That overrated rodent Punxsutawney Phil popped his overexposed head out of a fake tree stump last week and saw his shadow, which — according to people who predict weather based on large beaverlike creatures — means several more weeks of winter weather. I suspect he didn't come out of his hole to see his shadow but to see his Hollywood agent to pester him about when a sequel to the movie "Groundhog Day" would be made. (Bad news, Punx. After reliving the same day over and over and over, your acting career went into the toilet an infinite number of times ... sorry ... blame quantum physics.)

I would have loved to have seen Al Gore's reaction to Punx Phil (if I keep trying to spell "Punxsutawney," bad things are going to happen) predicting six more weeks of winter. ("Damn! When is it ever going to stop snowing? That muskrat just cut my global warming speaking fees in half!")

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals issued a plea that the live groundhog Punx be replaced with a robotic one. That really happened. PETA wants an automatonic groundhog to pop up like something from the "Porcupines of the Caribbean" exhibit at Disney World and make weather predictions. I wouldn't be surprised if Gore was behind that. With the real Punx gone, Gore could program the mechanical creature to say things like, "Man, is it hot out here, or is it just me?" and "Hey, where's all the polar bears at?"

In Hawai'i, we don't use groundhogs, rats, beavers or badgers to predict our weather because they are notoriously unreliable. We use mongooses. With their long snouts and cunning, beady eyes, mongooses can predict all kinds of things, not just the weather.

About the time Punx was embarrassing himself in Pennsylvania, Makani da Mongoose poked his head out of a storm drain in Kaka'ako and saw a gecko, meaning that Hawai'i will get seven more weeks of mauka showers, vog and high gas prices.

If Makani had seen a cockroach instead of a gecko, it would have meant four days of heavy snow in Kalihi. So we were lucky there. If he had seen a 1982 light-brown Honda Civic, it would have meant five more weeks of Toyota recalls. And if he had seen his own shadow ... well, let's just be thankful he didn't see his shadow. When a mongoose sees his own shadow on the second day of February ... that's extraordinarily bad juju. Nostradamus ain't in it.

It's too bad no TV crew is ever on hand to catch Makani da Mongoose poking his head out of the storm drain. He could be famous — maybe star in his own movie, "Mongoose Day," where Bill Murray has to relive every day until he finally tips over a rubbish can and eats a five-day-old plate lunch.

Read Charles Memminger's blog at http://charleyworld.honadvblogs.com.