The Stock Will Tank

Starting in October, I’ll be charging a $5 per month subscription fee to read my Sametime Status

 Jeremy's Sametime Status, as well as Jeremy Is In The Office is on schedule to post record profits this year.  But, sadly, due to increased government regulation on text-based internet inanity, we have little choice but to pass the increased costs on to you, the Loyal Reader.  

Sorry, everybody...you know....it's the government that's doing it to us.  You see, the way the financials work on the Blag here, and on the Instant Messaging program at work, we collect $0.00 for every view we get.  It doesn't seem like a lot, but it adds up, and that's how we're able to bring you this type of entertainment on a daily basis.  Sure, the comedy already exists, but it's all inside my head.  In order for you to enjoy it, I have to maintain employment and log into a website.  That's not free.  

Well, the website is free, but that's entirely beside the point.  

So, now the government has decided to limit the amount of money I'm allowed to collect from these views to a measly $0.00, which is a change of almost or over 25%, depending on what you feel like making it.  In order to continue posting my record profits, I have to make up the difference somehow.  Also, LIR is demanding a 130% increase in his bonus package for this year, so in order to keep him around, I have no choice but to pay it.

I have to eat, you know.

Unfortunately, this means that this Blag here will become a subscription-based website starting next month.  The charge is only $5 a month, which really isn't much of a sacrifice at all, when you consider that your Netflix bill just went up by more than that, and they didn't increase their services, either.  Sure, you may point out that it would take over 84 visits per month* to ring up $5 in visiting fees (at $0.00 per hit), and that we may be over-charging you for this valuable service...but $5 is a nice round number, so we're going to go with that.  See you all (and your checkbooks) next week!

For the record, NO we are not going to start charging you to visit the website.  We're making light of Bank of America's recent decision to charge $5 per month to customers for using their debit cards to pay for things with their own money that the bank is already profiting on.  

*The 84 visits per month is an actual calculation of how many debit card transactions you'd have to make with a Bank of America debit card to equal the $5 fee based on the 6 cents less the government is allowing the bank to charge per transaction.  So unless you're using your debit card more than that, you're getting hosed.  If you're a current Bank of America customer, switch to a local credit union.  

This Doesn't Say Much For Me

Mints are great for your breath, but sometimes play games with your mind

Here is where we get a little insight into the vast empty abyss that is Jeremy's mind.  Careful...it can get slippery.

I'm not particularly proud of this story, but I can see the entertainment value, so I'm willing to put my pride on the line for you, the Loyal Readers.  

I have a car.  It's actually relatively new, so I don't really expect things to go wrong with it.  I know the horn is pretty lame, and there's a maintenance bulletin out about the gas cap, but for the most part things are still in pretty good shape.  I was a little concerned recently when I heard a rattling sound coming from the passenger side door whenever I'd hit a bump in the road (which given the road conditions in the Greater Jeremy Area, is pretty often), and this troubled me.  I shouldn't be having clunks or rattles with my car.  When I got to the parking lot at work, I opened up the passenger door and had a look around to try to find anything that might be loose or tucked into the cup holder or something that would be making a rattling noise.  I went around wiggling and shaking and bumping things trying to recreate the noise to no avail, the thing was solid as a rock.  

This process lasted at least a minute and a half before I gave up and started planning my rattle strategy.  But, of course, this strategy planning would have to occur inside, so I grabbed my laptop bag out of the passenger seat, where it always sits on my way to work.  Pulling the bag out caused a rattling noise inside the bag, where the little box of breath mints is tucked away inside the front zipper pocket.   It sounded strangely like the rattle I'd heard coming from the door on my commute.  

I felt a little like an idiot, but nothing out of the ordinary for me at that hour of the morning. 

That Will Leave A Mark

Biting the inside of your cheek:  The ultimate and ultimately annoying self-fulfilling prophecy

Go ahead and punch yourself in the face for a while, too.  It'll feel great when you stop.

So not long ago, I decided that I wasn't in enough pain, so I bit the inside of my cheek.  I did a terrific job on it, too, such that it left a mark and some swelling.  And yes, it hurt a little, but I'm manly, so I can't let it show.  

Now you did it...we're going to get letters...

The problem with doing this sort of damage to yourself is not that it hurts...it's that it leaves you in a position where it will continue to be annoying and hurt for the foreseeable future.  Approximately every 10 minutes since I originally went ahead and bit myself, the fact that the inside of my cheek is swollen causes me to bite on it again.  Now, I don't bite on it quite as hard as before, but it still hurts and is still remarkably annoying.  The only way to stop doing this is to stop doing this and let it heal, which I can't do, because I keep doing it.  GAH!

Figured Out How To Make Titles Again!

One person’s “Deep Appreciation” is another person’s “Apathy”

Yeah, I don't really care.  

Your support means a lot, thanks!  

I see what you did there.

So today's Sametime Status is brought to you by the workers at the Adorably Tiny Cafeteria Thing In My Building, who are given full creative license over the signs posted around the place.  The same people that brought you Use Your Head When Toasting Bread post random signs throughout the ATCTIMB, some of which are useful, and some of which are borderline passive-aggressive.  They tell us what the price is for a hard-boiled egg (which I never see anybody buying, so I'm a little concerned about these things), and when a beverage fountain is out of order.  

Once in a while, when the cash registers are running low on change, a sign gets carted out which implores people to use smaller-denomination bills when paying for your goodies.  The sign says, and as near as I can remember, I'm quoting:  "Ones And Fives Would Be Deeply Appreciated."  It seems excessive to me that they add the word "Deeply" when describing the appreciation for ones and fives, so maybe I expect too much.  Not long ago, I was in line to buy about 3 bucks worth of stuff, and I had exactly $24 in my wallet (a $20 bill, and 4 $1s).  I could have easily paid with the 20-spot, but since the sign was out and I felt like I could have used some deep appreciation, I decided to go with paying in singles.  

I wasn't sure what was in store for me.  As much as I knew there would be no parade or fanfare for using small bills, I thought there may have actually been some sort of acknowledgment on their part for the fact that I saw the sign and actively chose to help them out.  I mean..."Deeply Appreciated" implies something more than simple appreciation, so I didn't think it was out of the realm to expect some sort of recognition.  Such was not the case...I got the same vacant stare off into space and mumbled "thanks" that I always get at that hour of the morning.  Probably the same reaction the next guy got when paying for his coffee with a 20. 

It might be time to invest in a mattress, and I don’t mean buy a new mattress

Oh dear.  Jeremy's putting on his foil helmet again.  


There's a fine line between paranoia and being knowledgeable.   Woody Allen once said, "Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not after me."  Of course, Woody Allen was a bit of a nut job, but that's hardly worth mentioning. 

If anyone has noticed, the economy kinda sucks lately.  Blame whoever you want, it doesn't change the fact that you're not going to fix it, you can really only figure out for yourself how to manage until it blows over.  Therein lies the rub.  Right now, there aren't any good investments.  Stocks, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies..everything is headed right down the pan.  Even gold has dropped almost $100 an ounce today (accurate as of this writing...that'll change in like 5 minutes). 

The best thing to do, I think, is to stuff all of your money underneath your mattress, and buy a nice, trusty shotgun to protect your valuables.  I've linked to this before, but you can also nab yourself One Of These Gems for a little extra security. 

Apparently, it’s “Drive Really Really Really Really Really Slowly Day”

Maybe you're like Neo, and the world just seems slower to you today for some completely unknown reason.  I mean...you're not that smart.


First of all, as I've shown on Numerous Occasions, I am a genius.  Secondly, there are very simple and straight-forward tools I can use to quantify just how fast somebody is going on the road when I feel they're going too slow for my taste.  Two of those tools being a clock and a speedometer.

Granted, the speedometer in my car seems to be off by about 2MPH.  It tells me I'm going faster than I really am.  It's a conspiracy to get people to speed less and/or to artificially inflate the car's calculation for fuel economy.  Look it up.


You haven't looked it up.


That's entirely beside the point.  The point is that my commute to work involves three somewhat long stretches of road, a few miles each, that are a little twisty and two-laned.  This means if I find myself behind somebody who's driving too slow, I'm pretty much stuck there whining to myself about why they've chosen to drive a full 10MPH below the posted speed limit.  Since not everybody drives the exact same commute that I do, most times this happens, the offending driver will turn off onto a side road or turn a different direction at the next major interchange.  This morning, this happened twice, only to be followed by me immediately finding myself behind another moron driver going too slow.  All three longish stretches of commute were contaminated by losers driving at least 10MPH too slow.  This not only slows down my commute, but also decreases everybody's gas mileage, thereby making this type of driving practice anti-environmental.  It's bad enough that these pinheads decide to be an inconvenience, but do they have to take the world with it?

Folding Tables are doing well, too

Pro Wrestling is the only thing keeping the Steel Chair industry afloat  


That's what you think, Jeremy. But this Sunday, at the New York Nuisance, I'm gonna show you what pain is all about!


Uhmm....yeah. So not long ago, the morning radio show was talking about Pro Wrestling, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to discuss amongst civilized adults.  


Wait until you see just how uncivilized I can be! I'm going to end your career in the ring!


It got me thinking about how often I end up sitting on a steel chair. The answer, of course, is not very often. I have folding chairs in my house, sure...but they're made of plastic or have some kind of padding on them and some kind of powder coat on the structural pieces. They're not the same brown steel chairs that you see in the wrestling ring. For that matter, you don't even see those kinds of steel chairs in the audience immediately surrounding the wrestling ring either. The only place they're ever used is in the ring.  


I'm gonna use whatever I can find to take you down, Jeremy!


As you may know, the world economy isn't the greatest these days. Many industries are feeling the crunch of people not having any money, and I can't help but think that the Steel Chair industry is no exception. I don't know about you, but I've bought fewer folding chairs this year than I have in the past. Based on a study in which I thought about it for a while and said, "Yep, that seems about right," sales of folding Steel Chairs are down 19% since 2007. The saving grace, of course, is that the bulk of the market share is taken up by sales to Pro Wrestling organizations, which are staying strong. Even in a down economy, people need to get hit with steel chairs.

As opposed to?

Unfortunately for you, I can't think of anything today


Yeah, I'm not sure how unfortunate that is, really.


Well, I find it just a little sad. I was on a big field trip for work yesterday, so I didn't get to post anything or have an interesting Sametime Status. This morning, it felt like monday, and my mind was a total blank. Nothing amusing, entertaining, or even mildly informative came to me. It was depressing.


Well, you know. They can't all be gold. Based on your prior history, about 98% of them can't be gold...so you're really in pretty good shape this week.

Wheeeeeeee!

The post office is going to solve their problems by making the mail slower. I'm not making this up


You should take your cue from them, Jeremy. You can solve your Blag problems by writing crappier Sametime Statuses.


I don't have any Blag problems.


That's what you think...


So today's Sametime Status is all about the US Postal Service and their plans to cut services and mail sorting facilities in an effort to save on costs. The net result of this is that the number of one-day mail deliveries for standard first-class mail will be reduced to 0% from the current level of 41.5%.


We know you're not making that up because it's not 83%


It's in the Wall Street Journal if you want to look it up.

Here's the problem. The Postal Service is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic by moving them to the part of the ship that's sinking, thereby only serving to make things worse. You know why people are sending less mail than they used to? It's slow and expensive. At first, the Postal Service was a magnificent thing, delivering a letter anywhere you wanted it to go for the price of a stamp. This was nothing short of an amazing bargain when the alternative would be paying through the nose for a courier or hopping in the car to deliver it yourself. Times have changed, and the world is smaller. 40 cents (or whatever the frig a stamp costs these days) is no longer a reasonable price to pay to communicate with somebody just because they're far away. I have email, instant messengers, social networking, Blags, and a phone with free long-distance. On top of all that, the one thing all of those have in common that the Post Office doesn't? They're roughly instant.

So, for free I can send letters, documents, personal missives, and bill payments (Forget you, Strunk and White, I'm keeping the Oxford Comma!) with no delays at all with equipment I'm going to be using almost constantly anyway...or I can buy envelopes, write stuff (or print it out), assemble it, buy a stamp to stick on the envelope, drop it in the mailbox and wait a couple days hoping it gets there. Seems pretty clear who the winner is in this one.

It's a little sad that the US Postal Service has become antiquated, but it's the reality we face. When coming up with ways to "fix" the postal service so that it makes itself viable again, one must not overlook the reasons for its downfall in the first place.

West Nile, Here I Come!

Eat a gyro outside, get 300 mosquito bites FREE!


How do you pronounce Gyro anyway?


Well, I've always called it "JAI ro" and think of people who pronounce it "HE ro" or "YEE ro" as overly pretentious snobs who just want to say it that way so they'll think they're better than you. Plus, every time I've been to one of the Gyro restaurants nearby (There were two before the one burned down), the people working in the place called it "JAI ro" so I'm going to go with that.

Anyway...not long ago, I decided to stop by the remaining Gyro place on my way to an event. I figured I could get my food, spend 5 minutes on a park bench eating my food, then be on my way. This was a great idea...it was a nice night, the gyro was tasty, it was quiet and scenic. You know who else thought it was a great idea? Every mosquito in a 10 mile radius.

You're probably aware (because of the wealth of weather-related posts here) that we've had an excess of rain up here in the Greater Jeremy Area. All of this rain has made the entire northeast into swampland replete with millions upon millions of extra mosquitoes. Whatever it is that eats mosquitoes hasn't been able to keep up, so I'm getting bitten a lot more than normal, or reasonable. Sitting on a park bench for 5 minutes makes me an even more vulnerable target, and however mosquitoes communicate, word apparently got out. I ended up wolfing down the second half of my gyro just to get out of the cloud of friggin insects. It was pretty obnoxious. I wanted to enjoy that gyro.

More of a Guideline than a Rule

Guidelines For Harmonious Living #10: If there are 14 empty treadmills, go ahead and leave at least one between you and me


This is just basic common sense here, Jeremy. The same rules apply in the bathroom. Everyone knows this.


Apparently not. I'm pretty sure I've ranted about this sort of thing before, but I can't be bothered to look it up. Either way, it apparently needs to be said, because some people just don't get it.

Here's the thing, Gym People. It's nothing personal...I just don't like you. One of the main reasons I go to the gym in the morning is that it's significantly less crowded than it is after work. This means I can go upstairs to the little cardio balcony, do my treadmill thing and have done with it. I'm not interested in standing around talking about treadmills or whose diet plan you're following, or where Jimmy is today, or what you plan on doing at the gym that day. Leave me alone. You go do your thing, I'll do mine, and we'll be happy. I'm not interested in finding out if we have things in common other than the fact that we both put up with treadmills at some unseemly hour of the morning. It's not you...it's me. Strictly speaking, it's probably you, but I'm willing to take the fall for it this time.

To this end, if it's at all possible, I like to take a treadmill (or other piece of equipment, but you get the idea) that's at least slightly removed from other Gym People. Since I don't want you standing around while I'm doing my little gerbil run, I'm going to assume you don't want me standing around while you do your little gerbil run. Given the fact that there are no fewer than 17 treadmills on the upper deck, this usually isn't much of an issue. But apparently, other people don't see things my way.

Not long ago, I head upstairs, and ONLY stations 15 and 16 are occupied, so I head all the way down to the other end and hop on the 5th treadmill from the left. I don't want to be on the end, and I still leave people plenty of room on both sides if they wish...and there are currently 14 empty treadmills. Four to my left and NINE consecutive slots to the right. Some other person comes up the stairs, surveys the situation and plops herself directly on door #4. Seriously? Even if you leave a gap of one treadmill around anyone, there are still ten non-obnoxious options you could have chosen, but instead you do this. This is why I don't like you.


Chicken and egg, really. You don't want them there because you don't like them, and you don't like them because they're there.


Whatever my reasons, they're perfectly valid, and the world should adjust to them. Especially in the morning, when I'm cranky.

They're Fun!

Here's a Fun Fact! All 3 major candidates in the 1992 presidential election were left-handed


Ross Perot did like to hold his pointer in his left hand, didn't he?


Indeed he did, during all those flipchart presentations on national TV that he bought the airtime for. It really was mind-numbing. If only politics today were so boring.

Anyway, we all know the three candidates from that particular election. George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot were all left-handed. This is especially amusing when you consider that despite the fact that 90% of the world is right-handed, all of the presidents of the US since Jimmy Carter have been southpaws. Granted, there is a little bit of debate about Reagan, but Both Presidents Bush are left-handed, as are Clinton and Obama. To make things even crazier, Obama beat out John McCain in the 2008 election. McCain? You guessed it! Another lefty.

I'm starting to feel left out now...

Jump On The Trolley

Nobody knows why fists are known as "Dukes." This disappoints me.


There are three completely different explanations out there, none of which is especially plausible. One is about Dukes being rhyming British slang, where "Duke of York" refers to forks, which is a slang for fingers (pretty weaksauce connection). Another says that "Dookin" is Romany for fortune telling using the palm of the hand, but has nothing to do with fists, and the third is about Marquis of Queensbury who developed a set of rules for boxing...which would be the best explanation if the 9th Marquis of Queensbury (for whom the rules are named) was actually a Duke. He was not.


Regardless of the lack of proper explanation, the phrase "put up your dukes" is roughly never used anymore. While that is a darn shame, when it does pop up in modern culture, it serves to amuse as well as to harken back to a different era.

This happens in music most notably (and probably only) when the Pat Benatar song "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" comes on the radio, as it did not long ago when I started thinking about the etymology of the phrase "put up your dukes." There are only 2 other known songs that use the phrase, based on a Google search I looked at the first page of just now.

I'm amused when things like this happen, but I also stop to think about things that I create as well. When songwriters use modern slang in their lyrics, they are catering to the modern audience of the day, but they're also limiting the lifetime of their work. That song will only be fashionable as long as that particular piece of slang is popular. Once the lingo changes, your song instantly becomes outdated and passe. Pat Benatar did this to herself, as did Grand Funk Railroad, whose song "American Band" is the last known song to include the phrase "Party Down" before people realized what a stupid phrase that is and never used it again. Heck, even The Great W.A. Mozart managed to do this in his works. (I'm not making that piece up, by the way)

Many of you know that I'm a writer of sorts. Most of my personal writing (we'll leave alone the technical writing I do for work) is in jaunty Blag form, as witnessed here. That said, some of you are aware that I have written a short story and various pieces of a sitcom which will likely never see the light of day, but that's beside the point. I hear things like "put up your dukes" and wonder how much of that type of thing I've already incorporated into my writing. What words or phrases did I use in my short story that will be archaic in the nearish future that will brand my work as a relic from the 2010s? How can I avoid that in the future, or do I just tell the future to Eat My Shorts?

It's somehow related to a cubit

Right. What’s an ark?


It's a big gold box that makes Nazis melt, right?


Different ark. Today's Sametime Status refers to the famous Bill Cosby routine regarding Noah's Ark.


Oh, so this is another weather-related Status? I thought you said you were done with those.


I did say I was taking a break from them, but that was going with the assumption that Mother Nature would be taking a break from being a pain in the buns. It's been raining basically for the last 4 straight days, causing more widespread flooding (fortunately, not in my house) and even myriad school closures around the area. It's really quite exciting...no wait...that's not the right word...annoying.

And my user name is "Admin"

It's Password Day! My email password is no longer "password"


But that's still the password to your bank account, right?


Oh absolutely. That one doesn't have to be changed as often as the one for my email. That's just annoying.


Jeremy would like to point out here that like all of the "Password Day" Sametime Statuses, neither this nor any of the displayed passwords have ever been used as his email password.


Very true. I would like to use "Correct Horse Battery Staple" as my password, but that wouldn't be allowed with our current system. Also, that might be easily decoded by any other xkcd fan.

On a more serious note, you might actually be surprised to know just how many people's routers you can hack into using "admin" and "password" as the login credentials. It's a little scary.

If I put out deer food, the Squirrels will eat it

Silly deer, bird seed is for birds!


What a coincidence. This Sametime Status is for the birds, too.


Why so grumpy today?


Well, it's one of those mondays cleverly disguised as a Tuesday, and there was a long weekend, and I didn't feel like going back to work.


You're entirely fictional. You don't have a job, or a regular sleep pattern.


Entirely beside the point.


Anyway, so one of the many projects I completed this Laborious weekend was solving the mystery of the bird feeder.


Surely one of the great mysteries of our time. Right up there with 'Where is Jimmy Hoffa?' and 'Who shot J.R.?'


So, I have a bird feeder, since birds entertain me. Recently, I started to notice the seed being consumed at a faster than usual pace. Since there is usually a pretty steady stream of customers at the feeder, I just thought that I maybe got a few more birds interested or they were getting hungrier or something. Turns out, that's not the case at all. Recently, in the middle of the night, I awoke to some noises in my back yard that sounded like the local wildlife. I'm no stranger to turkeys, deer, foxes, neighborhood cats, and the occasional raccoon, so I wasn't overly concerned. I decided to check it out, so I looked out the window to see two of the local deer standing around eating the bird seed out of the feeder.

Stupid deer. Bird seed is for birds...don't they realize that? Now, I need to come up with some way of still feeding the birds without also feeding the deer.

I'm Out There With Scissors Now

The part of my lawnmower that broke is actually pretty impressive


Awe geeze, Jeremy. Why you gotta go breaking stuff all the time?


I didn't do it...I think.


Alright...so what happened this time?


Well, not long ago, I decided it was time to mow the lawn again. Stupid lawn keeps growing. Anyway, just as I get going, I see a piece of metal shoot out from under the deck and spin to the ground smoking. Fortunately for me, it came out the front, since it was a pretty substantial piece and would have pretty easily embedded itself in my leg had it come out the back. Anyway, I shut off the mower, thinking that this might be a somewhat important piece. A cursory glance under the deck revealed nothing, but since I'm an engineer, I needed to find out the problem.

I ended up removing the blade of the mower and found that the metal piece that connects the blade to the motor's drive shaft had broken completely in half. Mind you, this is not some little flimsy little component. This thing is at least 1/4" of solid aluminum (aluminium for the British among our readership) as evidenced by THIS PICTURE HERE. Without this piece, which is customarily called a doohickey, but I guess the technical term is "Blade Adapter," the blade is simply on a bolt at the end of the shaft and will only spin if it darn well feels like it. Since a spinning blade is one of the hallmarks of a properly-working lawnmower, my mower is currently out of commission.

As it turns out, despite being a pretty beefy component, it's not entirely out of the ordinary to break this piece. Most people junk theirs by hitting a rock or a tree stump or something that causes the blade to come to a near-instant halt. Therein lies my problem...I didn't do that. I had just started the mower maybe 15 seconds before the piece of this thing came out, and haven't hit anything other than grass (more specifically, weeds, but that's entirely beside the point) with the blade in quite some time. So when it comes to figuring out why this happened, I'm at a total loss.

At least I'm not at a total loss when it comes to repairing my mower (We can go ahead and preemptively add "Lawnmower Repair" to my list of Skillz) since I can easily order this piece from the company's website. Ostensibly, they're sold at the local "High's Home Improvement Store" also, but the jury is out if they carry the correct size. Either way, by the time I need to mow the lawn again, I should be back in mowing form...until the next thing breaks.