast enough to get to tornadoes, which pisses Sean off. He named it the "Dominator," which pisses me off.). But last season Sean didn't hesitate to follow Reed to a storm instead of sticking with his own meteorologist partner. Anyway there is a scene in the latest episode where Sean and co. show up late to a big meeting of weather scientists, and proceed to call attention to themselves, pissing off the leader of the science group . What I notice most about the scene is how the guys from the Discovery Channel are able to stand around with giant cameras in the meeting without bothering anyone, despite also being filmakers. So apparently being an ass isn't a requirement. Likewise when the chasers are having close calls with lightning and hail and running for their cars, there is a Discovery channel guy standing out in that weather filming them and running to the car after getting the shot. Seriously mas macho, those camera guys.
My favorite storm chaser isn't a regular this season because he's too cool: Josh Wurman, who has an awesome truck with a mobile radar dish on top that he invented. Last season he was in every episode but this season he's just going to be in a few because he's busy. He's the lead scientist in the giant meeting of scientists scenes--he is one of the leaders of a government-funded project called Vortex 2 that has 100 scientists and 40 specialized vehicles working together to capture full 360 radar on supercell storms and tornadoes. He is committed to saving lives, makes sure to keep his teams as safe as possible while chasing, and grumps about Reed not being sufficiently serious about science and criticizes Sean's tank. He is AWESOME.
There's one other guy this season, who is so laid-back I forget his name, but he's pretty cool too; another serious scientist. He doesn't have a fancy truck but has interesting little probes that he and his partner drop in the line of tornadoes, and he does stuff like spreading his arms out to feel the wind and then correctly predicts what the storm will do next. At one point he teams up with a couple of younger guys in a shitty little Hyundai-type car that has a probe mounted on top. If you like scientists, you will instantly fall in love with half of the guys on this show and instantly fall in hate with Sean and Reed....except that Reed really always brings us to the coolest tornadoes, and his enthusiasm for them is pretty fun, so I find it's a love/hate thing with him. And he's sort of on the cusp of wanting to be more of a scientist, but can he get over his desire to compete with the awesome Josh Wurman (who was once his teacher)? It's sort of like Anakin and Obi Wan, the way I imagine their relationship being, instead of the utterly sucky version of the movies.
Anyway. It's an awesome show and if you like science, storms, or seeing hyperactive boys channel their energy into a totally insane pursuit*, you should check it out.
*there are a few women in the chase as well, but they are mostly calm, as are many of the men. The hyper ones get more camera time, though.
