Once Every 2.7 Years Or So

Get ready, everybody!  Everything that happens “Once in a Blue Moon” happens today!

Does that mean you're actually going to write something funny in the Blag?  

Probably not.  

So today is the second Full Moon of August, which means it's Blue Moon day!  This really has no significance other than a whimsical coincidence of the lunar and Gregorian calendars.  But everything that you've ever said happens once in a Blue Moon is happening today...or something.  

And if you don't enjoy whatever it is that's happening, don't worry about it, because there won't be another Blue Moon until July of 2015.  

Hopefully that doesn't mean that we're not allowed to drink anything from the Blue Moon Brewing Company.  If they go out of business because of this, I'm blaming you.  

Well, at least I'll have until 2015 to prepare the court papers.  Enjoy the holiday weekend everybody...we'll be back on Tuesday! 

And It's Facing Right...and It's Green

If everyone knows that the top letter of an eye chart is always E, it’s not much of a test, is it?

Again with the rhetorical questions today, Jeremy?  Getting into the political spirit?  Maybe due for a driver's license renewal?

Actually, none of the above.  It's just the sort of thing that pops into my head every now and again.  

So, you've all seen the charts they use for eye tests, with the colossal E on top, and working their way down in font size until you get to the microscopic crap that only I can read, apparently.  

Aren't you special?

Now who's being rhetorical?

Anyway, it occurred to me that every last one of these eye charts that I can think of right now has always started with an E on top.  

And everybody knows that.  So, at the very least, you can pass the 20/200 part of the eye test every time by simply saying "E" whether or not you can actually read it.     

  

His Cup Of Coffee Was Half Full

If the engineer in that joke was so smart, why is he taking chalk into a cleanroom?

Uhm...what engineer are you talking about?  Some sort of super funny joke that I assume rivals The Skeleton Joke?  

Well, no.  And only partially because nothing's funnier than The Skeleton Joke.  In reality, the joke is only fairly amusing, and even then, only among nerdy people.  The joke goes roughly thus:

"A retired engineer gets a phone call from the company he used to work for.  They've been having a problem with a specific piece of machinery and none of their best people seem to be able to solve it, so they call him out of desperation.  He agrees to help.

He shows up at the plant, and spends a day studying and taking measurements on the piece of equipment, and at the end of the day, he takes out a piece of chalk, marks an "X" on a component and says, "Here's where your problem is."  The company has the part replaced, the machine works perfectly again, and everybody rejoices.  

The engineer sends the the company a bill for his consulting services, a charge of $50,000.  The company, outraged over the exorbitant fee, demands an itemized list of the charges.  

The engineer replies, "One chalk mark - $1.  Knowing where to put it - $49,999."

Yeah...definitely not as good as The Skeleton Joke.  

So as you might imagine, pretty much any company that employs engineers has this joke circle around their email system every now and again by people who firstly think that forwarding email jokes is the proper thing to do, and secondly, have been living under a series of rocks for the last 10 years and have never had this joke forwarded to them already.  I work for one of those companies...as an engineer.  Rest assured, I have never forwarded this joke except right here in Blag form.  

The issue with the joke here is that many of the engineers who work here work in a cleanroom environment.  You know...like those guys in the old Intel commercials who dance around in the full body suits with hoods and respiratory systems.  Not quite that extensive, but we have a cleanroom along those lines which requires people to wear the suits and face masks and shoe covers and gloves to keep people form contaminating the products.  Cleanrooms are funny places because of certain things you can't do, such as eat anything, walk quickly, have tables without holes in them, wear makeup, use paper, etc.  It's true...there is a special kind of paper that you have to use in a cleanroom because regular stuff gives off too many particles.  Along those same lines...you're not allowed to use pencils either for the same reason.  If pencils are off limits, what makes this engineer think that chalk is okay?  What an idiot. 

Matt Damon Should Slap You

I’d say Jason Bourne’s legacy has been pretty well besmirched 

Lock up your Blu-Ray players, kids...Jeremy's been to the movies again.  This week, he savages "The Bourne Legacy" starring Jeremy Renner and Edward Norton.  

I know some people like to question my taste in movies.  It comes with the territory when one is a fan of the cult classics like "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and "Manos: The Hands Of Fate."  I'm okay with this.  Sometimes it seems as if I tend to look for different things in film than others when it comes to what entertains me and what I'm willing to put up with for the next 2 hours of my life.  To each his own, yes?  

Well, perhaps I'm in the minority here, but when it comes to the plot of a film, there is something that I like to see happen during the course of the movie.  That thing is simple:  Something.  When given the choice between two films, one in which something happens, and one in which nothing happens, I'm going to go with the "something" film every time.  Maybe I'm wrong...I don't know.  Therein lies my problem with "The Bourne Legacy," a film which will be the top of the box office for as long as it takes people to figure out that they don't need to see this film.  It's 2+ hours of "nothing happens."  I've been to enough meetings at work where people sit around and talk on the phone about how nothing is happening...I don't need to go to the movies to see it happen to other people.  

Beware:  Ahead lie some minor spoilers....though Jeremy's already told you the most important thing about the movie.  

So, the general idea of the movie is that there are multiple Bourne-type agents around the world.  Only a select few people know who they are, and Edward Norton comes into town to kill all of them.  We have no idea where the actual Jason Bourne is, but that's beside the point...we need to kill the rest of them, and worry about Matt Damon later.  Jeremy Renner plays one of these agents (we're led to believe he's a really good one), and Edward Norton sits around various offices and conference rooms in Washington calling various people asking if he's dead yet, and wondering why not.  He sends a super secret agent out who then chases Renner around on a motorcycle for like 20 minutes.  Renner gets away.  Roll Credits.  

I'm not making this up.  

This concept of a super secret weapon has been done countless times, and the formula seems to work.  Send in the super secret weapon, cause conflict with the protagonist, protagonist ultimately wins through the power of the human spirit, and everybody goes home happy.  Ivan Drago, Dean Wermer, Ogie Olglethorpe, The Hawks, Johnny Lawrence of the Cobra Kai...I could go on, but you get the point.  It happens all the time.  In "The Bourne Legacy," director Tony Gilroy takes the formula and shakes it up a bit by having the super secret weapon come along in the last half hour of the movie and do precisely nothing.  He's really good at chasing people on a motorcycle, but not really good at catching them.  Then, he falls off the motorcycle like a Storm Trooper and is lost to the ages.  Edward Norton then has another phone call where he hears that Jeremy Renner escaped and is sad.  Seriously...the super secret agent bad guy never actually enters any sort of real conflict with Renner...just chases him around on a motorcycle while making menacing faces. 

Without the magic of filmmaking, I have to wonder what a day in the life of Edward Norton's character was really like.  8AM, he arrives in the office, calls somebody to tell them to kill Jeremy Renner.  Make a cup of coffee.  Call the guy back to ask if Renner is dead yet.  Use national security resources to find a picture of Jeremy Renner in an airport to find out where he's going.  Call somebody else in that country and ask them to kill Jeremy Renner.  Make a cup of coffee.  Call the guy back to ask if Renner is dead yet.  Have a meeting to ask how they're going to kill Jeremy Renner.  Call somebody else and ask them to kill Jeremy Renner.  Make a cup of coffee.  Call the guy back to ask if Jeremy Renner is dead yet.  He spends so much time on the phone with people while personally doing precisely jack squat that it's actually pretty funny.  Between scenes, is he calling people to ask for status updates, or is he sitting around talking waiting for the phone to ring with the aforementioned status reports?  He's like a really bad micromanager who doesn't seem to have anything to do except make phone calls and wait for phone calls to see if his plan worked or not.  I'm not surprised that it didn't.  Also, Edward Norton never meets Renner, or actually get people to agree with him on anything.  Stacy Keach was in the movie too, and nobody knows why.  It's a Bourne movie, so a bunch of old guys have to be involved somehow.  

Either way, I'm willing to lay the Legacy of Jeremy Is In The Theatre on the line and say that "The Bourne Legacy" is crap and you don't need to go see it. 

This has been another edition of Jeremy Is In The Theatre. 

Spoiler Alert - There Are Zombies

The trailer for “Birdemic 2: The Resurrection” is everything you’d hoped for and more!

They finally released the trailer?  That's great...I was afraid they'd forgotten to make the film.  Oh wait...not "afraid"...the other thing..."hopeful."  


So you all remember A While Back, I introduced you all to a horrifically awful piece of schlock cinema called "Birdemic: Shock and Terror".  At the time, a sequel to the "film" was merely promised, but not yet a reality.  Well, kids...thank your lucky stars, the sequel has been filmed, and is set for a November release.  My friends have already started screening their phone calls in anticipation of my invitation for a screening.


Nice sentence structure there, Jeremy.  Three consecutive prepositional phrases.  Glad that writing class is paying off for you.  


Well, yesterday was a momentous day in the land of cult film, as the official trailer for "Birdemic II: The Resurrection" was unleashed upon unsuspecting audiences everywhere.  It even made it to the home page of IMDB.com, though its integrity was tarnished substantially by being posted next to the trailer for a Nicolas Cage film.

All that nonsense aside, you owe it to yourselves to check out THE TRAILER to the most highly anticipated sequel since the last time George Lucas plundered his audience's wallets with "Episode 3," but I just like to pretend that movie never happened. 

Now I Feel Bad For Her

If Minnie really had such a big heart, why was she still a mooch?

Well, if Smokey wanted to give her all that stuff, does that mean she was a bad person?  He seemed pretty willing. 

Sure, he was willing...up until the last couple verses that I didn't know about until about 5 minutes ago.  It's actually a pretty sad story.  Apparently, Minnie's mooching ways got her and Smokey thrown in jail (The whole King of Sweden thing was just a dream, but the origin of the horses, meals, a million dollars in nickels and dimes is a little ambiguous), and he just left her there.  Poor Minnie ended up in a mental health institution where she died.

Is this another one of your Revisionist History bits?

Believe it or not, this is entirely true.  This is taken directly from the lyrics.  I was as surprised as you are.  Looks like today is a learning day! 

And Then They Ask About Pink Crayons

“What do you mean Orange is backordered?  Don’t we keep Orange in stock?” – Fictional Kindergarten Meeting

Orange what, exactly?  Crayons?  

Strictly speaking, when I thought of this, I was thinking about construction paper, but I can see how the same could be applied to crayons.  

The thought harkens back to when I had to sit in status meetings at work and talk about broken equipment.  The discussion would invariably boil down to a berating over the fact that the piece of equipment was broken for too long and asking when it would be fixed.  83% of the time, the reason for the breakage was a part that needed to be replaced, and we didn't have the part in stock, so we had to order it from the supplier.  This process took too long, but the alternative (keeping the parts in stock) was considered too expensive, so even though there was an active decision to not stock the parts, there would constantly be questions about why the parts weren't in stock.  

It made me think of how much more entertaining this same discussion would be if it were about construction paper for a kindergarten art project.  When I thought of it, it wasn't even the teacher asking about the availability of orange paper...it was one of the kids, who apparently was voted "Manager Of The Day," and was in charge of both paper availability and feeding the class guinea pig.  

Guinea pigs are funny. 

Sasquatch Is Screwed

I’m too tall for the new ATM

Interesting.  I was not aware that there were height requirements.  

Neither was Tim Robbins, but he got to play Merlin.  

Wait, what?  

In Top Gun, Tim "Nuke" Robbins played Cougar's co-pilot, Merlin.  At 6'5", there is roughly no way he would actually fit inside an F-14 cockpit.  Anyway, more importantly, the bank recently installed a new ATM in my building at work.  It's tough to argue with the convenience, except to say that the old ATM used to accept deposits, so you could actually do more banking there, and the new one just spits out money, so it's actually now missing a feature, but whatever.  I can probably count on one hand the number of times I used that thing for deposits.  

The new ATM is significantly smaller, making it more energy efficient or something, and it's set back in a little recess.  This is all well and good until somebody who's over 5'6" tries to use the thing.  There's a technical term for people like that...we call them "Most People."  Average height for men in the US is 5'-9 1/2", 5'-4" for women.   Once your surpassaverage height, the screen disappears behind the machine casing, leaving you to bend over or squat or turn yourself at an odd angle to be able to use the machine.  However you do it, you end up looking pretty dumb. 

We call that "A Normal Day For Jeremy." 

Of course, I still have no idea why the bank felt the need to replace the old ATM with the new one, since it's actually less useful, but to replace it with one that I can't even use comfortably is just a little insulting.  So, to the bank that put the new ATM in my building, I give a hearty, "No Thanks!"  

And that will do it for another week, and Jeremy goes on vacation again.  Yes, he just got back from vacation.  Jeremy Is In The Office will be out of the office tomorrow and next monday and Tuesday, returning Wednesday to fill all of your Sametime Status Needs.  Enjoy the long weekend!

English Remains Weird

When a lessor leases something to a lessee, it’s not called a lesson

No, it's certainly not.  What is it called?  

I actually don't know if there's a proper name for it, but there really should be.  I think it was supposed to be "Lesson," but that word was already taken.   

She Wasn't The Champion

We now return you to the regular junk that’s on TV

You know...it is still summer.  You're allowed to go outside.

Well, that's one part very true and another part exactly the reason I'm so far behind on my DVR.  This very nearly caused a major problem recently.  

So one of the shows that I do make a point to watch (One of like...two shows) is the USA program Burn Notice.  My sister hates it, but okay.  I realized not long ago that I was at least 3 episodes behind the current season due to not being home, going on vacation, or just generally not wanting to be sitting inside my TV room doing nothing.  As you may be aware, there was a major storm a couple weeks ago in the Greater Jeremy Area which knocked out the power to my house for about 14 hours...one of those hours was the hour in which Burn Notice airs.  Needless to say, that episode was not recorded.  Not long ago, I decided to catch up on this particular show, and as I got to one episode in particular, during the "Previously, on Burn Notice" section that they occasionally run at the beginning of episodes, I realized I didn't recognize some of the things that had happened.  I quickly paused the DVR to assess the situation.  Good thing I did, too...as mere seconds later was a MAJOR spoiler as to events in the episode I missed due to the power outage.  Disaster was averted, however, and I was free to enjoy the episodes as they were intended. 

I tell you this story now because, as many of you are doubtless aware, the Olympics are over.  The closing ceremony was last night, and I did actually watch about 90 seconds of it during which a questionably-clad singer who was clearly not Freddie Mercury was singing along with the other members of "Queen."  I decided that 90 seconds of this nonsense was enough, so I moved on.  On to the other fine television programming that's shown during the summer.  That lasted about another 2 minutes before I shut the TV off. 

They Should Give Me A Nickel For Listening To That Crap

In football, a Nickelback is seldom used.  If only the radio would see things the same way

Actually, Jeremy, Nickelbacks are used fairly often in obvious passing situations, to add a little more depth to the defensive backfield.

But that doesn't make the joke work, so just run with it.  

Running on a 6-man front is usually a good idea.  

So...Nickelback front-man Chad Kroeger is the Nicolas Cage of the pop music world.  He's laughably bad at what he does, yet inexplicably, nobody has taken him aside and told him to stop.

How bad is Nickelback?  They have their own page on Know Your Meme.

How bad is Nickelback?  The city of Detroit actually petitioned to have them removed from the halftime performance of last year's Thanksgiving Day NFL game.  

How bad is Nickelback?  One of those stupid "Can this ___ get more fans than ____" Facebook things was started in 2010, between Nickelback and a pickle, and the pickle actually won.  

So why is it this morning when my alarm clock wakes me up do I have to listen to Nickelback blaring some hoarse, repetitive, monotonic, drivel?  To my knowledge, this particular radio station has never played Nickelback during the morning show, and if this turns into a disturbing trend, I may need to find a new morning show to listen to while I'm laying in bed waiting for my brain to wake up. 

Still More Corny Jokes From Jeremy

A magician was driving down a road, then he turned into a driveway

Terrific.  Do one liner jokes ever get old?

I certainly hope not...because then I'll run out of material to use on days where I can't think of anything funny.  

We call those "Weekdays."

Actually, truth be told, I came up with a whimsical theme for a Sametime Status this morning, but it had a couple of flaws.  First, I wasn't familiar enough with the subject matter to really figure out how to tie the items together, and second...I couldn't figure out how to make a joke out of it.  The thought I had was a crossover between the recently popular "Fifty Shades" series of books and the slightly less recently but just as popular "Millennium" series of books ("The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" and all that).  Full disclosure, I've read the entire Millennium series, but haven't read any of the Fifty Shades...though I know people who have.  The idea I had was to somehow get Lisbeth Salander into a fan-fic sort of relationship with Christian Gray...but I ultimately realized that I had no idea how that would play out, so the whole concept sort of fizzled.  I'm a little disappointed, to be honest.   

More Corny Jokes From Jeremy

Early in the season, I’m batting .500 on corn

The Jeremy School of Investment relies on marginal bets on agricultural commodities.  Past results are no indication of future gains.  

Yeah, no.  I'm actually referring to something a little more close to home...literally and figuratively.  Yesterday was the first day of fresh corn season in the Jeremy household.  There's this farm market store nearby that sells local produce, and yesterday was the first time this summer that I've gone there looking for locally grown corn.  

Corn on the cob?  

Nope! 

So anyway, at dinner that night, I came to the realization that one of the ears of corn I had wasn't particularly good, but the other one was fantastic.  So, one out of two isn't bad...but that's about as long as I'll be keeping statistics.  

I Have To Do 17 More Of These?

Forget par, golf for value!  I shot 39 cents per stroke

Pretty sure nobody else looks at it that way.  

 Well, Ty Webb goes by height, so it can't be that unusual.

Wait, what? 

So last week was vacation week for Jeremy, and one of the activities that I like doing once or twice a year is playing a round of golf.  Like...real golf, not the mini-type, although that's good too.  I'm much better at mini golf, so it's not really noteworthy.  

Anyway, golf has it all wrong.  It's the only sport I can think of right now in which the lower your score, the better off you've supposedly done.  Racing doesn't count, because times are not scores.  That said, the logic is all wrong, from everybody's point of view.  Take, for example, the owners of the golf course.  They charge people a certain rate for a round of golf regardless of their golfing ability.  The more people the owners can channel through the course, the more money they make...which is fine...but the worse people are at golfing, the longer they take.  Good golfers breeze through a course and allow for higher profits, but they pay the same rate as atrocious golfers who effectively take money out of the course owners' hands.  When it comes to value, bad golfers win here.  

When it comes to course maintenance, it's pretty easy to see why the fewer strokes a player takes, the less they damage the course, and the less maintenance that needs to be done in terms of watering, filling divots, planting grass seed, etc.  Once again, the good golfers get the shaft here, since they do less damage to the course, yet pay the same fee as everyone else.  It makes more financial sense to be lousy at golf. 

And then, the most simple calculation of golf value, the player's.  I, for example, shot a round of golf in which I paid a total of 38.6 cents per stroke.  If I was a good golfer and actually shot par, that number would go UP to a whopping 54 cents per shot.  The more strokes you take, the more value you're getting for your hard-earned money.  I'm paying a certain amount for greens fees, and I feel like I should get as much enjoyment out of that money as possible.  It's the American Way!