Dammit, Jeremy!

Attention children in the store who are named "Jeremy." Please behave so your parents don’t yell at me. Thank you.


You'd think the days of parents yelling at you in the store would be over by now.


Yes and no. I'm really good at getting my parents to yell at me...though now it's totally a conscious effort and more for everyone's enjoyment than anything else. It usually involves either juggling kiwis in the produce section, or The Skeleton Joke.

Anyway...as happens more often than you might thing, some other parent named their son "Jeremy" and that Jeremy is a jerk.


Yeah...okay...THAT Jeremy.


So not long ago at the grocery store, some jerk named Jeremy was running around the store like a crazy person. This caused his father to yell "Jeremy!" and I instinctively turned around. This is nonsense. This little jerk is giving us Jeremy's a bad reputation.


Like you need help...


So I implore all you youngsters named Jeremy. Just simmer down a bit when you're in the store. I'm sick of getting yelled at for your mischief. If I'm going to get yelled at, it's going to be for my own mischief.

Yeah...they're getting a beatdown

some play for the money and some for the fame, but he simply plays for the love of the game, putting the puck in the net makes heroes for the fan, but putting guys in the hospital makes him the main man


This sounds like a wholesome Sametime Status to be sharing with your younger loyal readers.


Astute readers will recognize this as a poem about hockey.

More astute readers will recognize this as being appropriate for opening night of the 2009-2010 NHL season.

The most astute readers...and actually the ones who scare me a little, will recognize this as an excerpt from the poem "The Hockey Goon" by Michael Kenneth Panton.

Evil Jeremy will likely ask some silly question feigning ignorance about hockey. Don't let him fool you...he's actually a closet fan.

Or is it?

Is this really a rhetorical question?


If I answer "Yes" then it wasn't a rhetorical question. It's a circular rhetorical fallacy of some sort.


But you haven't answered yes...you just responded with rhetoric of your own. It's really quite an exciting way to spend Rhetorical Friday!


You know what would be exciting? If Rhetorical Friday would go on vacation or something.


Funny you should mention that...because I'm going on vacation! Woohoo!


Woohoo!


So I'll be out until Labor Day. In the meantime, I suggest you take the week to peruse some of the other Status Message Blogs out there or just enjoy the holiday. I'll be back on September 8th with more of the Sametimey goodness you know and love.


See you when you come back!

Jeremy Is In The Office will be out of the office starting tomorrow and returning on Tuesday, 9/8. In an emergency, please contact Evil Jeremy's Sametime Status.

Bienvenue!

I'm back, baby!


So, I've returned from France to much fanfare and a ridiculously massive shambles at work, so today's Blag will have to be cut a little on the short side.


It is definitely nice to be back from vacation. I spent the last 2 weeks over at Evil Jeremy's Blog, and I have to admit, it's a little weird over there.


How so?


Well, it's all dark and spooky. Also, he's got this bizarre obsession with Legos and I don't believe he even owns a toaster.


Sorry you had to deal with that. It's good to have you back.

Evil Rhetorical Friday

It's the return of the new and improved and I'm smooth, ain't nobody does it better, here's the proof


Wait...this sounds familiar.


Well, it should! It's the lyrics to "The Best" by 2 Skinnee J's!


It's also the exact same Status Message that Evil Jeremy Ran on Wednesday. What happened to originality?


Well, I spoke (actually...typed, but that's beside the point) with Evil Jeremy about this, and we agreed that I could, and even should, re-run the exact same message today...albeit for very different reasons.

He was pleased that there would be more Sametime Statuses around singing the praises of 2 Skinnee J's, which he does Fairly Often.

From my perspective, he mentioned in his post that the proof described in the remainder of the lyrics not shown in the Status Message was both "elegant and simple." This prompted me to do my own investigation, and I set out to learn the proof for myself. As it turns out, one of the J's announces that he is the best by saying "ain't nobody does it better" and offers the proof in the chorus. The proof is as follows:

• Ain't no body, does it better,
  ain't no body, does it better,
  than J!
  
  Ain't no body, does it better,
  ain't no body, does it better,
  than J!
  

Simple, yes. Elegant, perhaps. More importantly, the proof is a rhetorical fallacy because it is a circular argument. The proof of "Ain't nobody does it better" is "Ain't nobody does it better than J!" The proof is offering no more details than the original statement. I realized this and decided that it would be a perfect Sametime Status for Rhetorical Friday. So enjoy!


Rhetorical Friday actually being interesting and informative. This is actually very exciting. Speaking of exciting, you have some exciting news.


Indeed I do. Starting tonight, I will be out of the country for two weeks touring France and Switzerland, and delivering at least 2 keynote lectures on Bird Flu to the European community. As such, The Blag You Know And Love will be pretty much stationary until June. As much as I'd like to apologize for the inconvenience, I really REALLY need the vacation right now, and I'm sure that The Most Intelligent Readership In The World will be able to make do. I'll see you all when I come back to The States.


Jeremy Is In The Office will be Out of the Office starting tomorrow and will return on June 2nd with a new Summer Season of Great Sametime Statuses for you to enjoy.

Take evasive action! SERPENTINE!!!

The Toaster shot at me!


It was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm just surprised the Toaster did it first.


You all remember The Famed Toaster of Hades, right? Well, it struck again yesterday in a vicious and unwarranted attack on me. Apparently sick of being the brunt of blag comments about evil toasters, though not necessarily all things Evil, the Toaster declared war yesterday, firing off the first of what is sure to be many volleys in a long and bloody feud.


You should fight back with a butter knife...Darwin says that's an effective attack.


You may or may not know that I'm fond of "Everything" Bagels that have seeds and onions and salts and other junk on top. Well, yesterday, I put my bagel in The Toaster in a seemingly normal fashion...and as my bagel descended into the glowing bowels, one of the sesame seeds exploded and fired out at me at great speed. The thing almost stuck to my shirt!


The horror. Another foot and a half up and you might have had something stuck in your eye for a couple seconds.


Exactly! This brazen act can not stand without retribution! I think tomorrow I'm going to break one of the rules just to spite The Toaster. I'm going to toast a buttered bagel!! HAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!!! Victory will be mine!!!!!

I'm the one who's out of this world

It's Password Day! My email password is no longer mcdr33my


Ooo, that's a good one.


So today's message is, as loyal readers know, the next in a series of messages designed around having to change all my passwords at work on a ridiculously frequent basis. For the record, none of the "Password Day" passwords listed in the blag have ever been used as my email password...nor will they be.


Glad you clarified. So what else is good?


Good is such a strong word. After last week's Conversation with Evil Jeremy regarding old "TGIF" Sitcoms, I felt inspired to watch some of what I thought was the height of amusement years ago. What I found was horrifying...including the following video, which many of you will recognize as the music video a lovestruck ALF made for Lynn Tanner. For some reason, I remember it being better than this...I was mistaken. Enjoy!

Up where?

What is Evil anyway? Is there reason to the rhyme? Without Evil there could be no Good, so it must be Good to be Evil sometime.


This can't possibly be the ending to the long-standing Evil Jeremy debate, can it?


I sincerely doubt it. He'll still call me Evil Jeremy, even though he's actually the Evil one. It's not like one of us has a magnetic goatee to easily distinguish evil like Flexo here:



Well, technically, wasn't Bender the evil one, and Flexo ended up being good? Bob Barker even said so.


That's true, but Bender impersonated the Evil Flexo by adding the facial hair magnet.


But Flexo still wasn't evil.


Not the point. Regardless, today's Sametime Status is of course from the South Park movie. Arguably the best song in the show being Satan lamenting his lack of ability to live in the regular world. Let's have a look:

An open letter to Mr. Lombardi

Once this season is over, can we please stop pretending that Brian Willsie has skills?


The true meaning of this hockey-related post is sure to be lost on Some Readers.


In that case....Story time!


I'll make popcorn.


You may remember a while back, I vowed not to go to bed during a hockey game again, no matter how late it was. While I've actually done a completely miserable job of keeping to that promise, last night's game was too good to pass up. The Kings were playing the Ducks in Anaheim, and rookie goaltenders Jonas Hiller and Erik Ersberg were putting on an absolute clinic, stopping some ludicrous number of shots between them, keeping the score 1-1 until very late in the third period. In the last 15 seconds of the game, Hiller makes an amazing stop on Kings winger Alex Frolov's clear cut breakaway to force overtime. Five minutes of OT solves nothing, and the teams went to a shootout.


Shootouts are usually pretty interesting and all....but how does Willsie fit into all this?


So, we go to the 6th round of the shootout, and the Kings still have players the likes of Lubomir Visnovsky, Mical Handzus, John Zeiler available to shoot. Anaheim scores on their 6th round shot, so the game is on the line as Coach Marc Crawford decides to send Brian "Skills" Willsie out to take LA's chance. You can Watch Video Here of Willsie's pathetic attempt at a deke before he tosses the puck directly into the goaltender, ending the game in a 2-1 Kings loss.


I suppose you could do better?


Not a chance. But I'm not getting paid a million dollars to be a Career -53 NHL player.

This season is lost for the Kings, and they're playing for the Stamkos Sweepstakes at this point, so I really don't mind them pulling a tank job like this. My concern now is for the future. A future with Mr. Stamkos and without Willsie. Let's work together to make this happen!

Not talking about playoffs.

188 Feet. 7 Bounces. One embarrassed Goalie.


And a partridge in a pear tree...


Today's Status comes to you courtesy of Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Vesa Toskala. More specifically, the New York Islanders broadcasters' description of a goal allowed by Toskala in the first period of last night's game. This goal, in a nutshell, describes why the Maple Leafs aren't talking about playoffs.



For those of you kids out there who think you can play NHL hockey better than this...send your resume to:

Toronto Maple Leafs
C/O Cliff Fletcher
40 Bay Street
Toronto, ON M5J-2N8


This public service brought to you by Jeremy's Sametime Status.


So anyway....wrapping up a couple loose ends:


First the contest! The winner of Number Sequence Week, and the recipient of an official set of "Jeremy Is In The Office" Props (suitable for collecting), with a total of 3 correct answers, is Evil Jeremy! Congratulations! A special thanks to all who participated, and good luck in the next contest.


And the winner of yesterday's poll, and the recipient of my 12-5 upset pick in Joe's NCAA Squeekball Pool is: Villanova! Congratulations Wildcats (Yes, I had to look up their mascot), and good luck in the Round of 32!

At the Deadline!

Jeremy’s Sametime Status has been traded to the Wings for a 2008 5th Round Draft Choice.


Wow....the Wings really got hosed.


So, for Those Of You who were caught unawares, yesterday was the NHL's trading deadline, and there was a giant flurry of activity...some of which may have even been useful.


Seriously...a 5th Rounder? That could have been valuable...


The Islanders managed to unload useless piece of garbage, Chris Simon onto the Wild, and the Kings actually turned J.S. Aubin into a 7th Round Draft pick...which is at least two steps forward.


The Wings didn't have like an autographed jersey or something?


Probably the most surprising news is the Maple Leafs somehow found a taker for Wade "Skillz" Belak, trading him to Florida for a 5th Round pick.


Maybe a used puck bag...if the holes had been sewn up...


The tragedy of all of this is that the Kings are still saddled with Rob Blake, and didn't manage to turn his carriage into a 1st round draft pumpkin to be named later. I guess they're stuck with only having 8 picks in the first 3 rounds of this year's draft, with a very legitimate shot at winning the #1 pick, also known as the "Stamkos Sweepstakes."


So how's come the Blag's been so late these days?


Well, two reasons. Yesterday, I had an early meeting, so I couldn't post until afterwards. Today, there was a water main break in front of my place, so I couldn't get ready for work. Unlike Some People, I can't go to work without having a shower in the morning.


Exactly why it's a fine waste of a 5th rounder...

Theme Week; Part The First

Jeremy’s Sametime Status Proudly Presents: Letter Sequence Week!
Identify the following subset of the alphabet: CDILMVX


I don't quite get it....how do you play?


It's quite easy today, and will get much harder by the end of the week (as is custom in Quiz-related Theme Weeks). In this case, you simply tell me what letters are being used, although they may be out of the normal order you would see them in. For this week, all of the letters will be in alphabetical order...since we are dealing with subsets here. Here's an example:

The subset: BCMNVXZ would be....


...the letters in the bottom row of a QWERTY keyboard?


Exactly. Now you've got it, so good luck the rest of the week.


Alright...so is there anything new on the web today?


Well, I'm not sure when it started, but this was brought to my attention the other day. Very handy invention no house should be without...particularly after The Evil Jeremy's Gun Week.

Ladies, Gentlemen, and people from Elmira, I present to you, The Back-Up

There's a chill in the air...

Give yourself a hug like the air is chilly. Put your hands on your face and slap yourself silly. Yeah, Schmëerskåhøvên!


So it was a little cold this weekend. Is it really that big a deal?


Yes and no. As you know, I'm not a cold weather person, despite living in the northeast my entire life. So the fact that it was in the 40s (4.5°C) when I woke up yesterday didn't exactly thrill me. The fact that they hadn't yet turned the heat on to my apartment didn't help. And now that it's cold, they DID turn the heat on to my office, so it's in the lower 80's inside. In the immortal words of Lewis Black, "It's not weather, it's Malaria."

Also, I really wanted to have a second Schmëerskåhøvên reference in the ol' Blag here. Makes the place a little homier.


That's enough torture for one day, don't you think?


Normally, I'd agree with you...but it's monday, so that means extra pain and suffering for everyone. I was made aware of This YouTube Video not all that long ago, and if I have to have seen and heard it, so do you. Enjoy!


You know you can just embed those into the Blag, right?


Who actually does that? Geeze....

Jeremy Is In The Office

I'd like to welcome all of you to Jeremy's Sametime Status.

First of all, yes, this is a direct ripoff of Jeremy's Status Message , but I'm okay with that. He explained to me that he gets money from his banner ads, and that was the most convincing arguement I heard to creating a blag.

First, some ground rules:

• The Status Message changes daily, but this blag will update when I darn well choose
• No, I'm not misspelling Blag
• All Sametime Statuses arecreated exclusively by me, unless otherwise notes. You are free to reprint them, as long as you add a dash, and the name of this blag. Example: "'If your fan is fast enough, whatever hits it will be evenly distributed.' - Jeremy's Sametime Status"
• Be on the lookout for "Theme Weeks"
• I may give prizes on occasion.

That's all for now. The rest, we'll figure out as we go along. Happy reading!

-Jeremy!