AWOOOOOOOOO!

Why was I surprised that there was a full moon this week?

You really shouldn't be.  It happens every 29 days or so.   

Well, there's more to it than that.  For some reason, I was actively excited on monday as I was driving home and I looked out the window to see a brilliant full moon.  I didn't turn into a werewolf, but I assume that's completely irrelevant to the story.  

It wasn't until this morning that I realized that I shouldn't have been so shocked to see a full moon this week, since Easter is on Sunday.  Easter, as we all know, is the holiday meant to celebrate eggs and bunnies, and is scheduled to fall on the Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox.  So spring started last week, and Easter is this week.  It follows suit, therefore, that there would be a full moon this week.  I just didn't catch up to that somehow.  Sometimes my brain is slow.  Most times, I'm A Genius, but even I can't be that brilliant all the time, I guess.  

Speaking of moons and geniuses, the big news coming out of science this week is some new data flowing in from the latest microwave telescope down in the Mexican dessert.  The thing is over a mile in diameter and is the most sensitive radioscopic instrument ever designed by man.  It receives microwave radiation coming in from all over the universe and is being used to search for artificial patterns in deep space.  Should be interesting! 

It's Next To Main Streeet

The world is misspelled!  Oh wait…maybe it’s just my GPS

Nope.  It's clearly the world that's misspelled, Jeremy.  Maybe you should run for office or something, so you can be on the committee which names stuff.  That way, you can actually make a change and fix the spellings that are wrong with the world.

So, for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, I'm driving around with a GPS now.  As is hopefully expected, I don't really need a GPS to get to and from work or any of my usual daily travels, but the fact remains, I have a GPS.  If absolutely nothing else, it's fun to look at, since I normally don't, and see what's around as I drive by.  If I really wanted, I could zoom way the heck out and watch just how slowly I'm traversing the country and feel tiny...but so far, I haven't wanted.  

Imagine my shock when I come across a road called "Facillities Drive."  At first, I thought the morning sun had damaged my vision, or maybe in my usual morning stupor, I was seeing a double L on the GPS screen where there really wasn't one.  Nope...the thing was misspelled.  Needless to say, the GPS couldn't possibly be wrong, so I'm forced to come to the conclusion that "Facilities Drive" is misspelled "Facillities Drive" in real life.  I don't know who should go about fixing this oversight, but they should get on the stick and do so.  

You Mean, Like...To Sleep?

You know your day is off to a good start when “Rock Me Amadeus” is playing on the radio

Jeremy, once again providing remarkably low standards to live up to.  Probably not meeting them most of the time, too.  

So anyway, for those who may not know, "Rock Me Amadeus" is an 80s synth-pop song by Austrian self-proclaimed "rock singer" Falco.  Despite violating Jeremy's Big Rule #1, which you should all be familiar with by now, it's actually a pretty catchy song that I like for some completely unknown reason.  

The song, of course, is all about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the Austrian composer of a whole crapload of the greatest classical music ever written.  It wasn't Baroque, so it didn't need fixing.  That's a stupid joke that musicians appreciate on occasion. Your mileage may vary.  

Despite the fact that Mozart primarily wrote brilliant and often religious works, he also delved into the lower brow of music, including a work inviting the listener to Kiss A Part Of His Anatomy best left to less family-friendly blags. 

Also despite Mozart's inclination to classical music, I sincerely doubt that he would have an objection to part of his legacy being left to Euro synth-pop music, which is just as legitimate a form or art as any of his work.  Mozart would probably have tried his hand at a synthesizer at one point or another if they had existed back in the 1700s.

Now That Wade Clubb Isn't Playing

“Rob Klinkhammer” is an awesome name

Sure is.  I'd put it right up there with Max Power.

Except for the fact that I'm not making this one up.  Rob Klinkhammer is in fact an NHL player currently playing for the Phoenix Coyotes.  He has what I believe to be the third greatest name in hockey, behind only Kevin Shattenkirk and Cal Clutterbuck...not necessarily in that order.  

I choose to believe his nickname on the Coyotes team is "Colonel."   

Whoever Yells "FREE BIRD" Gets Punched

Silly Lynyrd Skynyrd, of course Tuesday’s gone.  It’s Thursday!

Today's Sametime Status makes me want to go to a NASCAR race and complain about liberals.  

You get all that from "Tuesday's Gone?"  I mean...it's a nice song and all, but never seemed quite THAT life-altering.

Nah, I'm just kidding.  It would take a lot more than that to get me to watch NASCAR.  

So today's Sametime Status deals with Lynyrd Skynyrd's song, "Tuesday's Gone."  The reason today's Sametime Status deals with  Lynyrd Skynyrd's song, "Tuesday's Gone," is that this was the first song playing on the radio when my alarm went off this morning.  This thought was actually the first thing to pop into my head today.  You know it's going to be a good day when your first thought is something funny instead of something like "I wonder how much it snowed overnight," or "It's time to get up already?" or "Ow, I just stepped on that thing!"  Those are far more common than comedy. 

The especially nice thing about this particular Thursday is that it's cleverly disguised as Friday, since I have the day off of work tomorrow to celebrate March Madness.  Woohoo!  So long suckers!  See you all on monday.

So, even though Jeremy made it pretty clear already, it's in my contract that I'm supposed to do this.  So, Jeremy Is In The Office will be Out Of The Office tomorrow, returning monday, March 25 with all new stuff.  I've actually gotten a preview of monday's Sametime Status and I have no idea what it means.  We'll all be waiting patiently for an explanation.  

I'm Rich!

I saved 5 cents because my cashier couldn’t do math!

Ooo...five whole cents!  Don't spend it all in one place.

The fact that I have five extra cents really is tangential to my story today.  It's a tale of rampant stupidity and the fact that it has invaded our society.  It's everywhere, and it's really pretty annoying.  The lack of even the most basic intelligence is not only ignored, but it's often celebrated.  Don't believe me?  Check your friendly local social networking site for proof.  Within 5 posts, you will find a word misspelled, a piece of poor grammar, or a sentence fragment that makes absolutely no sense when actually read as typed.  Some of the more popular ones are a misuse of their/there/they're...it's/its,   or my personal pet peeve, when somebody uses the word "of" in place of "have" because of contractions, as in "I should of gone to the store."  If you correct these people, you are shunned as a Grammar Nazi, or more likely, "Grammer Nazi."  

It's one thing if you're simply posting your own ignorance on your social network where you are the only one who gets judged by your idiocy, but when your lack of concern for the simplest of tasks reflects on others, you'd think it would be taken more seriously.  You'd be wrong.  I was walking through the grocery store not long ago, and a series of signs caught my eye.  I'm guessing the Manager wanted to have a series of specials in the meat section, so displays were made.  These were signs meant to be posted for everyone in the store to see.  I'm sure whoever made these signs had a smartphone with them and could have taken an extra 10 seconds to look up how to spell a word if they were unsure, but they weren't concerned about things like having a sign that made the store not look like it's run by a bunch of poorly-trained monkeys.  The signs (all of them) said, and I'm quoting here, "MANGERS SPECIAL!  WHILE SUPLY'S LAST!!"  Dear Lord.  The sign has 5 words, 40 percent of which are misspelled, it contains a gratuitous apostrophe which has no business being there, and three exclamation points.  Simply atrocious.  

If I was the manager (Or "Manger"), whoever wrote that sign and actually put it out on a display case for customers to see as a showcase for my store would be turning in their apron and looking for a new job before lunch.  But maybe I'm being too harsh.  After all, it's only a sign which impacts public perception of my business...surely it can't be directly impacting my business financially.  Except last week, I was getting a sandwich from a chain sandwich restaurant which shall remain nameless, but which makes you feel like you're being transported by a type of underground train.  My change due at the end of the transaction was 73 cents.  I don't know about you, but I was taught coins at a very young age, and the thought of 73 cents appearing in my hand as something other than two quarters, two dimes, and three pennies would seem awkward.  Sure, if the register was out of quarters, and I was offered 7 dimes, I would understand, but you get the idea.  We all know how to count out 73 cents.  It never occurred to me that a cashier...somebody who gets paid by a business to handle, count, and exchange money on behalf of that business would be unfamiliar with coin denominations.  My change was handed to me in the form of three quarters and three pennies.  I had to double check my receipt to make sure of what happened, and sure enough...my cashier friend was under the impression that three quarters add up to 70 cents.  The government recently has looked into abolishing the penny.  I think they should just abolish all hard currency, because we've finally reached the point in the slippery slope of stupidity where our cashiers don't know how to deal with it anymore. 

I would post this story to a social networking site, but I would just be mocked for being a Math Nazi. 

I Pick "Upset" Over "Man O' War"

Pick Jeremy’s 12-5 Upset!  Oregon, Ole’ Miss, Akron, or California. Vote now!!!

Welcome, everybody!  It's Jeremy's annual chance to show off everything he knows about college basketball.  Fortunately for the rest of us, I'm here to help this explanation to be more than two sentences long.  

It's March Madness time again!  Time for all of us to make completely arbitrary picks on a 64-team bracket based on "information" we supposedly know about teams.  Really, though...we're all just tossing darts in the dark.  If you can confidently say otherwise, you're a sociopathic liar and/or should get a job as a sports analyst on one of the 24-hour sports networks.  

Of course, none of this stops us from putting pen to paper and creating our own bracket and, more importantly, talking trash about other people's brackets.  So, to make your bracket picking easier, I'm going to offer you everything I've learned about college squeekball over the years of making picks.

• No #16 seed has EVER beaten a #1 seed in the history of the tournament.  (In it's current format)  First thing to do when making a bracket is to immediately put all of the #1 seeds into the second round.  
• The #5 seed is cursed.  The #5vs#12 matchup is a statistical outlier in terms of upset percentage.  Basically, what this means is that a #12 seed ALWAYS beats a #5 seed somewhere in the bracket.  In fact, the #12 seed wins more often than the #11 seed. 

That's it.  That's all I know about the upcoming tournament, except for the fact that the Midwest region of the bracket is tough to predict because in every matchup, both teams have the ability to "score the basketball."  This is what I learned watching the sociopathic liar who got a job as a sports analyst on ESPN.  So you see what I mean about getting a job there...it doesn't seem to be all that difficult.

Anyway...I'll be filling out my completely nonsensical bracket tomorrow, so get your votes in now!  Pick Jeremy's 12-5 Upset!  

Howard Dean's Scream Was In Breaking Bad

I just can’t take anything seriously if it has a Wilhelm Scream in it

Reading the nonsense you write all the time must be like a Wilhelm Scream to everyone reading, then.  What is a Wilhelm Scream anyway?

You may or may not know that I enjoy watching movies.  It's a great way to pass the time, be entertained and unwind at the end of a long day.   Hollywood lives and dies by one very simple premise...you need to disregard reality for a while and live in the world of the film.  This is easier done in some cases than others, where either the film's reality is so far off base that you can't possibly submit to it, or else something happens to jolt you back into the real world where you say, "oh yeah...I'm watching a movie."  I've discussed this in the past, when some goofy thing like a phone number starting with 555 is the cold blast of reality which shocks me out of Film-Land and back into Jeremy-Land.  Sometimes, I'm more easily taken out of Film-Land than most film directors would like me to be...and quite honestly...more easily than I would like to be sometimes.  

So far, this has nothing to do with Wilhelm Scream.  Good job, Jeremy.

One of the little things that won't bother most people that does ruin a film for me is a poor job by the Foley Artist.  A Foley Artist, not to be confused with a Mick Foley Artist, is the guy who adds sound effects to a movie during post production.  They use many amusing techniques that you may not expect to create sound effects, and learning about those is left as an exercise for the reader.  

Foley artists often use standard sound effects for various commonplace actions.  A guy getting punched in the face sounds pretty much the same in every movie since the 1970s, because the "guy getting punched in the face" sound has been the exact same sound file ever since it was invented.  It sounds nothing like a guy actually being punched in the face, but when you see and hear it in a movie, you don't give it a second thought.  One remarkably common stock sound effect currently found in the Warner Brothers Stock Sound Library is known as the "Wilhelm Scream."  While the sound first appeared in 1951s "The Distant Drums," it didn't gain notoriety until 1953, when it was used three times in the film "The Charge At Feather River."  It became known as the "Wilhelm Scream" after Private Wilhelm, the first character from that movie to be shot with an arrow, causing him to cry out in pain.  It has been used in over 200 movies and TV shows since then and has become partially a staple and partially an inside joke for Foley Artists all over Hollywood.

Whether or not you recognize it by name, you have definitely heard the Wilhelm Scream.  Here It Is In Action. 

We're Better Off, Even If It Takes A Whole Week

Now that they’re not busy, maybe we should put the College of Cardinals in charge of fixing the Sequester

So for those unawares, the College of Cardinals selected a new Pope yesterday.  It was an impressively short conclave this time around, lasting only 2 days.  At one point, starting in the year 1268, a conclave lasted for 27 months before the Cardinals elected a Pope.  

If you're also unaware, and that means you haven't been reading the Blag here, the US Congress is completely incompetent, having gone so far as to underestimate their own incompetence and have screwed around with this Sequester nonsense for well over a year and have made roughly zero progress.  

The answer is simple.  Put people who know how to get things done in charge of the stuff that needs to get done, and throw the others out on their ears.  The College of Cardinals has shown that they know how to accomplish something when they (quite literally) lock themselves in a room and make up their minds to do so.  While I may also suggest locking congress up in a room until they come up with a real budget idea to get rid of the Sequester, I'm much more in favor of scrapping all of those idiots and turning over the accomplishing-stuff reins to a new group.  Now, I'm sure some people will object to the Cardinals running the government (religious persecution and all of that), but it's only for a short time.  If absolutely nothing else, I'm entirely sure they can shame the standard elected officials into doing something right for a change.  

Wheels Up!

The State Department says I can leave the country again, and they’ll actually let me back in

Well, that's one the State Department got wrong.  

Anyone who's ever traveled to a foreign country knows that in order to get in and out, you need to have a passport.  It's not all that difficult to get one...you fill out a form, get your picture taken, turn over some documents proving that you're alive, write a big fat check to the government, and when the government is darn good and ready, they send you your new passport.  Thrilling!

It's akin to getting a new driver's license, in that it's always interesting to see just how badly your picture transferred to the pages of the book.  The downside of getting a new passport to replace your old one is that you have to give the old one back, and you lose all of the little stamps you got from every foreign country you went to in the 10 years since you got it.  

Well, my passport expired not that long ago, so I got to go through this rigmarole to get its replacement.  I had to wave goodbye to my stamps from France, Japan, Poland, Germany, England, and a couple others in favor of blankness.  It was a little sad, so now I have to go somewhere to start my new collection.  Where to?

Not Available In All States (Looking At You, Arizona)

You were surprised I was on time for work today, weren’t you?

Quite frankly, I'm a little surprised you even bothered to show up, you slacker.  

Don't hate.  

So anyway, today is the first work day of Daylight Savings Time...or are we back on Standard Time now?  I really don't know or give a crap.  The only thing that concerns me is the fact that I had to wake up at an even more stupid hour of the morning than I usually do due to the fact that it's not the time I think it is yet.  

I'm sure that sentence made sense in your head.

So whether you feel that Daylight Savings Time is an antiquated system, a clever ruse to get people to use less energy, or (as one of my soon-to-be-removed Facebook friends puts it) a reminder why you should never vote for a member of the democratic party, it's here to stay...for the next few months anyway.  Sometime in the fall, we move right on back to whatever time it was at this time on Saturday.  

On that day, I'll probably be on time for work again....which is good, because they're paying me for this stuff. 

Barney Stinson Made It, Too

Here's a Fun Fact!  Before starring in TV's "Breaking Bad," Aaron Paul overbid on a "Price Is Right" showcase by $132


Wait, is this actually true?  Maybe somebody who looked like him.


Nope...this is 100% fact.  Back in 2000, during the 28th season of "The Price Is Right," an unknown Aaron Paul was in fact a contestant on the show.  He made his way up on stage and ended up winning the Showcase Showdown, earning himself a spot in the show's grand finale, the Showcase. 

His showcase involved a sports car of some sort and his bid was quite accurate.  Unfortunately, he was part of the saddest thing on television, a Showcase Double Over-bid in which nobody wins anything except the pet population.  Aaron's bid was over the actual retail value of the showcase by a mere $132.

If you still think I'm making stuff up, you can refer to Aaron Paul's IMDB Page, or to This Helpful Video. 

Tomorrow, I Go To Work Pantsless

I have successfully pulled off my third consecutive Three-Bag Thursday!  That’s a lot of threes


It's two of them.  It's not even three threes.  


This doesn't make it any less of an accomplishment.


What exactly have you accomplished?  


So here's your rare glimpse into the real life of Jeremy.   On a typical day, I get up much sooner than I would like to, since I'm not a morning person.  I brush my teeth, get dressed and head for the gym.  I do my thing there for a while, take a shower, get dressed again and head to work.  After work, I go home and prepare to repeat the process.  There are variations on this theme, depending on the need or groceries or something of that ilk, but this is generally how it goes.  There's also the occasional volleyball game. 

Volleyball throws various monkey wrenches into the works.  On normal league nights, I can go home and grab a quick banana or granola bar or something before I head to the game.  On other league nights, when the league is played farther away from home than work, this time does not exist.  I need to plan farther in advance so that I can go straight from work to volleyball.  Not a big deal, right?  Well, when you factor in the rest of the morning routine, and the fact that my brain doesn't start working until at least an hour after the rest of me wakes up, it can be problematic. 

What this means is that I need to have my gym bag packed and ready to go at some stupid hour of the morning.  I also need my work bag with laptop and such packed and ready to go at that same stupid hour of the morning.  In addition, I need a third bag with volleyball gear, including a third pair of shoes, second pair of shorts, third pair of socks, third shirt and a second towel.  This is a lot of crap to pack up and load into the car before I become functional.  If you were a betting person, and somebody were to lay odds that I would forget something, I would not take that action if I were you. 

Except for the fact that I've now pulled off the rare and special feat of actually remembering everything three weeks in a row!  Chew on that, probability! 

It's Supposed To Be Shortened Somehow, But I Don't Care

It’s Password Day!  My email password is no longer 1Dir3ct10n

Jeremy is once again listening to the current popular boy band whose music is normally only palatable to 13-year-old girls.  Way to go, Jeremy.

Well, that's not entirely true.  It's probably a little more accurate to say that I've never actually been aware of hearing a song by One Direction.  And please...if I'm spelling that wrong, or I'm supposed to put a number 1 or an arrow in there somewhere, don't tell me.  I honestly don't give a crap.  

At best it is said that I am aware of a popular boy band named One Direction, and that I am about the furthest thing from their target market, so I just assume that I will find their music to be junk.  This group comes on the heels of every other popular boy band that has come and mercifully gone over the years, from New Kids On The Block to N'Sync, Boyz 2 Men to the Backstreet Boys.  They have now come...and soon, they will be forgotten flotsam on the sea of popular music.  I welcome that day.  
 

Oh, and I should probably mention, like I always do, that neither this, nor any of the passwords mentioned in "Password Day" posts has ever actually been my email password.  They exist for entertainment purposes only. 

I Said This Song Is Atrocious

Silly Jason Derulo, “Roof” doesn’t rhyme with “Truth”

I suppose that depends entirely on your definition of "rhyme."  Not everyone has a Rhyming Becktionary, you know.  

So today, I delve once again into the world of truly crappy music, so you don't have to.  You're welcome.  

Today's tune is the awful auto-tune wasteland that is "Whatcha Say" by Jason Derulo.  Despite the fact that Mr. Derulo violates Jeremy's Big Rule #1 in the first 13 seconds of the song, I had to look up the artist because I've never heard of this guy.  

For those unawares, "Jeremy's Big Rule #1" states that "If the lyrics of your song include the name of your group, you've written a bad song."  Mr. Derulo here just randomly states his name during the introduction of the song for no apparent reason.   

So this song is about a guy trying to win his girlfriend back after an infidelity.  Common theme, really.  As we muddle through the lyrics, we find that the artist is spitting rhymes with at best a 17% accuracy.  We're introduced to word pairings with tenuous connections at best...such as "myself" and "noone else," "clever" with "forever," "star" and "large."  About the only one he managed to get right is the pairing "go" and "know."  Well done!  

The most common rhyme, as it's found in what appears to be the chorus in this swirling miasma of lousy, is the following line: "when the roof caved in and the truth came out," where we're either supposed to believe that "roof" and "truth" rhyme, or else you pronounce it "troof," at which point, I'm done listening to your music.  All that said, apparently, Mr. Derulo is going to be a star, which is the main reason that the girl is supposed to get back together with him.  After all, they're going to live large...because large rhymes with star. 

So, my overriding message to whoever the mystery girl is in this song...run screaming in the other direction.