Mel Brooks Was So Right

Wait….what’s this about Star Wars?  

So for those of you who are caught unawares, a new trailer for the upcoming Star Wars, Episode VII was released yesterday to a collective nerd overload on the internets.  Jeremy hasn't seen it.  

Very true.  I have not watched the trailer for "The Force Awakens."  Not so much because I don't like Star Wars...I do.  I think the original trilogy are three of the best and most accessible examples of science fiction films ever.  And the prequels...well...yeah...any film series that can bat .500 is doing something right.  

So, we finally got the long-awaited trailer for Episode VII, and millions of internet viewers cried out at once.  I'm sure it was wonderful and answers all of the lingering questions from "Return of the Jedi."  Like, will the Jedi race survive, what becomes of Darth Vader and the Emperor, will Anakin Skywalker find his humanity again, will they ever finish building that second Death Star, are Ewoks good for anything?  

Yeah, none of those questions remained after "Jedi."  It pretty well sewed up everything about the series.

Uhmm...okay.  Then why is it we need more Star Wars movies?

Money.  

Oh yes.  Millions of people lined up around the block to watch the prequels and even spent a couple years pretending they were good movies, while dumping untold millions of dollars into the franchise.  There's no reason to pass that up again.  

Millions of Frozen Peas Suddenly Cried Out In Terror, And Were Suddenly Silenced

So wait…you DON’T have an ice cube maker shaped like the Death Star?  

Technically, neither do you.  The Death Star was a sphere.  

I didn't want to get my Sametime Status caught up in defining an ice cube versus an ice ball.  Most people reading it are perfectly okay with the concept of an ice cube, regardless of its shape.  In fact, the ice maker in my fridge specifies cubed ice versus crushed ice, and nothing that comes out of it is cube shaped.  Like most home automated ice makers, my fridge makes little half-moon shaped ice nuggets that I've never heard referred to as anything but ice cubes.  

That's all beside the point.  

I am now the proud owner of an ice cube maker which makes large balls of ice in the shape of the iconic Death Star from Star Wars.  If you don't know what the Death Star is, I don't know how much I can help you, but crawl out of whatever hole you've been living in for the last 30 years or so and Click This Link.  Now that I have my Death Star ice ball maker, I can't imagine how I've managed this long without it.  It is truly everything I had hoped and dreamed when I ordered it.  

Which brings me to why I ordered it.  

This thing is ridiculous.  I can't imagine any reason (save one) why I would have bought it, yet it is in my freezer right now.  I bought it, of course, because I was 4 dollars short of unlocking the Free Shipping achievement on a popular e-commerce website which, for strictly Blag purposes, we'll call Nile.com.  By buying my new Death Star ice ball maker, I saved more in shipping charges than the ice ball maker cost, so Nile.com effectively paid me $2 to own it...so...victory!  Jeremy officially stuck it to The Man! 

This Could Go On All Day

30 years later, and they’re still using X-Wings?


The Star Wars universe has caused Jeremy some more emotional distress, particularly due to their engineering.  This time, a Picture Of The New X-Wing was released recently, and there hasn't been a lot of progress.  


So, by this point, everybody knows that there is going to be a new Star Wars trilogy coming out starting next year.  Based on the astonishing quality of the Episode 1-3 prequels, the Episode 7-9 trilogy is most likely going to suck.  It's okay to admit that, Star Wars fans.  They'll still draw lines around the block for the first showings and make millions upon millions of dollars.  

There are rumors about the plot for the upcoming films, but we don't need to bother with any of that.  The main point to know is that the sequels will be set approximately 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi, with everyone who was left alive at the end of that film reprising their roles.  There will also be lots of CGI aliens and at least 83 minutes worth of alien-planet establishing shots before any action takes place on screen.  

I have certainly Railed On The Star Wars Universe in the past for their poor engineering, particularly by the Empire.  Now, we have a glimpse into that world 30 fewer years in the past (remember, it was long ago in a galaxy far far away), and they're still using the same old beat-up X-Wings they were during the rebellion?  This seems lame.  Let's put things into perspective.

I submit that it's safe to say that the Rebel-Empire war would be considered a "War To End All Wars," making it analogous to Earth's World War I.  The next great war for Terrans would then be World War 2, which started 21 years after the first ended.  It's close enough for this comparison.  Comparing only aircraft, between WWI and WWII, we went from cloth biplanes like the Sopwith Camel and the Red Baron's Albatros variations (don't even say, "but the Red Baron flew a Fokker Dr1 Triplane"...do your homework) all the way to the heavy bombers like the B29 and early jet fighters such as the Lockheed P80.  In 33% more time than this quantum leap in flight took us, the Rebels who took over control of the galaxy went from X-Wings all the way to...uhmmm....X-Wings.  

This is unacceptable.  Especially when you consider just how amazingly bad the X-Wings were.  They were tiny little fighters which required a physical robot to do repairs on the fly.  They carried 4 rockets which couldn't even be targeted remotely, relying on "The Force" to hit a 2 meter exhaust port.  (Nobody's been able to explain to my satisfaction why they need to expand the wings into the X configuration during dogfights in space...wind resistance and maneuverability in space can not possibly be a reason.)  Sure, they're quick and nimble little things, but they couldn't even take a single shot from a Tie Fighter without blowing the heck up.  Hopefully, some under-the-hood advancements have been made in the 30 years since the Emperor was tossed down the reactor shaft, because if there's been no advancement in their engineering in the 30 years since the war, it's going to be pretty tough times for the former rebels in the next three movies...or maybe that's the point. 

May The Force Be With You While You Live Long And Prosper

My idea for Star Wars - Episode IX: End scene, roll credits, fade in to Spock waking up in his quarters and saying, “Woah, I just had the worst dream…”  Fade to black 

I would almost agree that this is a good idea, in a nerd trolling sort of way, but I'm afraid that there would be riots.  There are probably already going to angry emails sent your direction.

I should be a screenwriter.  My book and movie ideas would sell millions, if only for the pure hatred of the concepts.  A while back, I came up with my idea for the end of the Harry Potter series in which the whole show comes to a very abrupt end with Voldemort killing Harry and taking over the magical world.  Imagine that...nearly 7 books and untold billions of dollars invested in a series, movies that had already been cast and had directors hired before the final book ever came out...and it all ends with on incredibly short prank ending.  People had already devoted their lives to the series, only to have the rug pulled out from under them in one glorious swoop.  There would have been massive panic in the streets outside of my house, but I'd be living someplace far away in my incredibly giant mansion, laughing all the way to the bank.  

J.J. Abrams is in a rather unique position to do something just as bold and shocking.  We all know that geekdom is highly segregated between the Star Wars fans and the Star Trek fans.  Both are multi billion dollar franchises, both function entirely on their own merits, but ask any nerd to compare the two, and their answer will be one sided and more emotional than you're expecting (Heaven help you if you search the internet for which ship would win a battle between the Enterprise and the Millennium Falcon).  Star Trek recently saw its universe rebooted with the 2009 film (with one sequel released and at least one more to come), and recent buzz surrounds the upcoming Star Wars sequel trilogy, episodes 7, 8, and 9, due to start being dumped on us in 2015.  Quite honestly, nobody needs more of either series.  Right around the time Lone Star married Princess Vespa, Captain Kirk met God, and Jar Jar Binks showed up, we all knew we'd reached the end of what could reasonably be expected.  Yet, here we are, with more movies planned, and more money about to be shoveled towards Hollywood for producing roughly nothing new.  Not all that long ago, when it was announced that J.J. Abrams would be directing Star Wars, Episode VII, hot on the heels of his directing the new Star Trek movies, I thought the world was going to implode.  How could the universe expect these two series to coexist under one director?  

Well, since there is plenty of speculation about the plots and characters of the upcoming Star Wars sequels, I thought I'd put in my two cents (Considerably more after I'm granted writing credit and royalties).  I think it would be Genius if the Star Wars series would end as a nightmare in the mind of Spock.  It's not such a bad thing, since it's not as if the Star Wars series has any integrity left anyway...not after Episodes 1-3.  They've already rendered the entire series unwatchable, so why not go out with a controversy for the ages?  

I chose Spock for one very important reason...recognizability.  Since the reboot, the image of Captain Kirk has changed enough going from William Shatner to Chris Pine that he might not be immediately recognized.  But Zach Quinto looks enough like Leonard Nimoy that, especially with the iconic pointy Vulcan ears, the character of Spock will be unmistakable for anyone who has ever watched Science Fiction.  It just makes sense.  

It would be as if millions of nerdy voices all cried out at once, and they'd never be silenced again.  J.J. Abrams and I can then laugh all the way to the bank.  

He's weird

Who is Luke and why did he never heat his water properly?


It's a little selfish that he gets the mildly warm water all to himself. Maybe it was just named after him.


So not long ago, it was laundry night in the Jeremy household. One of my articles of laundry said to wash by hand in Lukewarm water. Knowing full well what this meant, I started to amuse myself thinking about who Luke was and what he was doing when he invented his own temperature of water.


I think he was one of the Dukes of Hazzard.


Nono...different Luke. Pretty sure this one was Darth Vader's son.


The guy from 90210?


That's him! Anyway...that's all I have in the way of stupid jokes today. Happy Thursday!

Welcome to the world of tomorrow!

One more day until the 21st Century!


Ooo, that's very exciting. I can't wait until...wait. The 21st century started like 8 1/2 years ago. 9 1/2 if you don't believe in math.


Well, yes...but the 21st century is said to be the Information Age, and today is the day that I get to stop being the roadkill on the Information Superhighway.


Good...because nobody uses the expression "Information Superhighway" anymore. If you were more up on the Tubez, you would know that.


Today, my friends...I join the ranks of those who have a Smartphone!


Wow. So you're finally getting that Droid You Asked For At Christmas?


Yes, and no. I'm getting a Droid X. It's newer, better, faster, and smarter than those silly old-fashioned Droids.


So that wasn't the Droid you were looking for. You moved along.


Thank you for that.


Sorry. Got caught up in the moment.


I got it because it's been time to upgrade my phone for a while, the Bluetooth never worked on the old one, and I Recently Saved Some Money On My Cable Bill.

I also chose the Droid X because it doesn't come with a personal lecture from Steve Jobs on how to properly hold the phone so that I can actually get a signal. I find this to be a pretty big selling point.

They deserved it

If The Empire simply had better engineers, they would have put down that silly rebellion.


Well, canonically speaking, it was a long time ago....hindsight is 20/20.


While that is very true, I'm not simply referring to the whole "using magic as a strategy" gameplan they put into effect overall. I'm talking about all the stuff they built to accomplish their goals. It sucked...all of it! If they had better engineering, this sort of thing doesn't happen. Let's examine:

In "A New Hope" we have a Deathstar that can be completely destroyed by a single missile fired into an unguarded exhaust port. This is nonsense. Also, Darth Vader's Uber-Tie Fighter goes spinning out of control into the darkest reaches of space with a single laser blast. Surely, somebody could have come up with a backup guidance system in the event that a FIGHTER was shot at. If I'm not mistaken, Vader also had to take his hand off the flight controls in order to aim his blaster. That's just poor engineering, too.

Moving on to The Empire Strikes Back, the Empirical Walker things are making their way across Hoth. These things are huge, stomping out fighter planes with ease, and armoured to resist laser blasts...unless of course something trips them with a piece of string. Then they fall down, get shot once and blow the heck up. No engineer worth his or her salt would design a tank that walks on feet with a center of gravity that high. For one thing, the movement alone is very inefficient, even if you have to walk across frozen tundra, then there's the stability aspect that would be much improved by having shorter legs.

Finally, "Return of the Muppets Jedi" introduces us to an entire fleet of garbage vehicles. First of all, The Empire still hasn't learned that Tie Fighters suck, so those make a reappearance. At least somebody realized that Death Stars shouldn't have an open exhaust port, but didn't think through that they can be fully powered with nothing to defend the main reactor...so once again, a couple laser blasts, and the whole thing goes up in flames. Super Star Destroyers are massive behemoths of battle ships (granted, not compared to a Death Star, but you get the idea) with nearly unlimited firepower, and the ability to carry hundreds upon hundreds of Fighters with them. The Bridge from which the thing is driven is propped high above the armoured exterior, relying on a single shield dome to protect it. Once the shield is taken out by a single tiny rebel X-Wing, one little crashing fighter is enough to take out the bridge and send the entire monstrosity crashing into the nearest planet or Death Star. Seriously? Last but not least are the new mini-walker things the Empire breaks out to protect the shield generator on Endor. These again are armoured to withstand laser blasts...but once again are perched much higher than they need to be on skinny little legs which cause the thing to trip when stepping on a log. Oh yeah...and once the thing does fall over sideways, it explodes. If it wasn't good enough for the Ford Pinto, it shouldn't be good enough for The Empire.

In conclusion:

Tie Fighters: Suck
Death Stars: Suck
Walkers: Suck
Super Star Destroyers: Suck
Little Mini-Walker Things: Suck

The common thread here is Empire Engineering. It's pretty plain to see that they needed better design of their stuff if they had actually hoped to win the war with the Rebels...regardless of The Force.

No really...they're not

This is not the Sametime Status you are looking for


Sorry...my mistake. I thought it was. You can go about your business. Move along.


So today's Sametime Status is a whimsical homage to the Jedi mind trick from Star Wars.

Hopefully, you don't need much more explanation than that.


Nope. I think we're good, thanks.


In that case, see you tomorrow!

I never get these...

License Plate: DARTHTSM. You get to tell me what it means!


You're pretty bad at license plates.


I prefer to think that some people are bad at making them. If it's supposed to be some inside joke that nobody will get but will amuse the heck out of you, it's probably not a good license plate. They need to be at least somewhat intuitive so that people driving behind you can read the plate and understand it rather than reading it 15 times as it gets closer, and their brain gets all wrapped up in trying to figure it out instead of realizing that they should be stopping. Half a second later, you're picking their bumper up out of your back seat. Good for you...you win the battle of wits, but you lose at life.


Is that what happened with our boy Darth here?


Thankfully, no. I noticed this one safely walking through a parking lot...but my brain immediately shut down and started to ponder what this was. Everybody knows about Darth's...and I like to think I'm at least reasonably familiar with Star Wars (I don't base my life on the teachings of Yoda or own a single Star Wars Lego Action Figure), and I know of Darth Maul and Darth Vader...but that's about it.

Darth Tism makes no sense...but then I thought maybe the guy likes to play darts, and he has Dart Hism...or maybe he thinks a Darthism is a wise quote from Darth Vader...but he didn't really say much that was interesting. Poor James Earl Jones just didn't have much to work with..."I find your lack of faith disturbing," and "I am your father," are pretty much it for famous Darth Quotes...hardly a tome worthy of it's own Noun, and there's an extra T to boot. So I leave it to you, The Most Intelligent Readership In The World...let me know what it means so I can get some sleep.


You may gain an hour of sleep Saturday night, but you turn it right back in Sunday night when you feel like going to bed at 9PM.

Copyright laws suck

001100010010011110100001101101110011


That's a lot of ones and zeros. Taken to speaking in binary, have you?


Not as such. Today's Sametime Status is the "Time Code" from the Futurama movie, "Bender's Big Score." There's actually a pattern to it, which doesn't quite come off in straight numerical form, but if you look at it at displayed in the movie, it's a little more easily seen:


If you look at the first three columns, and read them left to right, then top to bottom, they translate to the numbers 1-6. The 4th through 6th columns are simply a mirror image of the first three. This, my friends, is the secret to Time Travel.


So much for the Flux Capacitor.


So at this point, I was going to share with all of you the Trinity War song from the movie, since it's one of the best parts. I was also going to point out the not-so-coincidental use of a Tie Fighter by the Chanukah Zombie. That's only funny because that character's voice is supplied by none other than Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill.

However, that video was removed from youtube yesterday, so it won't do you a whole lot of good. There is, however, an Audio-only showing of it up on Youtube now.
Here's a Link To That If You're Interested. It's not quite the same, and I promise it's not a Rick Roll, so go ahead and enjoy it. Happy Friday, everybody!

monday Status

WwOoOlLf


This is just sheer laziness on your part.


Yes and no. I do still have a handful of these silly little letter/number puzzles that I can use as Statuses, and today seemed as good a day as any to run one.


So what's it mean?


Well that's up to you to figure out, isn't it?


Alright...so what happens if and when I do?


You'll win a copy of the "Jeremy Is In The Office" Home Game! You'll be able to print today's Status on a square piece of paper (Or a standard 8-1/2x11" and trim to form) and create your very own X-Wing fighter!


Good luck everyone!

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....