Day 3 and no end in sight

It's probably a bad thing when the tech support person is impressed by how slow your computer is


Wow...really late post today, Jeremy. Get with the program!


I have a perfectly valid excuse. My PC is in the shop. I mentioned yesterday how Sametime was on the fritz...well it still is, and nobody seems entirely sure how to fix it. As such, the first tech support person sent the problem to a second tech support person who sent the problem to an actual local "Deskside support" person. Apparently, "Deskside support" means I bring my computer to them while they fix it, but whatever. After an hour and a half of trying to fix the silly thing, she told me she would need to keep it since it would take a long time to fix.

Because of this (and some other reasons, I guess) I've decided to go on vacation. See you all in a week!


Jeremy Is In The Office will be out of the office next week. We'll return August 8th with more of this sort of junk.

Or Have You?

If you can read this, I've fixed my computer


Well, then I guess congratulations are in order.


Maybe not. This is one of those few Sametime Statuses that's not quite my Sametime Status yet. You're actually getting a preview on the Blag here.


I actually don't think I get it.


So, the whole point of this website is to share with the Loyal Readers some of the thought process behind my daily Sametime Status changes. To take a quick step back, Sametime is the name of the instant messaging program we use at work. Most people leave their status as "I am available" or something equally dull. Long ago, I decided this was insufficient, so I would change mine randomly, and it blossomed into a daily thing with loyal readers and entertained guests. Often, one of the messages would be a little too obscure for most people to get, so I would spend considerable time explaining it to people...that's where this website comes in.

Anyway, this all centers around one very simple concept...actually having a Sametime Status. Well, as of yesterday, the program will not run on my computer anymore. I made the mistake of trying to upgrade to the new version since I got an angry email saying that the version I use won't work soon. As you might expect, the install choked, but only after deleting the old version. So the new version won't install, the old one is gone...I went back and re-installed the old version, and it says it's installed, but it won't run.

Long story short, I have no Instant Messenger program at work now, a couple new friends at the tech support desk who have suggested re-installing the program (thanks for that), and only one way to share my Status with the world. So, on the off chance that my computer gets fixed today, and I can once again have a Sametime Status...well...this will be it.

Times, They Should A-Change Right Back

83% of rap lyrics consist of explaining why the song's artist is better than every other rapper


In a poorly kept secret, this Sametime Status is a thinly veiled facade for letting Jeremy link to This Clip from an old Comedy Central show.


Well...maybe.


But really? Two consecutive messages involving a made-up 83 stat? People are going to catch on.


Well, that's beside the point anyway, since everyone knows I don't listen to rap music.


Aside from the Tupac song you have...and the copy of "Fear of a Black Hat" in your DVD collection...and Erasure's cover of "Rapture"...and didn't you once download an NWA song...something about Police?


Hardly worth mentioning. What is important today is that everyone knows that Bob Dylan's grandson, Pablo, released his own rap CD this week.


Dear God. I hope this is as made up as your statistics.


Sadly, it's not. Pablo Dylan is, in fact, an aspiring rapper, and his song "Top Of The World" not only violates Jeremy's Big Rule #1 in the first 5 seconds, but performs a whimsical bout of musical nepotism in the first minute, capitalizing on Bob Dylan's musical success to try to push his own. So, yes...I feel your pain, Pablo...growing up among both "scrutiny" and "mutiny" with your graddaddy's money. Feel free to release more songs that just happen to link your career with that of an actual musician.

By the way, I'm not even a connoisseur of hip-hop, but I'm pretty sure that this song is pretty terrible by those standards.

I will stink until further notice

My soap is sponsored by NASCAR. I need new soap


You'd stop using soap because of a shameless corporate partnership with a sport you don't watch?


It's the principle of the thing.


There are other principles about showering, you know.


Entirely beside the point. Today's Post is a mild rant about silly partnerships and sponsorships of sporting events in general.

I don't watch NASCAR, or any sort of racing. I'm 100% certain that every NASCAR driver is a better driver than I am, and we'll leave alone the argument about whether or not car racing is a sport, and I'll just point out that I don't want to watch racing. Step 1, you drive until you have to turn left. Step 2...there's no step 2. Why do I want to watch people do this for 2 hours? Sure, they're driving faster than I would in my car, but that doesn't make me want to spend the time to watch them do it.

One of the main attractions of NASCAR is that the cars, the drivers, the pits, the pit crew, and even the post-race speeches are slathered in non-stop corporate sponsorships. Each car contains 83 separate corporate sponsor ad placements, based on a Google picture I just looked at. All of these logos are subsequently repeated on everything associated with the car, including the uniforms, and the truck used to carry the car from one race to another. (The point of this always escaped me...seems to me they could save time by just driving the cars themselves instead of loading them onto a truck...the cars are much faster.)

Anyway, the product placements tend to reverse themselves, with NASCAR logos showing up on various products that I may or may not want to buy. The fact that NASCAR wants me to buy these particular products, in lieu of other brands of the same type of thing, really has no positive impact on whether I choose that or not. If anything, I tend to steer myself away from things that are the "Official Nonsensical Product of NASCAR." Case in point, my new bottle of soap. For some unknown reason, I didn't notice this in the store, but it's got a picture of some NASCAR driver on it who wants me to buy this soap because he's got the same logo on the rear inside fender of his car. I don't really care if NASCAR boy wants me to use this particular soap. I choose it because it leaves me clean and fresh-smelling, without drying my skin like most other soaps. Now that I have to wake up every morning and see NASCAR while I'm in the shower, I may have to reconsider my association with this particular product.

As a bit of an aside, for your amusement, I've compiled a list of pretty nonsensical NASCAR sponsors (ie: Things that have little if anything to do with driving a car in circles). Enjoy!

• Coca-Cola - Official Non-Alcoholic Beverage
  
• Coors Light - Official Beer
  
• Freescale - Official Automotive Semiconductor
  
• Gillette - Official Shaving Product
  
• Mars - Official Chocolate Bar, Official Cheese-Filled Snack, AND Official Pet food
  
• Nabisco - Official Cookie
  
• Old Spice - Official Deodorant
  
• Sirius XM Radio - Official Satellite Radio (Seriously? There's only one Satellite radio company in existence)
  
• Sunoco - Official Convenience Store
  

He shouldn't have been there

Squashing a lightning bug is as interesting as it is sad


You killed a defenseless lightning bug? What a jerk!


In my defense, this particular lampyridum had invaded my bedroom right around bedtime. All I saw at first was a medium-sized insect flying around my room. Not wanting to stand for this sort of intrusion, I grabbed a slipper and went into combat mode. The main overhead light was turned off, so all the light in the room was from a small bedside table lamp. I moved into attack position, slipper at the ready, and when the little sucker landed on the ceiling, I wound up and gave him what for.

Just before impact, the bug decided to light up, as lightning bugs are wont to do, but there was no stopping the slipper. The bug subsequently got splattered all over the ceiling, but to my amazement, he stayed lit. This is the interesting part.

So now, I have glowing bug remnants stuck to the ceiling of my bedroom. This is arguably worse than having a flying insect in there in the first place. So at this point, I took the slipper and again flicked his carcass off the ceiling, sending him about 10 feet (glowing the entire way) to the floor where I could scoop him up and give him a proper burial at sea (read: flush). It was easy to locate the bug once it reached the floor, because whatever makes lightning bugs light up was still going. The more interesting part is that there was still glowing bug goop embedded in the paint on the ceiling. I had to reach up to the ceiling with a paper towel to scrub away whatever it was that was glowing.

I'm still not sure what exact kind of reaction is causing a lightning bug's glow, but we can all rest easy knowing that not only does it not stop after the bug's death by blunt force trauma, but it is also contained within whatever goo the bug leaves on the surface. There's your science lesson for the day.

It's warm?

Look around, Leaves are brown, And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.


Employing a little mind over matter today?


Indeed. If you don't mind, it don't matter.


So even though it's a brisk 98 degrees today, you'll sing songs about winter and snow, and nobody will notice.


Well, I also figured that since everybody is out there whining about the heat today, hearing somebody sing about snow would be a welcome change of pace.

It's hot. Deal with it.

It doesn't look a day over 10

Happy 75th Birthday, Wienermobile!


Does it have a first name?


No. That's only Bologna.


Pretty much the same concept as hot dogs.


True, but only one of them comes in giant, mechanical, rolling versions. That would be, of course, the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile!


Brief pause for rowdy cheers...and go.


Well, this week marks the 75th anniversary of the Wienermobile. It's really quite exciting. Here are some fun facts about the iconic automobile:

• There have been 10 different incarnations of the Wienermobile, including one based on a Mini Cooper.
  
• There are currently 7 Wienermobiles on the road.
  
• The drivers of the Wienermobile, who are all college seniors selected from thousands of applications, are called "Hotdoggers."
  
• US Congressman Paul Ryan is a Hotdogger alumnus.
  
• The Wienermobile has been pulled over twice for speeding in the town of Henderson, TX.
  
• The Wienermobile's horn can play the Oscar Mayer jingle in 21 different musical genres.

Now you know the facts about hot dogs...


Except what's in them...



So go on out and enjoy your barbecue!

This is how Nicolas Cage got his start, too

Today, Rebecca Black begins her quest to ruin 167 million more pairs of ears.


If you have access to the internets, do yourself a favor and destroy your computer now, before you're even tempted to do this.


So, you all remember not long ago, when the worst song ever made made its way to Youtube, right? At one point, the song was removed from the site (in a maneuver referred to as a "Mercy Flush"), but not before over 167 million people bore witness to the unholy tragedy that is "Friday" by Rebecca Black. Strictly speaking, Ms. Black had very little to do with the song that was written by some no-talent hacks in a music studio for horrifying stage mothers who think their kids have the talent to be the next great pop star. That's beside the point. The point is that "Friday" was unleashed on the world, and we've never been the same since.

What ensued was a mass cultural delusion that Rebecca Black had any talent whatsoever. This is not the case. She's a pretty lousy singer who requires the cliched benefits of Autotune in order to resemble singing on key. Proof of this can be found in the Unplugged Version Of The Song.


For the sake of your health, do NOT click on that link.


Following this wave of media attention, Rebecca became a star. It's not clear why, but she apparently now is a worthy pop icon, despite the fact that she's not good at the thing that made her famous. In fact, she's famous for being bad at it...but today at 8PM, she releases her second single, and God help us all.

Look for it on Youtube later tonight! It's going to be a wreck.

It's coming! (And so is the movie)

Mainstream Hollywood is FINALLY on board, raising awareness of Bird Flu


It's about time. All the movies about the upcoming deadly Bird Flu pandemic that have been made so far have been pretty lousy.


Indeed. You watch things like Birdemic: Shock and Terror, or Flu Bird Horror, which deal with the ramifications of Bird Flu, and you might start to think that a pandemic is a joke or something. Those movies aren't exactly Grade-A Cinema, and they don't star the type of high-powered cast that is necessary to properly get a message out. Fortunately for all of us, that's about to change, starting September 9.

Director Stephen Soderbergh has compiled an all-star cast, including Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Jude Law, Lawrence Fishburn, and Elliot Gould to bring the horrifying reality of Bird Flu to the silver screen. The film is called Contagion, and there is at least one trailer out on the Internets that you should watch if you care about anyone (including yourself).


Don't let the appearance of comedian Demetri Martin fool you, this film is all business.


That's right. So, on behalf of all of those here at Jeremy Is In The Office, I'd like to thank Hollywood for finally getting on the right track and releasing a big-budget action thriller that will get people talking about Bird Flu. It's the only way for us all to survive. Everyone else, make sure you circle September 9th on your calendars to run (don't walk) to your local theater for the first showing of Contagion you can attend. It's for your own good.

Science and Counting all in one!

The physics of Sesame Street's pinball machine are completely out of whack


Which is a darn shame, really. Pinball is one of the greatest examples of all that is good and pure with physics.


Exactly! There's nothing but physics going on inside a pinball machine. Gravity is pulling the ball toward the hole, flippers apply a force back upwards, deflection angles, ramps, friction, and Gene Simmons.


Gene Simmons?


It made sense at the time. Just go with it.

Anyway, so a little while back, Sesame Street, with the help of the Pointer Sisters (I learned that recently) produced a series of short cartoons involving a pinball machine that counted to twelve.


We'll give you a second here to sing the song to yourself...then you can proceed.


So as we Watch The Cartoons, we clearly see some shenanigans. For example...the first 5 seconds, where the ball is curving along, staying perfectly between the walls with no force acting on it. There's no reason for it to be turning like this. Later, it's coming down some twisty corkscrew-looking thing, and it stays on the path, despite the fact that there are no walls holding it in. Anyone with even the most rudimentary understanding of centripetal force would know that the instant the path turned, the ball's momentum would carry it right off the side. Don't even get me started on when a cannon or something launches the ball into the air and it stays aloft far longer than gravity would normally allow. That's simply not a legitimate ballistic trajectory! Come on, Sesame Street! What are you teaching the kids?

If you watch those cartoons, you just see that they are rife with scientific inaccuracies, and it's supposed to be part of an educational TV show. What's up with that? It pains me to say this a little, but I'm forced to Call Bunk on Pinball Number Count. There goes the internet ruining my childhood again.

So does Jerry Springer

Watching "Repo Games" makes me feel a little better about myself


You can actually answer the questions? Good for you, Jeremy!


Now, now...no need to get all patronizing.

For those who are all unawares, Repo Games is a newish game show on some cable TV network that features idiots. The premise is simple. People haven't paid their car loans, so their car is going to get repossessed. They hook up the car to a tow truck then call the owner outside. The owner acts all angry, and claims that they paid their bills (which is never true), and threaten to hit the repo guy, and many words get bleeped. The repo guy then offers them a chance to answer a handful of trivia questions to win their car back.

Here's the rub. The questions are, for the most part, stupefyingly easy, and since the contestants are idiots, they get a lot of them wrong. I then start throwing crap at my TV and wonder if I should stop paying my car loan to try to be on this show...because hey...free car!

Here's an example from last night's episode:

"Athos, Aramis, and Porthos are the individual names of what 1844 literary group?"


The answer given by the idiot: "Charlotte's Web."


For the sake of my health, and my TV's health, I should really never watch this show again.

I had a great title, but I forgot it

I'm really good at knowing when I'm going to forget something


Sharp as a tack, this one.


I'm willing to accept some of my limitations. I'll never play in the NHL, never fly an F-16, probably won't meet Anne Hathaway, and I can't play Waterfall to save my life. (Fun Fact! I know the guy playing in that video, and even played "Rock Band" at his house not long ago) I'm also a pro at knowing in advance when I'm going to forget something, and not doing anything about it.

This happens a lot with Sametime Statuses, but extends to other areas of my life with stunning regularity. I'll forget to bring something to work, pack something for vacation, do something before bed, and so on. Before most of these times, I'll sit there thinking, "I should do _____, since I'm going to forget it later." I will promptly decide to play a video game or something, not do the thing I was thinking of, and eventually forget it. It happens more often than I really feel comfortable admitting.

I don't know what I can do about this. I could be more pro-active and do stuff when I'm actually thinking about it, but I'm usually pretty busy. I could bring little sticky notes around with me all the time, but I'd run out of forehead on which to stick them. I could set reminders on my Droid, or get one of those stupid voice recorders you see on infomercials, but eventually, I'll just stop using those things and go back to my current system. That is, no system, and just forget stuff on occasion.

I think the best course of action here is to accept my limitations, and acknowledge the fact that I'll forget things now and again.

I wish I could remember what it was I did that prompted me to write this as my Sametime Status...

Vote Grimlock!

Optimus Prime is too much like Congress for me to like him now


***SPOILER ALERT***
Consider yourself warned. Today's Blag contains a lot of pretty substantial spoilers regarding the newish movie "Transformers 3: Dark Of The Moon." If you haven't seen the movie and don't want to know some pretty critical stuff about it, stop reading now.

Otherwise...please continue. You're on your own.


The character of Optimus Prime has been around longer than I'd like to admit, because it will make me feel old.

Congress has been around since the late 1700s. I wasn't around back then.

Both were intended to be a sort of force for good. A benevolent leader that would always have the best interests of The People in mind. Optimus respected the fact that the Autobots crash-landed on earth and strove to preserve the existence of humanity. Congress would draw up the laws of the land and create public policy that would benefit the country as a whole, as well as the individuals.

Things have changed.

Congress is now a force for re-election and political power. The only reason anything ever gets done in government is if it will get somebody's face on the news spouting off some talking point about how wonderful they are and how evil and destructive the other party is. Optimus Prime, as of this most recent movie, is now a political puppet willing to sacrifice the people of earth to benefit his own public opinion. Sound familiar? Well, it should.

You may be aware that there is a ridiculously giant political hot-potato happening right now that has a live grenade lodged inside of it. It's called the debt ceiling, and once August 2nd rolls around, the US will no longer be able to pay its debts, which will, in all likelihood, send the entire global economy into a tailspin. Seems like the type of thing you'd want to avoid as a benevolent leader. How has congress dealt with the problem? By passing along the potato from one political party to the other and hoping that when the grenade goes off, the other party will be holding it. Each side knows what it "demands" and also knows full well that what it's demanding doesn't solve the problem. Despite this, they remain stubborn because any sort of "compromise" will be seen as a sign of weakness and defeat to the evil forces of the other political party. So here the rest of us are, helplessly watching as our leaders bring the entire global economy to the brink of collapse just so they can be the one to sweep in at the last moment, put the pin back in the grenade, and be the hero who's worthy of re-election. Idiots.

Which brings me to Transformers. At one point in the film, it was decided that the Autobots were jerks and had to be jettisoned from the earth in favor of a deal made with the Decepticons. (We'll leave the obvious stupidity of this aside) The Autobots spaceship is destroyed by the Decepticons shortly after liftoff, and as quickly as the US Government breaks Native American treaties, the Decepticons go to work annihilating the city of Chicago. Not sure why they picked Chicago, but we'll just go with that, too. So Chicago is destroyed, millions of people are dead, Planet Cybertron is being transported to our solar system, and the entire human race is about to be enslaved by the Decepticons, and who shows up? Why, it's our boy Optimus, here to save the day!

As it turns out, Optimus and the rest of the Autobots faked their own deaths and hung out watching while the Decepticons ruined an entire city along with everyone in it. Why? So that Optimus could come in at the last possible second with an "I Told You So", save the day, kill all the Decepticons and win back public support for the Autobots. Gee, Optimus...thanks for that, but couldn't you have stopped all this nonsense before all the fuss of mass death and destruction? What a chump!

I'm not sure who my message is for today, Optimus Prime or the morons in Congress, but the message is clear. If you want to be a benevolent leader, actually do some leading. Don't use wonton death and destruction as a tool for political gain.


This has been another edition of Jeremy Is In The Theatre

Gozer was Sumerian, not Babylonian. Everyone knows this.

The Tunguska Blast actually happened, but not in 1909


Uhm...okay then. When was it? More specifically, what?


The Tunguska Blast, or "Event" was a huge explosion in Russia that took place June 30, 1908 in Siberia. More importantly, it was referred to in the 1984 classic "Ghostbusters" with Dan Aykroyd's character explaining to Rick Moranis's "Louis Tully" that he was part of the "biggest inter-dimensional cross rip since the Tunguska blast of 1909." At the time I watched the movie (and so on up until the time I watched the movie for about the 275th time), I had just assumed that this was some phony made-up para-psychological event to go along with the rest of the movie's fictional canon (I was sad to find that there really is no "Tobin's Spirit Guide" aside from the promotional one offered by the film's producers). As it turns out, I was mistaken. The Tunguska Blast was a very real event, but it happened a year earlier than the film would lead you to believe.

Here are some fun facts!

• The leading theory for the blast is that a meteorite or comet exploded about 5 miles above the earth's surface.
  
• Whatever type of fragment exploded was about 200 feet in diameter, traveling around 22,000 MPH.
  
• Because the explosion took place well above the earth's surface, no direct impact crater was left, leading to rampant speculation about the origin of the explosion.
  
• The blast energy was around 10-15 Megatons of TNT, or about 1000 times as powerful as "Little Boy," the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
  
• The explosion knocked over around 80 million trees over an area of nearly 900 square miles.
  
• The shock from an explosion like this would measure about 5.0 on the Richter Scale.
  
• Lake Cheko, a 400mx700m lake in Sibera is believed to have been created by a fragment of the meteoroid involved in the Tunguska Blast.
  

The fact that something like this can happen sounds like something out of a Bad Bruce Willis Movie, but apparently, it happens all the time. Meteoroids about 30 feet across create explosions in the upper atmosphere similar to the "Fat Man" nuclear bomb about once a year. Of course, those are significantly smaller than what we're talking about here, but it still seems a little scary.

Either way, the Tunguska Blast of 1908 was the largest air burst event of its type in recorded history. And due to it's incredible power and the secrecy of the Russian government for a long time after the event, it spawned a number of whimsical theories. Among those, a chunk of anti-matter falling from space annihilated when it came in contact with the atmosphere, a small black hole traveled through the earth, and an alien spacecraft exploded while trying to land on the earth.

The Tunguska Event has at times been labelled the "Russian Roswell" due to conspiracy theories regarding an alien landing. This is most likely what gave rise to its use in Ghostbusters, as the event could be seen as some form of inter-dimensional para-psychological happening, which made it appropriate for the film. They just really should have gotten the date right.

It seems heavy

What kind of shovel is that guy on the orange signs using anyway?


The "Men At Work" road signs? I see those a lot Down Under.


Terrific. But, yes, those are the signs I'm talking about. They feature a sorta-stick-figure guy pushing a shovel of some sort. It's really big and grossly misshapen. Check It Out For Yourself. It never made any sense to me what exactly that guy was supposed to be doing.


It does look pretty big. Seems that it might be a bit of Overkill for a shovel.


Seriously? You're doing this again? Why do you do this?


Well, if I don't, who will? Seriously...Who Can It Be Now?


Well, I think you've thoroughly destroyed any thoughts I had of having a good Blag entry today. Satisfied?


I think I have Everything I Need. See you tomorrow.

Boom goes the low-grade dynamite!

Why does everything smell like sulfur?


Jeremy's in the kitchen again. It's the most logical explanation.


Also among plausible explanations is the residual smoke from all the explosions yesterday. You know...fireworks and all. Also, I'm actually a pretty good cook. I even made a pie this weekend.


If you want to take all of my fun away, sure.


So, hopefully, everyone enjoyed their holiday and blew stuff up. Or at least made little sparkles all over the place. And now you're back at work like the rest of us schmucks. But take solace! It'll be a short week. Happy Tuesday everybody!