Well, Same To You, Chicken!

What did they ever do to be called “Jerk Spices”?

I guess they were mean to their Cardamom.   

That makes sense.   It just seems a little mean that a mixture of mostly allspice and scotch bonnet peppers would be so nonchalantly referred to as "Jerk."  We live in an era where saying mean things and bullying are considered bad, and yet, we allow this type of spice discrimination to occur.  

Also, am I the only one who, when saying the word "Spice" thinks I'm actually saying "Space" with a lousy English accent? 

It Was Baroque, And He Fixed It

In a bit of Revisionist History, Leopold Mozart wanted his son to become a nice, quiet lawyer

Well, at least this time, all the people involved in your Revisionist History are dead, so we won't get sued.  

Long ago, in a quiet little town in Austria...

Salzberg was a pretty large city, and was part of the Holy Roman Empire at the time, but go on.

A father was hard at work quietly preparing lesson plans for his position as a teacher.  This man's name was Leopold Mozart, whose son Wolfgang, had shown a particular affinity for music.  Like all parents, Leopold disapproved of young Wolfgang's musical choices, having been known to shout "Wolfgang, will you turn down that blasted orchestra?" at all hours of the night.  Little did he know that what he was listening to, the "noise" of its day, would be later known as "Symphony No 1 in E Flat Major," the first symphonic composition in Wolfgang's long career as a classical composer.  This near-constant battle began when the younger Mozart was a mere 8 years old. 

Over the next 7 years, Wolfgang would compose 12 more symphonies, each drawing more and more ire from his father, who promised to take his son's clavier away, later proved to be an idle threat.  Leopold would often try to draw young Wolfgang's attention away from music towards what he claimed to be a more noble pursuit, the rule of law.  His motives were misguided, of course, merely trying to have a quiet night at home without, what he called, "all that racket" coming from the child's room. 

Fortunately for us all, Leopold's methods were for naught, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart went on to become one of the greatest classical composers of all time.  Sadly, Wolfgang never did gain the respect of his father, who for years to come, would occasionally bring a handful of Baroque musicians to the house to play Bach compositions for his son, claiming "See, son...now THAT'S what real music sounds like." 

       

I Don't Want This By My Food

Those crazy “Kidz” and their compost…

Yeah, they're always out there with their...wait, what?

I'm not entirely sure what it was I was looking at in the grocery store not long ago, but there it was, big as life.  Sitting in the middle of the produce section was a stack of bags with the label "Kidz Compost."  As much as I know kids love a good compost pile, and learning about the joys of worm crap, this just didn't seem like the greatest product idea.  

Also factor in that I'm copying the "Kidz" part verbatim, and you can see that some stuffed suit at the company decided to add an edgy youthful flair by spelling "Kids" with a "Z."  Because you know, those nutty kids these days, they're either spelling things with Zs so they look cool, or else they're too dumb or preoccupied to care about spelling things properly.  Neither Would Surprise Me.

While I'm at it, I may as well tell you another story from that same shopping trip.  I noticed a bunch of signs posted around the meat section advertising the "Manager's Specials" of the day.  Every last one of them ended with the phrase "WHILE SUPLY'S LAST.[sic]"  For those of you who don't know what that little [sic] thing means, you probably also don't see anything wrong with the rest of the sign, so you are not my target audience.  Go read something. 

Going Out Of Words

Whenever an audio book gets to Chapter 11, I’m surprised that it keeps going

But then the rest of the book is read with the oversight of a judge?  

So today's Sametime Status continues my foray into Literature Made Easy, with an amusing comment on narration.  Most books are broken into chapters, though I'm not always sure why.  Different authors define their chapters differently, so books like "At Swim - Two Birds" has only one chapter (Still called "Chapter 1" while "Under The Dome" has chapters that are only a couple sentences long which is at least part of the reason the book is over 1000 pages.  (28 Hours in Audio Book Form, in case you were wondering)  

When reading the book aloud for an audio book, the narrator will generally quote everything verbatim, including reading off the chapter numbers.  It's a bit of a distraction, I'll admit, but a necessary evil for the convenience of not having to actually read the thing myself.  

When this happens, there is a pause in the narration, followed by the voice calling out "Chapter 2" or whatever the chapter number is.  I'm always amused when it gets to 11 because, in my mind at least, Chapter 11 has an entirely different meaning.  I immediately think of the bankruptcy code in which Chapter 11 refers to a type of Bankruptcy proceeding in which a business is allowed to stay in business with protection from creditors, but under court supervision.  I know this because Wikipedia knows this, not because my business is failing.  I also don't have a business. 

Trolling Is Fun!

Goal For Today:  Convince somebody that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, but only in the southern hemisphere 

I really don't think anybody would fall for this...would they?  

A wise person once said, "Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."  But then, the internet crapped all over it and attributed the same quote to many different people, including Confucius, Socrates, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, and Mark Twain.  If there's one thing the Internets have done, it's to increase people's awareness of the stupidity around them.  

There are videos of people getting hurt doing stupid things, which you used to have to put up with a half hour of Bob Saget to view now available 24/7.  There are the Yahoo Answers pages which exist for trolling, pointing out bad grammar, and cheating on homework.  There's Wikipedia.  And of course, there is Social Media which allows people to display to the entire word Just How Dumb They Are.  You look at things like this on the internets and you start to realize that you've given the world FAR too much credit for actually having some awareness of the world around them.

Some People Take Advantage Of This and that's to their credit.  They've figured out a way to potentially profit from people not knowing or understanding much.  (For the record, the trick to that video is ALL in how the water is poured into the basin, it has nothing to do with the Coriolis Effect.)  Some people also just troll in order to derive only pleasure from the stupidity of others.  It can be Remarkably Effective.  

So, I propose a troll.  Everyone's task today is to go out and find a sucker and convince them that the earth rotates the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere.  It should be remarkably easy...just explain to them that since the southern hemisphere is upside down, the directions are reversed.  That's why the sun rises in the west and sets in the east.  

Please let me know how it goes. 

Matter Of Perspective

I don’t think it follows, therefore, that if there is no gain, there is no pain

 I don't know...I don't think you gain much if I punch you, but it doesn't hurt me at all. 

So today's Sametime Status is a play on the old-timey phrase "No Pain, No Gain."  Taken to its illogical conclusion, pain and gain are mutually inclusive, such that to achieve gain, you must endure pain.  

In reality, this isn't always true.  People achieve things all the time without pain involved, and there are painful things that result in no gain...falling off the roof for example. 

Please tell me this is based on a true story.

Unfortunately for the sake of entertainment, it's not based on reality.  I didn't fall off the roof.  Sorry to disappoint.

I Wanted To Listen To The Birds Anyway

Pro Tip:  Transmitters use battery power

You know...I love when you do stupid things on a Thursday.  We get to spend the entire weekend thinking about what an idiot you can be.  Refreshing. 

Today's Sametime Status is not another in the long line of "Jeremy Is A Genius" messages, but more of a cautionary tale which can be told for future generations who find themselves in a very specific set of circumstances.  

So not long ago, I purchased a speaker which can clip to the handlebars of a bicycle.  This speaker has a wireless connection to a small transmitter which plugs into the proprietary connecter found on an MP3 player made by the only company arrogant enough to put a proprietary connector on an MP3 player.  We'll go ahead and leave that company nameless, but suffice to say, if you listen to your music on this device once a day, canonically speaking, you'll never have to go to the doctor. 

The idea is, you can broadcast your MP3s to this speaker and listen to music as you ride without wearing headphones, since it's a remarkably bad idea to be riding a bike with headphones on. 

Important safety tip, thanks Jeremy.  

Well, the problem we run into with this setup is that the transmitter uses battery power from the MP3 player to transmit.  One would think this is pretty basic and self explanatory, but sometimes things fall through the cracks.  I turned off the speaker attached to the bike and turned off the MP3 player, leaving the transmitter connected.  At the time, I figured this was good enough, since it would no longer have anything to transmit.  Problem, of course is that the transmitter doesn't know or care if it's broadcasting anything...it just goes along with its signal, pulling battery power from the mp3 player.  I get to the trail yesterday and turn on the speaker, then click on the MP3 player only to have it stare at me blankly, the battery having been run dry.  I got to spend my entire quiet ride wondering what exactly made me think that the battery would still be full.  

Feels Like Longer

It’s always fun finding muscles you haven’t used in six months

Haha...ouch for Jeremy.  Literally, in fact.

Yeah, sort of, I guess.  Today marks the day after the first real day of outdoor volleyball season, where we actually got to play a full night of games without interruption by rain or lack of players.  It also marked the first time in about six months that I've had to play that type of game.  

By that, I mean I spent the bulk of the indoor tournament season playing as a setter, which means jumping and spiking were largely foreign concepts.  Move ahead to yesterday, where approximately 50% of the time, you're jumping up to spike a ball, and it's a remarkably different playing experience.  It's a lot of fun while it's happening.  It's much less fun the next morning when you try to peel yourself out of bed.  Only 2 days until the start of outdoor tournament season!  It's going to be painful. 

Not Much Of A Prize

Is it wrong to change my voicemail greeting to sound like a game show?  

Or perhaps an infomercial?  I think that might be better.

All this nonsense came to me not long ago as I was checking my voicemail at work.  Some time ago (Perhaps in one of my office moves), the phone system here decided to delete my recorded greeting, which consisted of my name.  The system is all laid out like that...you can either put together a full custom greeting, or let the computer say that you're not available and simply spout your name, as such: "The party you have called...Jeremy..is not available."  It sounds really professional, and the sound editing is something you'd expect to hear in a Bad James Nguyen Movie.  If you don't record your name into the system, the computer voice just lists off your extension, rather than cutting to the clip of you speaking your name.  

I'm on the fence.  I'm never sure if I should re-record my name into the greeting or just leave it with my phone number.  On one hand, you don't have the multi-voiced Frankenstein's Monster of a voicemail greeting going on, but at the same time, people can't be entirely sure they have the right number, and I'm very important or something.  The problem is that the voicemail system really really wants me to record my name.  It wants this so badly, it reminds me of this fact every time I go to check my voicemail.  I have to listen to it berate me for a full 20 seconds about how I don't have a recorded name and lists the instructions for how to go about recording it before I can proceed to listening to my messages.  It's times like this that I get creative.  

I could easily just record my name into the system and have done with it (until the next time it decides to erase me...wait...is that a sign that I was about to get fired at one point?), or I could have a little fun.  I could record my voice in some funny way, like using my game show announcer voice, or my infomercial voiceover voice, or my movie trailer guy voice (that one's not very good, but it usually gets the point across...usually because it starts with "In a world...").  I could also just scream loudly into the phone, or belch, or one of those old-person type "How do I record on this thing?...BEEEEEP."  All of these options are a little more clever than just saying my name...but they're also all the kind of thing that would get me yelled at at work.  Decisions, decisions...

I Also Don't Know Where Bubble Gum Fits Into This

We’ve been doing it backwards!  You should give people your name so at least they know why they’re getting their butt kicked

Or at least who it is who's doing the kicking.

Well, I'm going with the assumption that it's deserved.  Anyway, today's Sametime Status deals with the timeless expression "Kick butt and take names."  There are variations, but this is a family Blag.  This phrase is nonsense.  Let's examine.

First of all, it stands to reason that you really should have somebody's name before kicking their butt.  If we start off with the premise that a good butt-kicking is in order for somebody, and you're going to take on this task yourself, you should make sure that you're kicking the butt of the correct person.  Presumably, this person has wronged you in some way, so in order to get the appropriate compensation, you need to verify the butt prior to kicking.  See, if you go around just randomly kicking people's butts, you not only look like a jerk, but you'll probably get arrested.  So once you have the butt's identity confirmed, then and only then is it time to start kicking.  So it stands to reason that you have no need to take names after kicking butt, because you really should have the name in the first place. 

Next, comes the central premise of today's Status.  If this person has no idea who you are, they can't possibly piece together why it is that you're kicking their butt.  If the person works in some form of customer service, they can probably make an educated guess, or if it's Nicolas Cage, he can pretty much narrow it down to his film-making career, but failing that, it's just too much of a crapshoot.  We've all done things in our lives worthy of a butt-kicking, but unless somebody offers an explanation, you really can't be sure, and the message is lost.  If you introduce yourself, it's safe to assume the person then knows not only who you are, but what they did that required a butt kicking. 

So, to summarize.  In order to achieve maximum results, you should not "kick butt and take names," but rather, "Kick butt and give name."  It just makes more sense. 

Different Type Of Hunger Game

No matter how many times I don’t go shopping, my fridge is still empty

Well, you're in luck.  I have a connection for that sort of thing.  It's called "The Grocery Store."  

Strangely enough, I know where food comes from and what I have to do to get some of it.  I just haven't done any grocery shopping in a while due to lack of time and/or concern about the food content of my refrigerator.  It's at least also partially to do with my astounding creativity when it comes to laziness.  For example, if I don't have any sort of sandwich-making materials, but I still have lettuce and string cheese, it's Salad Day!  

The truly astounding part of all this is the fact that if I do go grocery shopping (which, for the record, I do plan on doing after work today...so stop by if you want an autograph), when I get home, there will be no room in the fridge for actual food.  What the crap is in my refrigerator?  I really don't get it...there's stuff in there, but none of it is food.  It's like food components or opened jars of something that was part of food once that will likely never be opened again.  Or the 90% empty box of mini quiches.  Yeah, I had a party once and served mini quiches...what about it?  My real problem is going to be when I do actually get groceries, making sure I get the appropriate groceries to not only have food, but to be able to use these half-exhausted parts of food I already have.  I should make a list, maybe...

At Least Repo Games Made A Game Show Out Of It

How can there be more than one faked TV show about tow trucks?

Seems unlikely.  How many are there?

I know of at least four, and I think there may be more, but I'm afraid I would lose more faith in humanity if I actually tried to find out. 

The fact that these shows are all the same is, at the very least, confusing to me.  Here's the deal...a collection of portly, related tow-truck drivers drive around looking for vehicles with past-due payments.  Once they find them, they hook them up to a tow truck, miraculously just in time for the delinquent owners to come running out and cause a scene in some loud or violent way, ultimately to lose to the the recovery agents.  Pop Quiz!  Did I just describe "Operation Repo," "South Beach Tow," "Lizard Lick Towing," or "Bear Swamp Recovery?"  Careful, it's a trick question.  

Here's the sad part.  Not one of these shows is an actual documentary.  They are all showing "dramatizations" of auto recoveries, not the actual repossessions themselves.  All of the owners are actors and all of the situations are staged, sometimes even with fireworks or special effects added to enhance the drama.  I can almost see how one of these shows could be watchable for an episode and a half, but for four of these shows to exist and to repeat the exact same situations over and over and over is a form of hell I really wouldn't think would be allowed to exist.  

It also shows a phenomenal lack of creativity on the producers' part to watch a show like "Operation Repo" (I'm going to assume that was the first one, but I refuse to look it up) and think, "You know...what the world needs is a show exactly like this one, but with different people and in a different state.  Tow trucks are more interesting in New Jersey than they are in Florida."  (Note:  "Bear Swamp Recovery" takes place in New Jersey)  It would be astounding if any producer actually put their name to a full-on plagiarization like this, given the fact that there is absolutely nothing original or creative involved in taking somebody else's idea, blatantly copying it without changing a single aspect, and vomiting it onto television.  Nobody could possibly stoop that low, could they?

Oh Wait...

Just Inconsiderate

Come on, Rangers and Capitals.  You’re holding up the show

For those of you caught unawares, three of the four Conference Finalists in the NHL ave been decided.  Los Angeles, Phoenix, and New Jersey are all in.  The fourth is still being determined in the series between the New York Rangers and Washington Capitals.  New York leads the series 3-2, with Game 6 happening tonight.  

It's been an exciting Stanley Cup Playoff season so far.  There have been multiple suspensions for stupid plays, a fine for a stupider play that should have led to a suspension, last year's champs getting surprisingly knocked out in the first round, Jeremy's pick to win the Cup getting bounced in the first round (I'll let you guess which team that was), the Los Angeles Kings becoming the first #8 seed to beat both the #1 seed (Vancouver Canucks) and the #2 seed (St. Louis Blues) in the same playoffs, goals, goaltending, hits, fights, and even a Twitter controversy.  We can only imagine what the third round of the playoffs has in store for us.  

Therein lies the problem.  All we can do is imagine, because the stupid Rangers/Capitals series is still going on, so everybody has to wait.  They really should have had the common courtesy to wrap the series up in 4 or 5 games like the rest of them, but NOOOOO.  And if the Rangers don't finish off Washington in tonight's game, we have to wait until Saturday night for a deciding Game 7.  So let's go guys...wrap this thing up so we can get cracking on Round 3!

They Don't Have An Army In The Mushroom Kingdom

Maybe if royalty would hire some security instead of plumbers, they wouldn’t have all these problems

 I'm sure the Royal Family has as many security guards and plumbers as they need.  

In real life, sure...but apparently not in video games.  Today's Sametime Status is based on the Super Mario Brothers series of games from Nintendo.  Each of the 16 games (Soon to be 17, and that doesn't even count the spin-off games like Mario Kart or Bash Brothers, nor the prequels like Donkey Kong and the original Mario Brothers) built across multiple platforms is predicated on the exact same thing:  Some bad guy usually named or related to "Bowser" kidnaps the Princess, and they call in a plumber named Mario to rescue her.  Sure, there are variations...like bringing in Mario's twin brother Luigi to help, or in Super Mario Brothers 3, the same bad guys kept using a magic wand to transform the King into various animals and the Royals made Mario fix THIS ALSO every time on his way to rescuing the Princess.  What a bunch of jerks.  

What exactly was preventing the King from hiring a couple extra security guards to keep the Princess safe?  Why didn't he learn this lesson after the first time he made Mario head-butt his way through 7 wrong castles full of fireballs and scary jumping turtles before he finally found the right one?  Also, couldn't he have helped poor Mario out with some kind of weaponry before he set out on this wild goose chase?  At least give the guy a bat or a stick or something rather than leaving magic mushrooms hidden in boxes all over the place.  

What's Mario's reward for all of this anyway?  Assumedly, he gets to keep the gold coins he finds along the way, and those probably add up to a tidy sum. Aside from that, his reward, apparently, is that he also gets to keep the Princess, who seems like an awful lot of baggage and someone who's not very bright.  I mean..when he finds her at the end of the first game, she's just standing there in the castle...did she make ANY attempt to get out herself?  Also, the secret to defeating Bowser was to pick up the axe on the side of the bridge that SHE WAS STANDING ON!  Take 5 steps over, pick up the axe and be done with this nonsense.  Not to mention the fact that given the total lack of security on the part of the Royals, she's probably going to get kidnapped again and poor Mario will be own his own to rescue her again.  You really have to think it's only a matter of time before Mario gives up on this girl and goes after Sonya Blade. 

I Know They're Descended From The Cylons

So, wait.  What does today have to do with the Klingons again?  

Don't know about anyone else, but I won't be feeding the trolls.

Trolls?  I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about.  I'm asking a very simple question.  I've heard a lot of science fiction talk today, and I'm quite stumped as to why.   

It's Going To Be Super!

Are you ready for Supermoon 2012?!

Do you mean Superman?  That movie's not supposed to come out until 2013.

They're making another Superman movie?

Why not?  There's still money to be made in superheroes.  

Either way, I'm not talking about Superman.  I'm talking about Supermoon.  It's the time of the lunar cycle when a full moon coincides with the perigee of the moon's orbit.  Thus, the moon looks as large as it's going to.  When Supermoon takes place this weekend, not only will it coincide with a meteor shower caused by Halley's Comet debris, but the moon will be the closest it's been to the earth during a Full Moon in over 100 years or something.  

In unrelated news, Microsoft Word sucks at grammar.  It's true.  As some of you may know, I keep all of my Sametime Statuses, past, present, and sometimes into the future (I've already written those for tomorrow and monday), in a Word document on my computer.  Not long ago, I wrote a Sametime Status that never made it into Blag form due to a plethora of meetings I had that day.  (Sadly, my actual job takes precedence over writing this stuff)  It "celebrated" the 26th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion and pointed out that with current cleanup methods employed, it would only take another 53 years to recover.  Exciting stuff, I tell you.  

Anyway, Word was displeased with my choice in wording, and it threw up a grammar check for me to review.  I post it here for you to review:

Ham And Cheese On Rye!

Here’s a Fun Fact!  Order had no rules until 1876

Then how did people intelligently discuss the issues of the day?

I honestly have no idea.  I wasn't there.  What's important to note is that today is Robert's Rules Of Order Day, which celebrates...well...maybe celebrate is a strong word, but recognizes the tome by which intelligent discourse is governed.  "Robert's Rules Of Order" was first published in February of 1876 by US Army Colonel Henry Martyn Robert.  I was surprised that the guy's first name wasn't Robert, too.  Hopefully, he named his son Robert.  Anyway, Robert was later promoted to Brigadier General, assumedly because of his parliamentary procedure volume, published while he was working in Wisconsin...ironically, where Parliamentary Procedure has since gone to die.    

I'm most amused by today being Robert's Rules Of Order Day because of something that happened recently.  I was watching hockey not long ago, which I am wont to do, and some less-than-civil discourse broke out.  Bypassing parliamentary procedure where the member stands, then is granted the floor by the speaker, and a motion is made...the player on one team simply made a motion to punch the player from the other team in the face...and succeeded.  (Yay for alternative definitions!)  Anyway, during the intermission show, one of the commentators was describing the physical nature of this particular game and how numerous skirmishes broke out by talking about "a push, a shove, a couple of 'why I oughttas'..."  I was fascinated by this use of the phrase "Why I Oughtta" as a noun, and you should be too.