Hold on to that nut!

That is how my Yahoo weather widget looks for Duisburg for the past few weeks. Ignore all the dramatic lightning streaks and notice Monday, thats how the past few weeks have been. Dont be fooled by the sun peeking out on other days, the cloud cover is just a CYA for the meteorologists I guess. Because its a live update, those sunny pictures can and do infact become sheets of rain in few min. Summer this year has been quite a disappointment so far, Berlin was much better last year. Actually I dont know what to wish for, being in Germany. Wishing for the sun would be a typical European thing to do, just that I dont have air conditioning systems here. Wait a min, make that 'I' a 'We'. Yes, Europe as a rule doesnt seem to have ac's , funny considering they have had a recent history of warm summers. I had one warm summer last year in Berlin in a cramped up apartment and this year, lo, i got my ventilator ( pedestal fan for folks from India) much before the summer began. Why an entire continent would not learn from experience is puzzling!

From my tiny fans to yahoo widgets to forecasts, weather's big business if you did not know, GE ( 3 ways with Bain and Blackstone if you are from B School, go analyze that) just bought the weather channel for $3.5 billion hoping to use the eyeballs from the website to drive the price of its broadcasting assets when stuff is ( rumored) to go on sale later this year. Read some more details here.

Still remember the days when I used to tease a friend in Bangalore for watching out for the weather forecast for the day before leaving for work. Funny how the widgets are changing my world. They certainly have made it lousier by telling me about how miserable the weather tomorrow and the day after is gonna be!