Gerard Braud (pronounced bro) has some time on his hands. Recovering for the last several months from a debilitating illness, Braud has had plenty of time to watch TV and dream up inventive ideas.

A resident of New Orleans (where he was once a TV consumer affairs reporter), the media trainer and communications consultant watched a lot of hurricane news as Ivan was tracking to hit the Big Easy. The more he read and watched, the more six words bothered him: Residents in coastal towns are bracing for the wrath of the next hurricane which may be bearing down on their community, ready to unleash its fury as they bear the brunt of the storm.

As any good journalist would do, Braud reacted by inventing a drinking game based on the inability of most reporters to come up with a different word or two. He’s marketing it as “Hurricane: The Game of Storm Cliches.” The game sells over the Web for $14.95, with a portion of the proceeds going to the victims of Hurricane Ivan. Braud notes on the site, “People in Gulf Shores and Pensacola are in desperate need of water and ice. Our first goal is to send an 18 wheeler of water to the areas most in need.”

As for the game itself, Braud maintains that, since hearing the same six cliches are probably driving you to drink anyway, you’ll enjoy watching the news more with the game to help you “weather” the reports. The game also comes with non-drinking rules for kids.

According to Braud’s press release, participants earn points by watching network, cable and local news coverage of a storm. If one of the six designated clich?s is used by a reporter when it is your turn, you score a point. First person to get all six of the top clich?s wins.

The Hurricane Game