People often ask me why my room is so hot in winter and why I can't stand the cold. I conversely wonder why people don't like warm weather. Today and yesterday is a perfect example of why I deal best with warm temperatures. Here is yesterday's national temperature map:

The news has been dominated with stories about how there would be record temperatures in 200 cities across the nation. CNN is really playing it up. Right now their front page headline is: "Deadly heat lingers over parts of U.S."

I for one am enjoying it a lot. I suppose this is my just desserts for all the New Yorkers who scoff at how cold I get in the winter because now they are all whining about one two little days of heat. So -- I want to show all the whiners what a hot summer is really like, as I've been told all about the cold numerous times.

Above are the seasonal temperatures for Palm Desert, CA, my hometown. You can see that on average the temperature in PD is 110 degrees in parts of July and August. The high yesterday that had so many people complaining in DC was 100 degrees, with a heat index of 110. Well, congratulations. You got a small taste of what it's like for two months of the year where I grew up! But, like I said, 110 is the average. There are a good number of days each year where it's 120 degrees. Try that weather for two months, you pansies. Some of you are probably thinking, "Well, that's a dry heat! We have humidity!" Slow down, chump. The desert has humidity at times and has been getting more and more humid each year. Besides that, humidity just makes you sweat more. 120 degrees is really, really hot, humidity or not.

I thought I would also share a story of what I consider to be a real "heat wave". It took place on July 28, 1995 -- ten years ago tomorrow. I was in Palm Desert and the temperature got so hot one afternoon that all power went out due to the fact that air conditioners were sucking more power out of the energy grid than it could provide. That afternoon temperatures varied across the desert. Some places put them at 126 degrees, others all the way up to 128. Either way, it was hotter than it had ever been, and nobody had air conditioning. You can see this day on the graph above, by the way. It's the highest spike. I was told to keep our fridge closed so that our food wouldn't go bad after I attempted to cool down using it. After that, I went out to the pool, which was nice for a while. But soon it too heated up considerably and didn't offer much relief. The power stayed off for over an hour, maybe two. Once you sit for two hours in a desert with a temperature of 126+ degrees with no air conditioning, I'll listen to you whine about a "heat wave".