a whole lotta shakin' goin' on (but that's all relative)

The Eastern US is in hysterics today, following an earthquake in the DC area earlier this morning. The way the media are covering this event, you'd think the earth split open and swallowed the White House.

What today's East Coast quake felt like, to East Coasters.

For those of us living in California, of course, the whole episode is entirely silly. Earthquakes here are a dime a dozen; we sleep through most of our temblors, and can't even bother ourselves to move from the couch for anything less than a 6.9. When they make the news, little attention is given to them outside of a few observations and B-roll footage of a leaking water pipe or something. So naturally, the excessive coverage and Twitter chatter about today's tremor is entirely laughable to us Southern Californians.

How East Coasters during an earthquake look to Californians.

Yeah, we Californians would never get so bent out of shape over a paltry 5.9 like our friends back East do. We reserve our media freakouts for when Mother Nature does something really crazy. Like two consecutive days of rain!

"Things are expected to get pretty hairy on Wednesday and Thursday!"

I guess the extremity of Nature's doings is just like that family reunion you had to go to last summer: all relatives.