Seems Like I Wrote This Last Year...

Happy Holidays from Jeremy’s Sametime Status!  


Same to you, Jeremy.  Here's to tossing 2016 unceremoniously out onto its stupid face and moving on to 2017!  


So, it's that time of year again.  It's time for egg nog (if only I weren't allergic to eggs), Christmas trees (if only I weren't allergic to tree pollen), family (if only I weren't allergic to my parents' cat), friends...


...if only you had friends...


It's more or less officially the Holiday Season.  Sure, we've had Christmas music playing in stores since mid-October (if only I were making that up), but we're now less than a week away from Christmas, so we can actually say, without the guilt, that it's time.  Sure, not everybody celebrates Christmas, but there are plenty of holidays around this time of year that you can and should take part in.  Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, St. Stephen's Day, Boxing Day, the Winter Solstice, my dad's birthday, Rizal Day...it's a whole week and a half full of joyous times.  That's why I say "Happy Holidays."  I'll say "Merry Christmas" on Christmas, but until then, all of the holidays get some space on the marquee. 

Take however many of these holidays you want, and enjoy them.  Hopefully, they're all amazing.   We'll pick up this whole Sametime Status and Blagging nonsense in 2017. 


Jeremy Is In The Office will be Out Of The Office starting tomorrow, and returning on Tuesday, January 3rd with a bright, beautiful 2017 full of comedic possibility.  Join us then for more of...well...whatever this crap is.  

And again, from all of us here at Jeremy Is In The Office, Happy Holidays!  

You Can Be Jealous Now

If there is a greater symbol of quality than a top hat and monocle, I don’t know what it is

It's certainly not the fake blue ribbon that says "Quality" drawn onto the coffee container in your office.  That stuff is borderline swill.  

So, when it comes to wealth and leisure, few things paint a clearer picture than a top hat and monocle.  You see somebody wearing a top hat and monocle, you know for sure that person is nothing but a high roller.  So, when it comes to mascots and spokespeople, if you want to convey an image of quality and success, you put your spokesperson is a top hat and monocle.  

I mean, come on...even Batman's enemy The Penguin has a top hat and monocle...and he was a gentleman of leisure before turning to his life of crime.  

Unrelated to any of this, some time ago, and for reasons that really don't need exploring right now, some coworkers began to refer to me as "Lord Jefferey" and it's become something of a running gag.  I designed the official mascot of the "Lord Jefferey" character, which is a stick figure head with an oversized handlebar mustache, a top hat, and a monocle.  I draw this character on conference room white boards once in a while just to see how long they remain.  

Not long ago, I was in a restaurant which was once featured on a television show, so you know it's high quality.  Rather than stocking the restaurant with regular low-class ketchup, they featured a high-priced alternative that's like organic and healthy or somethingorother.  How did I know it was high-priced and fancy?  Of course, the mascot had A Top Hat And Monocle.  (If you mouseover the logo, he wiggles his mustache.  It's hilarious)  This mascot bears a remarkable resemblance (entirely coincidentally, for all you lawyers reading) to Lord Jefferey. 

I immediately told my coworkers about this find, and hearty laughter abounded.  

Unfortunately, this restaurant was outside of the Greater Jeremy Area, so I didn't have particularly high hopes of seeing Sir Kensington again.  I figured I could only make do with pictures from the internets.  

Until recently, when I was in a local grocery store which often features pricier higher-quality merchandise than you typically find in a standard supermarket.  On a lark, I go down the condiment aisle, and looking back at me is Sir Kensington.  Hooray!  I now have a bottle of fancy non-GMO, non-high fructose corn syrup, low-sugar, all-natural ketchup.  I haven't tried it yet, so I have no idea if it's any good. 

Christmas Creeper: Minecraft

Christmas Creep: When the timer on your tree’s lights can’t keep time properly 

Christmas Creep...when you find a guy dressed as Santa Claus sitting in the bushes in front of your house.  

So back to my point...

I've stated before that I'm an engineer, and engineering is little more than the art and science of laziness.  I am therefore lazy.  As such, when it's tome for Christmas, I like to maintain an air of festivity, but at a minimum of effort on my part.  I have gone to certain lengths to make sure this happens.  

I, like many people around this time of year, have lights outside my house.  Because of the house's design and the landscaping, it is remarkably difficult to reach the eaves on my house without a large extension ladder and preferably, somebody to hold said ladder when I'm climbing on it.  Because of this level of nonsense, I do not hang lights from my eaves.  I have four spotlights that shine red light onto the front of my house, lighting the whole place up for the holidays.  Christmas...done.  

Moreso than that, I have this entire setup hooked up to a photo sensor with a timer.  I don't even have to turn the lights on...they turn themselves on when it gets dark and turn themselves off 7 hours later.  Laziness...done.  

Inside, I have candle lights in each of my front-facing windows.  Photo sensors on all of them.  They turn on when it's dark, turn off when it's light, and I don't even have to think about it.  Candles...done.  

And I have my tree.  400 cool white wide angle LEDs, 100 multi-colored wide angle LEDs, 20 color-changing LEDs in the star topper, and I'm ready to go all Corey Hart, wearing Sunglasses At Night while my tree is lit up like the surface of a small star.  Do I put any effort into this on a daily basis?  If you've read any of my drivel to this point, you will know that the answer is a hearty and full-throated "of course not!"  All of that stuff is on a timer which turns on at 5:00PM and turns off at 11:30PM.  Tree...done.  

That is...until the tree turns on at 5:45...and 6:15...and 7:00....wait, what?  

All of my hard work getting to this nirvana of holiday laziness undone by the fact that my tree's timer can no longer tell time.  

I need a new timer. 

Not So Worthless Now, Huh, Jeremy?

Whew…Good thing there are three auto parts stores within 4 miles of each other

Hang on just a second here, Jeremy.  I believe you mentioned Not All That Long Ago that this was not such a great idea.  

Well, as it turns out, I was entirely wrong.  When you take certain things into account.  

So, not long ago, I came to the realization that both of the fog lamps on my car had burned out.  My car is nearly 6 years old and has all of its original fog and head lamps, so I figure they don't owe me anything, so I'll just set about replacing them.  This is where things take a turn.  

If you walk into an auto parts store like the one 3 miles from my house, you will quickly be greeted by a reasonably substantial wall of light bulbs, suitable for any car and price range.  There are basic bulbs, krypton, xenon, LED, Long Life, High Output...just lots and lots of options in lots and lots of shapes.  I decide that if I'm going to replace bulbs for my car, I'm going to replace them with good ones, so I look to the upper racks.  I use the book to find out what number fog lamps my car takes.   For what it's worth, my car needs "H7" fog lamps.   None of the three best options for light bulbs have an "H7" on the racks.  There's a Basic "H7," but I've already made up my mind that I don't want that, and I know that there is another auto parts store 2 miles to the north, so I walk out of the store which, for strictly Blag purposes, we'll call "Car Area".  

I drive 2 miles north to the next auto parts store near the mall.  Strangely enough, it's another "Car Area" franchise.  Feeling slightly less optimistic, I walk in looking for H7 in a high-quality fog lamp.  Hooray!  There it is!  In both of the top two options.  The price is pretty reasonable, so I decide to go for it.  

The problem is, when you buy bulbs of a higher quality than the lesser ones, they advertise and even celebrate the fact that they aren't the same color as regular bulbs.  Unless I want my car to look stupid, having different color fog lamps and headlights, I need to replace the headlight bulbs, too.  Not too big a deal...the headlights are also 6 years old and probably running on borrowed time themselves.  So, back to the book I go to find the matching headlights to the fog lamps that I picked out.  H8!  

Guess what head lights "Car Area" doesn't carry.  

I know that there is another auto parts store 2 miles to the north, so I walk out of "Car Area" and head on up to "Progressforward Auto Parts."   I scour the rack looking for all of the bulbs I need.  Right out in front, there's the H8 in the exact brand and model that I was looking for some 5 minutes ago.  I grab the H8 headlights off the rack and seek out the matching H7 fog lamps.  

Guess what fog lamps "Progressforward Auto Parts" doesn't carry.  

So, I buy the H8s, and head back south to the northernmost "Car Area" to pick up the H7s.  Four stops in three auto parts stores later, I finally have a matched set of quality headlights and fog lamps.  This type of nonsense really should be easily avoided by having any of the auto parts stores I visited actually carry the full array of light bulbs, but this is apparently too much to ask for.  At least all of the stores are ridiculously close to each other.