I'm Not As Angry As I Sound

Leap years are overrated

But it's not a leap year.

That's pretty much exactly my point.  Nobody even noticed that it wasn't.  A vast majority of the time, we fall asleep on February 28th and wake up on March 1st.  It's pretty standard fare.  But, roughly 25% of Februaries, we tack on an extra day due to the fact that we've learned to tell time a little better, and we felt bad that February got short-changed in the "Number of Days" department, so we give it one extra.  Sometimes, people make a big deal out of it...usually people that were born on Feb 29th.  The rest of us don't really care all that much, except for the fact that we can get all excited and use the phrase "Leap Day."  

All that said, it's pretty much another day.  If that day happens to fall on a normal work day, you still have to go to work, the mail still gets delivered, and you have to go an extra day without your paycheck.  If you work a salaried job, that's like a free day for your employer.  You have to work one more day that year than any other normal year, yet you don't see an extra dime for it.  Bit of a ripoff if you ask me.  I'm glad tomorrow is March. 

Saving Myself Another 10 Bucks

“Dwayne Johnson’s Best Movie” isn’t up against very stiff competition

 I don't know who that is.  Perhaps you should refer to him as "The Rock."  

Wait, what?

Missed the joke...cool.  

So anyway, a new film came out last week called "Snitch."  In it, apparently, The Rock goes to Hogwarts and joins the house Quidditch team.  I'm not 100% sure about this because I can't be bothered to look up a plot summary.  

Not long ago, I saw a commercial for this film on TV.  If there's one thing that's more subjective and biased than movie reviews, it's commercials featuring quotes of movie reviews.  No matter how big a pile of crap a movie is, people who make commercials can find at least one positive sentence in some obscure review somewhere and use that in a commercial to make the movie seem less crappy than everyone knows it really is.  I'm actually guilty of this myself, having pored over movie reviews to compile a list of reasons to get my friends to watch One Of The Worst Movies Ever.  Many of my friends no longer talk to me.  

So this recent commercial calls "Snitch," and I'm quoting, "Dwayne Johnson's best movie."  This is all well and good out of context, but when you look at some of the garbage Dwayne Johnson has been involved in, this endorsement loses a lot of steam.  We're now comparing this movie to such cinematic triumphs as "Walking Tall," "Doom," and, of course, "Tooth Fairy."  This dossier doesn't quite put our boy Rock into the realm of Nicolas Cage when it comes to picking atrocious movies to star in, but it's not exactly a quality resume to send to movie studios looking for the Next Big Thing. 

I Really Was In The Audience

Don’t you just hate it when important plot points of your favorite TV shows are spoiled by internet bowling videos?

Oh yeah, that's happens to me like, all the...wait, what?

Okay, so the show in question isn't exactly one of my "favorite" shows, but it's one I'm poring through now using the subscription based video service we'll call "Internet Flickershows."

 

Yes, that was everyone's problem with the original premise. 

So, I'm willing to concede that not many people reading this are avid bowling watchers.  That's okay.  Pro bowling used to be a pretty big deal, such as back in 1996, when the Pro Bowling Tour would have their tournaments' finals on TV and hosted in sold-out arenas.  Occasionally, the home-town hero would make the finals and bowl a 300 On National TV in the first game.  I know for a fact it happened...I was there.  It's true.  

Fortunately for us all, the folks at Nerdist have come up with All-Star Celebrity Bowling, in which a team of Nerdist folks, led by Son-Of-Pro-Bowler-Billy-Hardwick, Chris Hardwick, invites a team of various celebrities and challenges them to a game of bowling.  Hilarity often ensues. 

Well, not long ago, they did an episode featuring the cast of "The Walking Dead," a TV show dealing with fallout of the zombie apocalypse.  Well, not long ago, I had started watching this show and had made it part of the way through the first season when I came across that particular episode of the bowling show.  Without going into too many details, since I don't want to spoil the second season of the show for anyone out there, somewhere around the 5th frame of the game, one of the bowlers makes a reference to a very critical plot point of Season 2 of the zombie show.  This is basically the moment the entire first half of the second season leads up to.  Well, I brushed it off at the time because I didn't know what it meant.  Well, just a couple episodes in, all the pieces started coming together, and I knew exactly what was going to happen later on because of some stupid bowling video.  Curse you, Bowling!!!

Our Cops Is On!

My home town made it on SportsCenter!

I suppose that's better than the time they were on America's Most Wanted.  Also, the Geraldo thing wasn't great publicity, either.  

So, Erie Pennsylvania isn't exactly a mecca of sports.  Sure, there are minor league teams for most of the major sports, there's a racetrack nearby, and bowling used to be a big deal, but in terms of major professional sporting events happening, you're in the wrong town.  

ESPN's sports highlight and analysis show, "SportsCenter," tends to focus on the major leagues and highest level of college sports.  As such, minor league teams and DIII colleges don't usually see a lot of play coming out of Bristol.  This changes occasionally when a truly remarkable play happens, somebody managed to record a video of it, and the editing gurus at ESPN get ahold of it.  It's somewhat rare, but it happens.  

Towards the end of an episode of SportsCenter, they show a segment called "Top Ten" in which they show you, not surprisingly, what they believe to be the ten best plays of the day's events.  Well, yesterday, one of the ten best plays in sports happened in sunny Erie, PA.  During the basketball game between local colleges Mercyhurst and Gannon, one of the Mercyhurst players made a Pretty Impressive Dunk through traffic and basically right over some poor schmuck's head.  By all accounts, the rest of the game was a total disgrace, with the final score being 44-36.  That's not important, though...since that dunk was one of the ten sporting highlights of the day.  

True story:  When I was in high school, Mercyhurst college actually hired me to be in their pep band for basketball games.  During one game, the ref came over to the band and threatened to call a technical foul on us.  Had something to do with a gong and one of the opponent's players shooting free throws.

Don't Get Me Started On Locutus

The US Navy’s new commercial, “Creed,” sounds a lot like a recruiting video for the Borg

Nerd!  

What?  Making Star Trek references makes me a nerd?

Generally speaking, yes. 

Very well then.  But that doesn't mean I'm wrong!  

So, by this point, everyone should be familiar with the Borg.  They are a race of aliens implanted with cybernetics in the Star Trek universe, first discovered somewhere in the 24th century.  Q was responsible for that, but that's beside the point entirely.  

You talk about these things as if they already happened, and it's not for another 300 years or so.

That's the beauty of science fiction.  Anyway, the race functions entirely as a single collective mind, with every Borg member mentally linked with every other...and there's a queen involved somehow, but whatever.  When they speak, they do so as a collective, referring to themselves as "We" at all times, and do so in a poly-tonal voice which basically is made up of every Borg voice at once.  It Sounds A Lot Like This.  

Imagine my surprise when I turn on my TV not long ago to catch the final few seconds of a Commercial For The US Navy.  The sound came on just as the script got to the part shown at the 27-second mark of that video which says, "We are...America's Navy" in a poly-tonal voice which basically is made up of every Navy voice at once.  Since there was a gap after the "We are" part, the thought never even crossed my mind that I wasn't listening to something that wasn't a Borg-Centric Star Trek episode.  

Eventually, I had to come to that realization because...as you are well aware...resistance is futile.    

One Of Us...One Of Us...

Pedometers have no way of counting all the steps you take searching your room for your pedometer 

Well, clearly the most obvious solution is to actually wear the thing.  That way, it won't get lost in your room.  

We'll go ahead and call that "Plan A."  

So not long ago, many of my friends started getting pedometers, since most of us are volleyball players with at least a passing interest in physical fitness.  That said, many of my friends are also pretty nerdy, and some mere pedometer wouldn't do, oh heavens no.  The device of choice is the Fitbit, which is a bit more like a pedometer on crack.  This little device not only keeps track of the number of steps you take and when you take them, but it also is able to measure elevation change, distance traveled, estimates calories burned, tracks your active hours, and can even function as a sleep monitor.  It also syncs with your computer to provide fun, colorful, and maybe even informative graphs.  Exciting!  

Since I was told growing up that I should always succumb to peer pressure, I got one of these doohickeys, and it's been a faithful companion ever since.  I'm not sold on the thing.  Especially come summer time and I'll be spending some quality time with my bike...I have no idea how well this thing will be able to keep track of my activity.  I firmly believe that it will not handle that well and will grossly underestimate the activity level of cycling.  We'll all find out together. 

In order to find this sort of information out will take two things.  One of which is SCIENCE!  The other, of course, is making sure I manage to not lose the thing between now and biking season.  This has already proven to be a bit of a challenge on at least one occasion that I'm willing to tell you about now. 

I Still Like 222-2222

It must be very difficult to give your phone number to people if it starts with 867

Here's your Fun Fact for the day.  The 867 area code covers virtually all of Northern Canada, including the entirety of three territories: Yukon, Northwest, and Nunavut.  Presumably, there are 867 exchanges in many many other area codes with 7-digit numbers.

So everybody knows that Jenny's number is 867-5309.  Tommy Tutone made sure we were aware of that back in 1982, so we've got that covered.  Nobody actually knows who Jenny is, but that's not germane to the story.  The song, as would be expected, caused many people to start randomly calling the number in various area codes, because that's apparently an intelligent thing to do.  This has caused problems with people whose private residence had that number, and has also been used for financial gain by businesses who take advantage of increased call volumes of having a popular phone number.  

But what of all the other innocent people whose phone number merely begins with "867"?  Surely any time they're asked for their phone number, they have to provide it at least twice.  The first time, right after they finish the "867" part, the recipient breaks out in song, overrunning the person's actual number with "5309" before realizing that they did not actually collect the required information and are forced to ask for it again.  I would imagine after going through this process a number of times, people have started substituting their own numbers into the music of the song and have simply resorted to singing the entire thing.  I, personally, would be fascinated by somebody singing "867-9624" whether or not that person's name was Jenny. 

I'd Like To Get A Sample Of Your Brain Tissue

Am I the only one who doesn’t believe that the “meteor” in Russia had nothing to do with aliens? 

It does seem awfully suspicious that on the same day we were expecting an asteroid to come close to earth that a second, previously unknown "meteor" would enter the atmosphere causing chaos.  Why didn't the government tell us about this meteor, instead, causing widespread panic about the asteroid that came nowhere close?  

For those unawares, last Friday, there was an amazing phenomenon in Eastern Russia, where a giant fireball appeared in the sky, followed by a literally earth-shaking sound.  Watch One Of Many Videos Here!  Fortunately for all of us, this occurred in the land of dash-cams, where police corruption and insurance fraud run so rampant that nearly every car on the road is recording video at all times, so we have dozens of videos of this happening.  I believe this is unfortunate for the Government, of course. 

Nobody has come out and told us the true story of what happened, and what's really in that giant ball of smoke and fire in the Russian sky.  Why haven't they come clean?  

Are they trying to hide the fact that it was a visiting delegation from an extraterrestrial planet, and are calling it a "meteor" just to divert attention?  If it is an alien space ship, were aliens from the same planet also responsible for the eerily similar event in Tunguska, Russia in 1908?  Nobody is being very forthcoming with answers to these important questions, and it's up to us to ask why.  

Just Call The FBI Or Something

Perhaps Billy Mack should get some help looking for Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue.  He’s doing a pretty miserable job finding them on is own

Well, you know he ain't gonna let those two escape justice.  What are you so concerned about?

Seriously?  Two alleged robbers who at the very least shot a man (it's implied that they killed the guy, but I can't say for sure) are at large, and you're asking me what I'm concerned about?

They're also fictional.  Don't suppose that entered the thought process at all here?   

That's beside the point entirely.  

So today's Sametime Status over-analyzes the lyrics to the 1976 hit song "Take The Money And Run" by the Steve Miller Band.  We're introduced to two delinquents who shoot a guy while in the process of stealing his valuables.  They then go on the run from the law, pursued by Detective Billy Mack.  Why we're introduced to Billy Mack is a complete and total mystery, because he actually accomplishes nothing in the song.  The only reason he's around is so that we're aware that at least somebody is looking for the two outlaws.  

Here's the problem, other than the fact that everybody's name in this song starts with a B.  Billy Mack is awful at his job.  He can't seem to locate Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue.  We're told at the end of the song that they remain on the run, some 36 years later.  When Bobbie Sue ran away from Billy Joe earlier in the song, it took him less than one day to find her, and we're supposed to believe that a supposedly competent police officer can't pinpoint their location in over 30 years?  He's clearly a terrible detective.  

Here's the other problem...this song has the worst guitar solo ever.  Why is this thing still popular?  Oy. 

I Can't Believe I'm Ranting About Politics Again

Today, I can say with renewed confidence that the State of the Sametime Status is strong!

This is the part where you expect us to all stand up and cheer wildly, right?  

Ideally, yes.

Not going to happen.

Had to try anyway.  So last night was the big State of the Union Address.  Did you watch it?

Of course not.  

Well I broke with tradition and watched some of it!  It was thrilling.  Well, maybe not quite thrilling, per se...more like....uhmm...what's the other one....tedious.  Now, let's be clear.  When I say I watched some of the speech, I think I had it on for maybe a minute and a half while the hockey game was showing a commercial.  This was enough time for the President to be interrupted by boisterous applause from half of the assembled audience three times while the other side sat around with disapproving looks on their faces.  Seriously, they must practice that, because nobody can actually be THAT opposed to what somebody else has to say that consistently.

Of course, that's merely the nature of politics these days.  The elected official from the other political party, despite believing in policies that are only minutely different from yours on a grand political scale, is your mortal enemy whose goal is the total destruction of the country.  This leads to priceless moments of childish behavior from elected leaders like one side of the room cheering wildly which crickets emanate from the other.  Did anybody watch John Boehner during the speech?  That dude was fantastic!  The only way he could have maintained that face for the entirely of the speech is if he had a gallon jug of pure lemon juice positioned just under the desk and was sipping through a straw every time the camera wasn't on him. 

So what do we get?  We get approximately 250 people who are ecstatic at everything the President said and 250 people acting like the President is a big meany and are taking their ball and going home.  This is exactly what I wanted when I paid my taxes. 

I've Been Asked Not To Talk About That One Hockey Game

In the interest of political correctness, I think we should call it “Gravitationally Challenged Tuesday” instead

Personally, I prefer "Horizontally Gifted Tuesday," but the thought remains the same.  

Or you can just go with "Tuesday of Significant Mass," which might be slightly confusing given the oft-forgot religious nature of the day.  

Anyway, today is Mardi Gras, also known as "Fat Tuesday."  We have a little fun at the expense of political correctness here because you're not supposed to say the word "Fat" anymore because it makes people feel bad about themselves.  Wusses.  

Calling them wusses is okay, though?

Sure.  If the wusses don't like it, they don't have to read.  

Anyway, so today is a day to celebrate the day before the start of lent by eating stuff and doing unsavory things for plastic beads.  

So here's a fun story.  I once wore a necklace of colored plastic beads (for an entirely unrelated event), and by the end of the event, the color from the beads had worn off and stained the shirt I was wearing.  This would have been more okay had I been wearing a shirt I hadn't rented as part of a tuxedo.  So here I am trying to wash purple out of the collar of a rented shirt so I didn't have to explain that the stain came from entirely fake Mardi Gras beads.  I have no idea what that has to do with anything today, but it's the only family-friendly story pretty much anybody can tell about Mardi Gras beads, so there you have it.    

Taking Back The Vatican!

Vote Jeremy for Pope!  

Jeremy's off in his own little conclave for the day.  This should be interesting.  

So the big news of the day is that Pope Benedict XVI has decided to resign from the papacy at the end of the month, mere days after I got used to saying "Pope Benedict" instead of "Pope John Paul." While not an unprecedented event, the last time a Pope resigned was 598 years ago. 

This leaves the world with a hole in its spiritual center, which can only be filled by one person...a new Pope.  The standard convention for selecting the leader of the Catholic Church involves locked doors, secret ballots, smoke signals, and Dan Brown books.  Since this event will only happen a handful of times in my lifetime, I may as well throw my hat into the ring.  Vote Jeremy for Pope!  

I'm a decent guy.  I'm baptized and went to Sunday School and everything.  Sure, I'm not an ordained Priest, Bishop, Archbishop, or Cardinal or anything, but those are mere titles which detract from the true essence of a person.  I'm also sure that I have a platform of ideas with which to improve the church, and they are entirely different from the other guy's ideas.  His ideas are going to lead to the ruination of the faith!  

You don't even know who else will even be considered, let alone what their contributions to the church have been.  

Doesn't stop people in any other election around here.   

Your Worst Source For News!

Welcome to Snowpocalypse 2013!

Well, folks.  Today is the big day!  This huge winter storm is about to arrive in the Greater Jeremy Area and dump who knows how much snow on our hero.  In an unprecedented special event, keep checking back here for live updates on Snowpocalypse 2013 throughout the day.  Jeremy will come back at random intervals and start posting an amusing mixture of information and nonsense as Mother Nature has her way with the east coast. 

8:15AM:  Yes!  I've never done this live-blagging thing before, and I'll probably never do it again, but that's okay.  It's now shortly after 8AM and all is well.  The Boss told everyone to work from home today, so that's exactly what I'm doing.  As of right now, it's cloudy and menacing outside, but nothing falling from the sky yet.  Not much of an update now, I'll grant...but it's better than saying I'm already buried in snow.  Come back later for more updates!

9:25AM:  First Flakes.

11:15 AM:  Snow's coming down a little more steadily now, but no accumulation as of yet.  The grass is starting to change color, though, so the first snow to stick on the driveway can't be far behind.  Also, guests on the Jerry Springer Show now apparently get little plastic cups of water to refresh themselves after a fight.  Nice touch. 

12:30PM:  Driveway's covered.  Lunch was yummy (Roast Beef and Wasabi wrap).  Might be taking a work field trip to France at some point soonish. 

2:00PM:  Snow's coming down, and it's almost up to the tops of the grass. No sign of all the wind they were talking about, but the weather map says I'm still a bit on the outer edge of one of the storms...so maybe it's coming later.  The road is really starting to look like crap, and there's been no sign of a snow plow.  Pretty glad I have nowhere to go. 

3:00PM:  Well, judging by the extremely sensitive scientific instrument that is the railing on my deck, I'd say we've reached the 1-inch mark for snow.  Thrilling.  Since it's still light outside, here's your visual aide for the day:

Still no plowing, as you can tell.  My driveway is in the bottom of that picture somewhere.

4:48PM:  Snowplow!

6:30PM:  Well, it's now dark outside, so I can't really see exactly how badly it's snowing, but I can say with confidence that it is, in fact, still snowing.  No wind, but snow...and pretty heavy snowman snow at that.  I think I'm going to make a snowman on my deck tomorrow.  That will be a thing to do.  While developing this plan, I measured, and we just crested the 4" mark on my patio table.

10:30PM:  Here's your final update for the day, since I'm not going to check any more between now and bedtime.  We're officially at 8 inches and counting here in the Greater Jeremy Area.  If you're really nice, maybe I'll pop by tomorrow morning to give a final reading before I start to dig out from this junk.  Goodnight, everybody!  

2/9/13 10:15AM:  The storm has come and gone from the Greater Jeremy Area, leaving behind 14 inches of snow, and not much else.  I just got back inside from spending some quality time with the snowblower, and it's time for some hot chocolate and a shower.  Maybe not in that order.  

Watch It Rain

I’m calling it!  Schools around here are going to be closed tomorrow due to snow

Good job, Jeremy.  Everyone else is calling it, too.  You're not special. 

So as you may or may not be aware, it's winter here in the Greater Jeremy Area.  That occasionally means that it's going to snow, and depending on the amount and timing of that snow, it can cause issues.  Well, tomorrow's snow is expected to cause issues.  I've seen numbers ranging from 2 - 16 inches of snow over the course of the storm.  2 inches would be acceptable...16 would suck right out loud.  I'm hoping for something on the lower side of that estimate, but the line between 6-12" and 12-24" keeps creeping closer and closer this direction, so I'm not optimistic.  

That said, the mere thought of snow closes most of the schools around here.  They're a bunch of wusses.  In my high school days, a foot of snow didn't even result in a 2-hour delay.  The school board just laughed at us and said, "Get up, suckers...time to go to class!"  I'm not sure how I feel about all these schools getting snow day after snow day for amounts of snow that wouldn't even have caused an eyelash to blink back then.  I'm sure there's some jealousy because I never got any snow days when I was in school...just two "Cold" days when the high temperature was somewhere in the 10-below range.  There's also a sense of relief that the school buses won't be out on the roads where they can get in accidents and give lawyers something to do.  

So, folks...that's it for today.  I'll be battening down the hatches after work today in anticipation of a little extra crap to shovel tomorrow.  It'll be fun! 

Sit! Stay! Good Boy!

“Collar Stay” is an entirely ironic name.  They never stay in the collar when I’m doing the laundry

Maybe they just hep your Collar Stay in place when you're wearing your shirt.  It's not that complicated, Jeremy.

Well, that jut makes too much sense for it to make a good subject for a comedy rant.  

If you're like me, you have shirts.  Sometimes, these shirts have collars.  Sometimes, those collars have little plastic tab thingies in them in order to keep the collar from rolling or folding up and looking stupid.  I learned not all that long ago that there is a technical name for these little tab thingies...and that name is "Collar Stay."  In fact, if you're all fancy and stuff, you can get collar stays Made Of Metal, which serves no useful purpose whatsoever.  

Here's the problem with collar stays.  83% of the time I'm made aware of them, it's because I'm fishing the stupid things out of the bottom of my washing machine.  I don't know if you're supposed to remember to take them out of your shirts before you toss them in the laundry or not, but I never think about that, so they go right in the machine every time.  So, what's left is an entire wardrobe of shirts where roughly half of them have both collar stays, some of them have a mismatched set when I realized one was missing and replaced it with one I had laying around, and a small pile of collar stays laying around on my dresser that are really really clean.  

That's usually where they stay.

It Was Super

Congratulations, M+M’s, for winning the 2013 Super Bowl!

Uhm...sorry to burst your bubble there, Jeremy...but they weren't playing.  

Quite the contrary!  M+M's were playing the part of the game that mattered the most...the commercials!  Every year, the hype for the big game is only equaled by the hype for the commercials that will be shown during the game.  They're supposed to be really good, because there are a metric crapload of people watching, and the advertisers paid over $4 million for a 30-second commercial spot.  When I pay 4 million bucks for something, it better be good.

Yeah, because you do THAT all the time...

Well, this year, the commercials for the most part, stunk.  There were a lot of commercials for beer that I don't want and cars that I don't want.  There was also a mildly disturbing commercial for web hosting that I don't need.  Doritos had a commercial like they always do, and it was actually pretty decent.  But, the best commercial by far for the evening was the spot for M+Ms which featured the anthropomorphic red M+M playing a piano and singing a cover of Meatloaf's "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)."  It was good.  

Other than that, I lost every last one of my bets, so I didn't win money, free pizza, or bragging rights...so there that is.  A good time was had by all...with the possible exceptions of the electric company and the losing team. 

I Don't Have A Paw Paw Patch, Either

Somebody may now explain to me why there is a Clementine on my deck

Oh, your darling?  You should let her in before she's lost and gone forever.  

Or perhaps, I'm referring to the delightful little orange piece of fruit.  That's a little more likely than old-timey folk songs.  

Anyway, we've had a fair bit of snow here in the Greater Jeremy Area, and I really just never bother to shovel it from the deck in back of my house.  There's really no need...I don't plan on being back there until grilling season starts up again.  Turns out, Mother Nature tends to take care of that stuff for me now and again, as she did this past week with an Al Gore-ish heat wave that lasted like a day and a half.  So, all the snow melted from my deck, revealing right outside my back door...a single clementine.  

I don't really know how it got there.  I'm entirely certain I didn't put it there to ward off evil spirits or anything, since I've never heard of any old wives' tales regarding the spiritual properties of citrus.  I don't remember accidentally kicking one out the back door when I had it open, because I haven't had it open all that many times.  In fact, I can think of one...when I was changing the battery in my little weather transmitter.  During that time, granted, I didn't check the floor for clementines, but I like to think I would have noticed kicking one.  

Neighborhood punks usually don't pull pranks on my house, but canonically, neighborhood punk-type pranks generally involve eggs or toilet paper, not produce.  

The neighbor's cat is an occasional visitor to my deck, but I've never seen a cat carrying clementines around as hunting trophies.  I would think they make for pretty lousy sport anyway, though apparently golf balls are amazing fun.  

I'm really out of ideas as to why there would be a clementine on my deck.  Maybe I should get rid of it.