Frazz by Jef Mallett for January 11, 2017

I remeber when “polar vortex” was simply called “winter”.

There’s a strip mall near my home called Lakepoint Commons. Not on a lake, nowhere near a point, and doesn’t have a common area.

Like the Department of the Interior, which deals with everything that’s outside.

we have a Pineview shopping center with no pines. And an Autumn Hills community where all the hills were leveled

The polar vortex is a powerful wind that blows in a ring around the pole all year; most planets that have substantial atmospheres seem to have one (or rather two). When you hear about the “polar vortex” in the context of weather, it means that a glop of that polar air has cut loose and run south (or north) to make winter much worse than normal in the human latitudes. It’s not just winter, and it’s not just cold; it’s a blob of winter that’s exceptionally cold for a particular reason.

Polar Vortex sounds like it ought to be the more awkwardly-named Polarbearnado.

There’s a subdivision near here called Pheasant Run. I’ll bet they did when the bulldozers came…

My favorite subdivision name is the name of ‘village’ in Columbia, Maryland. It is “Kings Contrivance.” (The name came from a nearby restaurant.)A bit closer to Baltimore, you will find another subdivision named “Suburbia.”

The apartments I live in have the provocative name of “Hunters Chase”.

“Or maybe you’re just crazy, kid, and you’re making a big deal out of nothing. And by nothing, I don’t mean the vortex; I mean your overthinking things in ways that aren’t funny.” The sad thing is that you really don’t see it, do you?