Shingles, snowpack and Baddicts

Look, all you readers out there who are not yet citizens of Breaking Bad Nation, and are just plain sick and tired of reading and hearing all of us Baddicts still drooling gobs of gaga for the show and the newly released &8220;barrel set,&8221; I ask, as a slobberer residing in The House of Walter, for you to keep a handle on your hate. I know it’s a little much, what with all the gushing that will build to a pitch in the next couple of weeks during the upcoming onslaught of awards shows, but please, stay cool. Trust me, the gushing is for a reason. Put your hate on hold, bite your lip, tolerate what is apparently our bottomless cup of raving, and remember the immortal words of John Lennon, who once sang, &8220;I hope some day you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.&8221; And have an A-1 day! (Bitch!)

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It's been a while since I indulged in some good ole medically unauthorized and totally gratuitous finger-wagging, so let's take care of that right now. First, I have a few friends currently struggling with nasty bouts of influenza. I feel for them in their snuffling, hacking misery and am thus reminded—flu shots are cool. Period. I'm speaking from the perspective of my own bod. I've had flu shots 4 out of the last 5 years. The one year I didn't get one, I got sick. The four years I got the shots, nothing. Not even a sore throat. If you've been avoiding flu shots the way Jenny McCarthy avoids vaccinations, time to rethink.

Then there's shingles shots. Are you a baby boomer who had chicken pox as a kid? You're vulnerable. Trust me, as someone who got lashed with a slash of these touchy tinglers awhile back, you don't want to get lit up with a dose of these oozing owies. Consider getting the vaccination. In fact, don't consider. Just do it.

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Looks like we're well on our way to Extraordinary Parchitude here in the West. We'll probably arrive at our Desiccation Destination sometime in early August, unless, of course, we actually get rained/snowed on sometime between now and May Day. Right now, it doesn't look good, but then again, you never know. I'm doing my part. Usually, when I write about drought, it'll be pouring on the day you read this.

But we're thirsty right now. Big time. Last week, driving on 395 in the Lone Pine/Bishop metroplex, on the back side of the mightiest mountains of the West, it looked like there was a base of about 6 inches above 10,000 feet. That's not a snowpack. That's Sierra dandruff. The snow on Mt. Whitney looked like shake that fell off the backs of the last flock of honkers that flew by. The White Mountains were, once again, horribly misnamed. That brought to mind a conversation I had with a fisherman out at Pyramid a few weeks ago. Looking at the ever-expanding beaches out there, I commented that we sure do need a good winter this year. He corrected me. “We need three good winters.” He's right. That means we got some rallying to do. Is there an “instant big ass blizzard” app on iTunes?