Are You Sure It's Not A Dolphin?

*Ring* *Ring*  Hello, Jeremy?  It’s the beach...

Most people hear the ocean in a seashell.  Jeremy just hears it in his head, along with all the other voices.

Says the imaginary alter-ego.  

Touche.  Anyway, since the beach is calling, Jeremy has decided to answer and leave you all alone for an entire week because he's sick of you.  

Not at all.  I love all my loyal readers.  Even Nicolas Cage, assuming he's a loyal reader.

Perfectly valid assumption.  

So anyway, Jeremy is headed off on vacation for a little while, so hopefully there will be some other stuff on the Internets to keep you occupied until he comes back.

I would recommend Space Janitors, if you haven't seen it.  Also, try your luck at some browser games courtesy of my friends at Ninjakiwi.  Just don't play at work...people are paying for this stuff.  I'm off to find sun and sand.  See you in a week!

Jeremy Is In The Office will be Out Of The Office next week, returning on monday, August 5th with all new Sametimey Goodness. 

Labradoodles Drool

So I’m confused.  Do Labs rule, or do Terriers rule?  

That depends entirely on the party in power at the time.  If the districts are Gerrymandered enough, the Terriers will rule, but usually the Labs have control.   

Yes, but...wait, what?

Anyway, as you know, I generally have no love for bumper stickers.  Especially when they're for dumb things like using cloth diapers or the 2008 presidential election.  I recently saw a car that had two bumper stickers advertising what kind of dog this particular driver owned.  I mean...I'm guessing...otherwise, they're just really dedicated fans.  On the left side of the bumper, "Labs Rule" with a picture of a golden retriever.  On the right side, "Terriers Rule" with a picture of a Boston Terrier.  This left me confused.  Since I've now been led to believe that Labs rule, how can Terriers also rule?  Is that not a complete contradiction to have one breed of dog rule, and then turn right around and say that another breed rules?  It may be okay if they're apart, but what if they're in the same room?  Only one of them can really rule...which is it?  This driver didn't help me out at all.  

My Very Own

I have a road!

From now on, forward all hate fan mail to Jeremy Road.  The post office will know what that means.  

Well, if that were the case, that would be awesome.  Unfortunately for me, all I meant by today's Sametime Status is that my old road is new again.  You see, after a little while of living on the same street, and learning the correct path to drive to successfully avoid the potholes, sinks, traps, and sewer grates, the town has seen fit to repave my road.  

I first realized this on monday when driving home from work.  The edges of the road were all mowed and brushed, and cleaned of all grass, rocks, and other miscellaneous runoff.  This doesn't just happen.  Also, there were grooves carved at the end of everyone's driveway, my own included.  Something was definitely up.  

So yesterday, I'm driving home from work, turn down my road, and to my amazement, the whole thing was all shiny and new.  No lines or anything just yet, but a brand new slab of asphalt to drive on.  It's quiet, smooth, without giant potholes, and a welcome change of pace.  There's also a barrel over the sewer grate and a groove at the end of my driveway where they didn't page the joints yet, but I assume that's coming soon.  Bottom line here...I have a road! 

Post Cheesey Title Here

Here’s a Fun Fact!  Cottage Cheese was invented in a Greek Villa

And Greek fries were invented in France.  What's your point?

Well, it just amuses me that cottage cheese dates back much farther than their eponymous cottages.  In early America, cheese curds were made by farmers in their small cottages using what milk was left over after making butter.  The resulting food product, also known by the more poetic "curds and whey" was largely what cottage cheese is today.  It was subsequently named Cottage Cheese, despite the fact that it had been invented in Greek villas hundreds of years earlier.  Go American Imperialism!  

Here's your bonus Fun Fact of the day.  it takes over 150 pounds of milk to produce 15 pounds of Cottage Cheese.  

You now know more than you did yesterday about Cottage Cheese.  You are welcome! 

"Auto" Is A Dumb Word, Too

No good commercial jingle includes the phrase “auto parts”

I'm sure you could make one if you wanted to.  Just need a clever word that rhymes with "parts."  Oh wait...I think I see your point.  

Pretty much.  When you make a commercial jingle for an auto parts store, you really can't include the fact that the store sells auto parts.  If you do, it's expected to rhyme, and once you say the word "parts," everybody's mind goes to exactly the same place, regardless of what the jingle actually says.  Therefore, nobody really even tries.  

The closest, I think, that anyone's managed to come is O'Reilly Auto Parts, who came up with a jingle based around the name of the store.  Then, they just throw in "auto parts" at the end, more as an afterthought than of any real part of the jingle.  It doesn't even fit with the song.  

So, if anyone's actually managed to come up with a good commercial jingle for an auto parts store, please let me know...because I certainly haven't heard it yet.   

Efficiency!

It’s a new record!  My new phone book didn’t even make it within 50 feet of my house!

What's a "phone book?"

Star Trek has always done a remarkably good job of predicting the future.  Perhaps there's a lot to be said for self-fulfilling prophecies, such as the designer of the original flip-phone modelling it after a Star Trek communicator, but an awful lot of the technology that has appeared on Star Trek later appeared in real life.  Touch screens, cell phones, tablet computers, Google Glass, verbal computer interfaces...the list goes on.  

What might this have to do with phone books, you might ask?  Well, I've seen many episodes of Star Trek over the years, encompassing four different TV shows (Never watched "Enterprise," and I'm not entirely sure why), all of the movies, and even a couple of the books.  In all of that media, I have never once seen somebody open up a phone book to look up somebody's number.  Maybe this is a true harbinger of things to come, but for the time being, though just about everybody in the entire phone-using community has graduated to using a computer to look up phone numbers (or just doing it on a smartphone, which can then instantly make the call for you), the phone company remains 100% insistent on providing phone books.  I haven't used one in a long, long time, and it's now been over a year since one has even been in my house.  

I thought it was amusing Last Year that my phone book lasted 5 hours in between being dropped off at my doorstep, finding its way to the recycle bin in the garage, and making its way to the curb.   Well, ladies, gentlemen, and people from Elmira, a new standard has been set!  That's right, in a genius moment of laziness, the phone company people, instead of placing my new phone book on my doorstep, simply tossed it out the window of their car onto the end of my driveway.  Awesome.  

Fortunately, they still had the presence of mind to do this on garbage day.  Upon taking the trash and recycling bins out to the curb, I simply paused to add the new phone book to the collection.  Yes, the book again lasted a matter of hours, but never got any closer to the house than the end of the driveway.  Great job, phone company.  You made the process of instantly throwing out your phone book one step shorter. 

Curse You, Sam Walton!

Why do I still get offended when I hear “Back To School” commercials in July?

That's right, all you school-age loyal readers out there.  Wal-Mart has violated your summer with the first public airing of a Back to School commercial as of today, July 16.  Hope you enjoyed your summer vacation!

It's been a little while since I've been in school.  Even longer since I actually took a summer off and did nothing.  It was a simpler time, but it has come and gone.  I'm now on that more "mature" road of working for a living, so I don't get to take summers off.  Here it is, sunny weather outside, kids are out of school, and I'm churning away in my office.  Such is life.  The pay is a whole lot better than being in school, though, I can tell you that much.  

Back when I was in school and taking summers off to go to camps and swim in pools and ride bikes and sit in front of cartoons all day, the day would ultimately arrive when the first Back to School commercial would come on the tv, effectively ruining the rest of summer.  Once that first horrible store came through the looking glass, the cascade of retailers airing their summer-destroying ads would soon arrive in full force, unleashing a constant reminder that my freedom was but a temporary reprieve.  From then on, I would be subjected to a never-ending stream of commercials declaring the end of summer to be coming soon, despite the fact that they came farther and farther from the end every year.  I found this offensive.  

So here we are, in mid July, and Wal-Mart is the first down the rabbit hole, airing a commercial for their Back to School sale on the radio this morning.  I found it just as horrifying today as I did back in grade school that Summer has barely begun, and already, retailers are announcing it to be ending.   I'm not in school.  My months-long summer vacation is in no danger, since it doesn't exist anymore.  I have no need for Back to School savings.  I haven't spent an entire day watching cartoons in at least a couple weeks.  I just like summer.  Its warm, and I can still go outside and ride bikes and go in pools.  There's a beach on an ocean with my name on it just a few shorts weeks away.  Summer is here, and I've really just gotten used to the idea.  I don't need Wal-Mart to take it away from me just yet.  Jerks. 

Tour De France, Here I Come!

Well, my new wheels sound different.  That’s about it

You didn't tell me you were getting a new car.  Shotgun!

Yeah, I didn't get a new car.  There really was no metaphor in today's Sametime Status...I actually just got new wheels for my bicycle.   

I see.  And you were worried about how they sounded?  If you don't like it, you can always put a baseball card in the spokes, and it will sound like a motor.  That should make you go faster, too. 

I really only got new wheels for the bike because they look cool.  The ones I got ostensibly have a couple of advantages over the old ones, and I got a terrific deal on them, but quite honestly...I only bought them because they look good.  My old wheels didn't.  The new ones have a deeper rim profile, have writing on the sidewalls that looks cool when spinning in really really fast circles, and the color matches the rest of the bike.  Sure, they're more aerodynamic, a couple of grams lighter, and have better spokes, but that's all gravy.  

So, over the weekend, I got to take the new wheels out for a spin...or a couple thousand spins as the case may be.  I'm not sure if I was expecting there to be a great difference in the feel of the bike, or if the new wheels would magically make me go faster, but I didn't notice.  About the only thing I did notice was that the sound the bike made as I rode along was a little different.  That was totally worth what I paid for the wheels.    

I Can't Slurp It, Either

Does this mean I can’t have a Smoothie today?  

Does what mean you can't have a Smoothie?  I didn't realize there was a decree made...not that you pay much attention to my decrees anyway.

So today is July 11...7/11, if you write the date in the typical American fashion.  The convenience store chain 7-Eleven is the original home of the Slurpee (Actually a licensed product from the Icee company, but that's hardly worth mentioning), so today has been dubbed "Slurpee Day," and the stores at one point gave away free Slurpees to celebrate.  

Interestingly enough, the name 7-Eleven has nothing to do with Craps.  The stores were named such after the hours they were open...from 7AM until 11PM. 

7-Eleven was also given an unfortunate new nickname by Denis Leary, in the Coffee Rant Portion of his CD "Lock N Load."   (Not surprisingly, that link contains some strong language.) 

So all this said...I don't really care about Slurpees.  There's a place near my house...a cafe, if you will...that sells fruit smoothies, many of the tropical variety.  I actually like this place and get a smoothie there from time to time.  I feel like it would be wrong of me to go there today and get a Smoothie, since it's Slurpee Day.  This, of course, makes me want a smoothie all the more.  

Also, I had a Home Ec teacher back in school (I guess it's not called Home Ec anymore, since that would be offensive, but I don't know what they call it these days, so deal) who would grossly overpronouce the word Smoothie, resulting in a very protracted SMIEEWWWtheee.  Annoyingly, I can never think of the word Smoothie pronounced any other way now. 

She's An Accomplice!

On TV, police often interview people in their houses over a pot of tea.  That’s some fast-brewing tea

One of the magic aspects of TV and movies that Jeremy simply has trouble comprehending.  A moment of silence for your lost TV-watching innocence as Jeremy will now point something out that will bother you from now on.  

I'm all for guest hospitality when inviting somebody to your home.  When I have people over, and I'm actually there, I make sure to have drinks and/or food available for my guests.  It's fairly common courtesy to do so, so I'm not special.  That said, should people just show up at my house, for whatever reason, I don't feel obligated to provide them with food and beverages, nor should they expect the place to be clean or any nonsense like that.  Not that I'm expecting this to happen or anything, but should a small contingent of police come to my house to "ask me a couple of questions," I would of course, invite them in, but I don't think refreshments are in order. 

This level of courtesy is provided to police often on TV shows and in movies...and I can't quite figure out why, or exactly how the hosts manage to pull it off.  I was watching a certain police-based TV show not long ago when two of the officers arrived at a woman's house.  They were there to ask her some questions about a relative of hers, and by the time they began their interview, they each had tea in a cup and saucer, presumably sweetened, with a teapot sitting in front of them.  This brings up a number of questions. 

First, did this woman just happen to have three sets of cups and saucers handy, along with a teapot with pre-made tea sitting around in her living room?  I doubt this is the case for obvious reasons such as 'how often does she have to re-make the tea for it to be constantly at the ready in the living room?'  So that's out.  The other option is for her to make tea as soon as the officers arrive.  This is a little more reasonable, but still has flaws.  Namely, let's time this all out.  The officers walk in, and sit down in the living room.  The woman hen goes to the kitchen, pours enough water into a tea kettle for making 3 or more cups of tea (it was more in this case, but that's not germane to the story), find the teapot, the accompanying dome (scandalous or otherwise), three cups and saucers, and teabags.  We'll assume for the sake of this discussion that she's using tea bags and not scooping tea into a strainer, but it probably doesn't make much difference either way.  Then, wait until the water boils, which takes Precisely 51.7 Seconds, pour the water into the teapot, wait for it to steep, which is 3-5 minutes if you read the instructions, longer if you don't, then present it to the officers.  Let's round this off to a nice even 8.3 minutes total.  She then brings the tea to the officers, who begin their interview.  They ask her about 4 questions over a span of 45 seconds, then leave.  They were in the house for over 9 minutes for a 45 second interview.  This is inefficient, and we don't even know if the tea was prepared to their taste or not.  

Or maybe the woman just has some really fast brewing tea, and it was ready for police consumption within seconds of their arrival.

Another Blag Entry Goes Down The Pan

So wait…I’m supposed to “mark” a car when I take a test drive?  That sounds unsanitary

I don't even...

Lately, there have been a lot of stupid car commercials on the radio in the Greater Jeremy Area.  Strangely, the vast majority of them are for the same car company.  One that, for strictly Blag purposes, we'll call "Urabus."   

There really isn't a good way to obscure that, is there?  

So anyway, they ran a series of commercials over the winter that were supposedly people telling stories about driving their Urabus cars through heavy snow and not having any trouble, but they're incredibly long-winded stories about driving to a diner for pie, or saving time by taking backroads and whatnot.  Absolutely terrible stories, and they're supposed to make me buy a new car.  I didn't get it.  

Well, they needed to top themselves somehow, and one of the local Urabus dealers helped them out.  They start their commercial by saying that we can learn a lot from our dogs (neglecting the fact that I don't have a dog, but that's beside the point entirely).  The very first point being that, like dogs, we should mark our territory when test driving a new Urabus so that nobody buys it out from under us while we're deciding.  I'm really not making this up.  

What's important to note here is just how a dog goes about "marking" its territory.  In case you're unaware, a dog does so by taking a whiz all over it.  So, my local Urabus dealer is apparently condoning people coming in for a test drive and relieving themselves on the car if they like it.  I'm not currently in the market for a new car, but if I were, I'll let you guess which dealer I'm not going to be buying a car from.

Where's A Coal Mine When You Need One?

My little feathered alarm clock needs to learn what it means to be on vacation

That's what you get for making your friends watch Birdemic 2: The Resurrection.  Plus, your friends all hate you now. 

Once upon last week, dreary.  While I slumbered a little weary, 

After watching a bunch of Netflix'ed forgotten lore. 

While I snoozed, gently napping, suddenly there came a tapping, 

as of someone gently rapping.  Rapping on my windows...or...

Maybe on the air conditioner, what a chore.

Only this...and nothing more.  

Except for the fact that the noise didn't stop.  It just got a little annoying that here we are at 6AM, and something is knocking against the window to my bedroom, and it really needed to stop.  After a little while of this, I got up to see what it was that was making this relatively minor amount of racket, but still loud and repetitive enough to be annoying and keep me awake.  I flew to the window and threw open the blinds (wait...wrong poem...sorry), and just outside the bedroom window, I see this little guy:

He's adorable!  

So there he is, perched happily on top of the screen in the window, paying no attention to the man behind the curtain.  That would be me.  So he sits there for a couple seconds, then fluffs his feathers, jumps up and starts flapping his wings and pecking at the window.  Yes...this little nimrod is fighting with his own reflection in my bedroom window at 6AM in the frickin' morning.  

If this just happened once, it would be a really cute and entertaining story that I would be melting hearts with right now.  As it stands, it's become something a little more sinister.  My new pet here (I named him "Rodney", or "Rod" for short, after the main character in "Birdemic: Shock and Terror," and perhaps coincidentally, the lead actor in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds," has become obsessed with his own white whale.  Although, in this case, that white whale has taken the form of a little yellow canary that shows up every time he does on the other side of my bedroom window.  He apparently has a standing appointment at 6AM every morning to do battle with this evil mastermind, and he's pretty relentless about fighting his nemesis.  

The problem arises when I'm on vacation, like I was a little bit last week...you know...4th of July and everything (Incidentally, I'm typing this just fine because I still have all 10 fingers, thanks for asking).  I didn't want to be awake at 6:00 in the morning.  Rod had other ideas.  Stupid canary...vacation means we don't have to get up.  I'm not saying you're not allowed to fight with yourself in the window, just wait until 9AM to do it. 

How Many Fingers Do You See? Thursday.

Six-Fingered Johnny on the second of July...

Ladies and Gentlemen, with any luck, Jeremy won't be blowing himself up in a couple days.  

I don't think there will be a lot of luck involved.  

Bad luck for the rest of us, maybe.

So as we get set for the most American of holidays, we prepare three of the most American things ever.  Food, alcohol, and explosives.  Sure, the vast majority of those explosives are made in China, but that's entirely beside the point.  In preparation for 4th of July, I recently went out and purchased a fairly substantial cache of fireworks...all of which are perfectly legal, of course.  I intend to spend a fair bit of time on Thursday either in a swimming pool or systematically blowing this stuff up.  There are precious few better ways to spend a day. 

You can all rest assured that I will be following the instructions on these fireworks and setting off my show while taking great care with regards to safety.  Also, it's perfectly legal, of course.  

Despite my desire to adhere to safety protocols and retain all of my extremities, the fact that I do intent to set off numerous small pyrotechnic displays led me to the world of A Capella music, as you might expect.  There is an amusing song out there in the world called "Ten Finger Johnny," by the group "Paul and Storm."  I've actually seen these guys in concert, but some time ago...they're pretty hilarious.  Anyway, the song is about a guy named Johnny who also seeks to set off some fireworks, but his stuff may not be as entirely legal as mine, and he also does not always follow the safety rules.  The results are what you might expect in a morality tale such as this.  It serves to teach a valuable lesson for those of us who intend to blow stuff up in a couple days.  

Enjoy The Song Here!