San Francisco Bay Area | The Adobo Chronicles

San Francisco, California (The Adobo Chronicles) – Last month, The Adobo Chronicles reported that Oxford has added ‘selfitis’ to the English Dictionary after the word dominated social media for most of 2014. Selfitis is defined as “an inflammation of the ego” and refers to the obsessive compulsive desire to take photos of one’s self and post them on social media as a way to make up for the lack of self-esteem and to fill a gap in intimacy.

Today, Webster’s announced that it is adding several new words to the 2015 edition of its dictionary for the American English language, thanks to the super storm that is currently pounding on most of the San Francisco Bay Area.

The new words: Stormaggedon, Rainpocalypse and Floodgate.

Stormaggedon and Rainpocalypse both mean the impending doom and destruction caused by a storm, typhoon or heavy rains. Floodgate (think Watergate or Irangate), a word entry that is already included in Webster’s Dictionary, takes on a new second meaning, and that is “a weather anomaly resulting in flash flood warnings that people receive on their mobile phones.”

Congratulations to the Bay Area for its great contributions to modern language!

San Jose, California (The Adobo Chronicles) – Thousands of Bay Area residents were awakened by a 6.0 magnitude earthquake at a little past 3 a.m. today. The quake was centered near American Canyon and was felt all the way from Napa Valley to South San Jose.

It turns out that the quake was a test. Only a test. It was a test of the structural integrity of the new span of the Bay Bridge which, months before it opened, was dodged with controversy and problems with faulty bolts. Many critics had questioned whether the bridge would survive a strong earthquake. As of press time, it wasn’t clear who initiated the test.

But the other test was obviously initiated by the giant social media company based in Menlo Park – Facebook. It was a test of the new Emergency Facebook System designed to replace the aging Emergency Broadcast System. From all indications, the test was very successful, with Facebook friends alerting each other about the shaker, long before it was reported by radio and television stations.

Facebook is also reportedly working on a new app that would detect and measure the intensity of earthquakes. This may put personnel of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) out of their jobs and they’re shaking and very nervous.