Melting in Vancouver...

It is almost midnight and 27 fucking degrees outside, and humid as hell. No fucking way can I write anything marginally intelligent right now, while melting away into a sticky puddle of sweat and anguish. Typing has become a strenuous physical exercise, each keystroke trickling on into a raging torrent of perspiration. This is not supposed to fucking happen in Vancouver! I've spent six long summers in Toronto, and was so glad to have fled the awful, horrible climatic hell that is the Great Lakes summer (not the winter, mind you - I actually enjoyed those! A bit of bone-chilling frost is good for you =P).

And apparently, today was the hottest day in Vancouver/Lower Mainland in recorded history... just 6 months ago, we had one of the coldest, snowiest winters ever. At which time Toronto had +17 in early January. And now, TO is at a tolerable 18C. I think we somehow swapped weather...

I hate heat. I hate it so much it was one of the major factors that forced me out of the east. No point in living in a place where you can't function for 6 months of the year... winters are ok, just wear more clothes and it's quite nice and refreshing even. But the fucking 38 degree summers with humidex way well in the 50's is simply insane.

Which brings me to wonder... why is it that we African primates suck at tolerating heat so much? It's not like people living in the tropical regions fare much better than us; they're just more accustomed to the discomfort, but there doesn't seem to be much fundamental difference physiologically. They too must avoid excess sun and stay somewhere cool and drink lots of water; danger of heat stroke is very real to them as well. So how is it that we are so poorly adapted to what is supposed to be similar to our more-or-less native climate? 40 000 years shouldn't be that much time for substantial change! And even if we did lose the tolerance somehow upon migrating north, that still doesn't explain the aforementioned low physiological differences.

Intelligent design my sorry ass - how incompetent must a designer be to create his chosen species to be poorly adapted to survival on the vast majority of the earth's surface?

This goes for 'evolutionary creationism' (directionalistic hyper-adaptationism) too - perhaps we never have really adapted to live comfortably in the heat, but the discomfort (and the occasional heat stroke) wasn't enough to stop our lineage from continuing. Perhaps our ancestors once originated elsewhere, or, more likely, were better adapted and some later developments/adaptations in our lineage enabled us to lose those features. Eg. no need to devote energy to growing fur if you can obtain it from another animal (NOT saying this is what actually happened! Not particularly familiar with anthropaleontology anyway...)

Anyway, let's see if I can melt into sleep... somehow I doubt it. =(