Several hundred people, including Gothamist, gathered at the Staten Island Zoo early this morning to hear a well-fed rodent's forecast for the remainder of the winter. After the Tottenville High School chorus entertained the crowd local dignitaries and elected officials were introduced. Then, the moment everyone was waiting for. A Brownie troop member was enlisted to coax Staten Island Chuck out of his house with the aid of a few peanuts. To chants of "Chuck......

Every year, we look forward to Groundhog Day for the appearances of Punxsutawney Phil, Staten Island Chuck, and the inevitable multiple screenings of the movie Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray. But we also love Groundhog Day because it means that WNBC newswoman Sue Simmons is prodded into doing her impression of a groundhog. We love a beautiful woman not afraid to make herself look ridiculous--like when she fell off her chair and recovered somewhat......

Our snowless, warm January is being followed by a very wet start to February. Expect rain and sleet throughout the day today. It's the dreaded wintry mix! We may even have a bit of thunder this afternoon. Actually, the weather freezing rain north of the city is making conditions dangerous from Connecticut through the lower Hudson Valley into northern New Jersey. Further upstate there's an ice storm warning in effect through 5 p.m. Within the......

Hoorah! WNBC has a clip of Sue Simmons's Groundhog Impression, 2007 edition from yesterday's newscast. How did the WNBC anchor start imitating woodland creatures?Sue says her imitation of the groundhog face actually began before she came to New York, when she was a reporter in New Haven. On Groundhog Day one year, she ended a live shot with the groundhog face, and for weeks, people kept coming up to her asking for a repeat performace.And......

The groundhog survey says we'll have an early spring. Staten Island Chuck, along with Punxsutawney Phil (pictured above), predicted an early spring. However, Holtsville Hal on Long Island saw his shadow for six more weeks of winter, but we'll assume he just woke up on the wrong side of the burrow this morning. As for today's weather, we'll have another post up about that in a bit. If anyone went to the Staten Island......

Wednesday night, WNBC invited a bunch of bloggers to its first NYC Blogger Summit. Why? As Anil Dash put it, to "engage bloggers and encourage them to provide information and resources to the station's news-gathering efforts, in exchange for credit and exposure." While hearing all of this was exciting and surreal and left some natural questions (see Modern Fabulousity), it was also nice to hear the word "credit" (see Gowanus Lounge) - lots of print......

Just a thought as we look ahead to this week's new releases. Someone should really take Diane Keaton aside to tell her that this series of increasingly painful looking romantic comedies where she plays an over-the-top meddling mom aren't good for her cinematic legacy. The newest installment is the Mandy Moore romantic comedy, Because I Said So, where Keaton plays a mother desperate to marry off her headstrong youngest daughter. Please Diane, after loving you......

It is often said that baseball is a game of inches. There are many times during a game when an inch or two difference in the location of the ball would change a strike to a ball, a swing and a miss to a hit, a double to a home run, a catch from a error. On a much larger scale we can think of meteorology as a game of miles. The last two snow......

These days, the most famous Staten Islander we know is Staten Island Chuck (sorry, Molinari!), the Staten Island Zoo's groundhog. Groundhog Day is just three weeks away, and the NY Times looks at the preparation the zoo and Chuck are doing in the run-up. Cue the montage sequence of Staten Island Chuck in training! For instance, his trainer Douglas Schwartz, zookeeper for the tropical rainforest section, brings the groundhog to his home by way of......

Meh. We're about to enter a stretch of meh weather. An upper-level disturbance tonight and a warm front that will stall out as a stationary front over the weekend will usher in several days of warmer, yet off-and-on drizzlyrainyfoggycloudy weather. Warm fronts are typically weak. The storm driving this one is far away in the Ohio Valley. That adds up to a front that can't do much of anything. Until a bigger storm comes along......

Staten Island Chuck, NYC's own weather-prognosticating groundhog, did not see his shadow this morning which means an early spring. And in keeping with the trend in the past few years, Punxsutawny Phil differed, seeing his shadow and dooming the Northeast to more cold weather. Well, if it's cold weather the way it has been the past few weeks, we'll take it! What's sad is that apparently people were booing Phil's forecast - he's just......

Ever since bringing back recycling last year, now the Mayor is all over it! One of the bills Mayor Bloomberg signed yesterday (besides the rowdy fan one) was one to promote cell phone battery recycling. Yes, beware of leaking cadmium, lead and mercury from your old batteries, kids. Of course the bill only applies to certain cell phone batteries, and the offenses range from fines for first offenses to jail time (three strikes, you're in......

The Northeast sure looks cold in this true color image taken Monday by NASA's MODIS sensor (see the whole chilly image on the Earth Observatory). It looks cold because it is cold and it is going to be colder for the remainder of the week. Windy too! That old blowhard Mr. Wind Chill is going to be in town through Friday. Wind chill only pertains to exposed flesh, so you should be fine if you......

While Alex Kuczynski's examination of the fondness for the film, Groundhog Day by Jews, Christians, and Buddhists alike is interesting, Gothamist found a major flaw in the article. In the film, arrogant weatherman Phil Connors is faced with living February 2 over and over again, and goes from grumpy and frustrated to slowly living his days more constructively once he realizes he's caught in February 2 forever, thus different religions alight to the concept: Buddhists......

William Grimes, Times restaurant reviewer, speaks with Newsweek about leaving the gig: NEWSWEEK: You are leaving the coolest job on the planet. William Grimes: Well, yes and no. That’s the realistic answer. You’re dining at the best places in New York and somebody else is paying for it, and you don’t have to do what normal people do, which is look at the price side of the menu. You have to think about it for......

Two great appreciation pieces about Bill Murray: - Andrew Sarris' review of Lost in Translation, bringing up two of our favorites, Tootsie and Groundhog Day - Fametracker's Fame Audit of William James Murray: We second their thought, "Anyone who will go into detail, on the record, about how much he loathes Chevy Chase is someone whose friend we would like to be." All things Bill Murray on Gothamist (except for the noir thing...silly search,......

Jim Holt's article about the idea of parallel universes (an article we starting to try to summarize but got very confused...read it for yourself) struck a chord in Gothamist because we constantly wonder "What if" and "There's got to be another version of us out there doing worse." While an early instance of wondering about another life one could live is A Christmas Carol, it's also very Choose Your Own Adventure. That's probably why we......