RIP LOL

Apparently, people don’t LOL anymore

This can't be true.  I hear people laughing all the time.  It's remarkably common.  Especially around people looking at your face.  BOOM!

Uhm...terrific.  Today's Sametime Status deals not so much with the actual action of laughing out loud (which is what LOL stands for in Internets-speak, for those of you who somehow are reading an online Blag without ever being exposed to the Internets before.  It does not, in fact stand for Lots Of Love)  Of course, comedian Demetri Martin pointed out at one point that most people don't actually LOL when they say LOL, and that LQTM would make for a more apt acronym.  LQTM standing for "Laughing Quietly To Myself."  

Anyway, it used to be quite common for people to say LOL in text-based conversations, be they over text messaging, Sametime conversations, Facebook personal messages, or some other instant messaging program.  However, nowadays, with the advent of Emojis and an overall maturation of pithy text-based chatting, it seems as if LOL has fallen out of favor.  And since we live in a society where this sort of thing happens, Facebook decided to pay somebody to do a study about how much cachet LOL still has. 

Turns out, not very much.  

According to Presumably Scientific Data published by Facebook, based on an entire week's worth of comments and messages, only 1.9% of people used "LOL" to denote laughter, favoring "haha," "hehe," or some form of emoji.  This is sad.  

It's mostly sad because Facebook is actively reading everybody's personal messages, but that's apparently beside the point. 

Jeremy Is Being Investigated In "Blaggate"

What would happen if a political scandal couldn’t be tied to water or a gate?

I don't think that will ever happen again.  Not in this age of media.  

You're probably right.  

So, today's Sametime Status deals with our fascination of naming every political "scandal" using the suffix "gate" or else making sure that "water" is in there somewhere.  The whole trend, of course, stems from the Watergate scandal of 1972.  Since then, pretty much every time some political party feels the need to disparage the other, they drum up a scandal, and the media grabs onto it and gives it a catchy name, usually with "gate" at the end.  It's riveting stuff.  

Here is a partial list of "-gate" scandals, for your edutainment:  Angolagate, Betsygate, Billygate, Bingogate, Bonusgate, Bridgegate, Brothelgate, Coingate, Coalgate, Corngate, Debategate, Fajitagate, Filegate, Garglegate, Gategate, Irangate, Iraqgate, Monicagate, Nkandlagate, Pardongate, Pastagate, Pastygate, Rinkagate, Squidgygate, Strippergate, Troopergate (Numbers 1-3), Weinergate (which works on multiple levels).

Some of those are funny, but the whole thing is a little sad.  I also can't imagine any controversy involving fajitas.  Everybody agrees they're delicious.  I can't be bothered to look up the story. 

Very fortunate, really, that the people involved in the Blackwater and Whitewater scandals already were called "Blackwater Security Consulting" and "Whitewater Development Corporation."  That made naming the scandals easy and form-fitting.  

But, we really should stop this.  We're not going to get more creative with developing our political scandals, in fact, it's only lamer now with stupid lawsuits flying in both directions and whatnot, so we may as well be a little more original with the names.  I don't think that's too much to ask. 

Buy More Foil

With all this talk of Ebola, people seem to have forgotten about the ever-present threat of Bird Flu

It is very important in times like this not to lose focus on what's really important.  In this case, remaining vigilant in the face of the truly deadly heath threat, Bird Flu.  

So, if there's one silver lining to come from all this talk of Ebola recently, it seems that we've stumbled upon another piece to another government conspiracy.  

So, everyone knows about Obama's Plastic Coffins.  They're a billion dollars worth of plastic boxes being stored in a government field in Georgia anticipating the outbreak of a chemical attack.  (You have to ignore the government's lies that the pictures have been around since the late 1990s, the coffin liners are simply being stored by the manufacturer in remarkably lower numbers than are reported on conservative blog sites, and the boxes aren't even owned by the government.)  While we all know what the true reason behind all of these coffins, it was never quite understood what chemical attack the government was planning.  

As it turns out, we may now know the answer.  

So, while people all over the world are contracting the deadly Ebola virus, so far, only two Americans have contracted the disease.  Mysteriously enough, the government already seemed to have some sort of "mystery vaccine" to cure these people.  So, obviously, the answer is that the government has been working for years to weaponize Ebola for use in a chemical attack on Americans.  They'd be able to vaccinate or cure the people they wanted to keep, and put the rest of us in Obama's plastic coffins.  It's the only logical explanation.  Wake up, sheeple, before it's too late! 

Also: Chemtrails!

So I guess it’s back to plastic bags and styrofoam plates for me


Coming down off our Earth Day high horse a little hard, aren't we? 


Well, I figure that if it's good enough for everybody else to pollute and litter the environment 364 days of the year, only to be reminded that we currently only have one planet to work with one day in the middle of April, then it's good enough for me! 

Sure, the Earth is important.  To paraphrase The Tick, it's where I keep all my stuff.  That said, generally speaking, I don't do a whole heck of a lot of good for the environment.  I drive at least 25 miles a day in an only mildly fuel-efficient car (about 26MPH city during the summer...less in winter when I have snow tires), I heat my home with fossil fuels, I use plastic bags on many occasions, the Adorably Tiny Cafeteria Thing In My Building uses plastic utensils, styrofoam plates, styrofoam coffee cups, and sells single-serving snacks in plastic bags.  (God save me, I can't understand why the little bag of Gummi Worms is in the "Healthy Snacks" display)  I fertilize my lawn and use a sprinkler when I plant grass seed.  And my mower runs on gasoline. 

But I don't completely suck. 

Yes, I do a better job than many people when it comes to sorting my trash for recycling.  My car is mildly fuel efficient...as in I don't drive a giant truck.  I turn lights off when I leave a room and don't leave the water running while I brush my teeth.  I have a programmable thermostat to keep my house cool when I'm not home, and I do try to consolidate my chores into a single driving outing whenever possible. 

So, Earth Day.  Yes, it's a thing.  We all think we're doing wonderful good for our planet by turning the lights off for an hour and reading by the glow of our smartphone screens.  Realistically, we don't care.  We're not going to stop driving.  We're not going to live in the cold (or hot in the summer...hello air conditioning!).  We're not going to magically stop producing garbage.  And we're not going to stop visiting places we eat because they use foam plates.  We're going to watch tv and hear about all the good we're doing by turning off the lights while everyone else believes the environment doesn't care what we do to it.  It's a little sad...because it's the only planet we get. 

How About It, Kellogg's? (Part II)

Companies should be required to post the Floating Coefficient of breakfast cereals on the box

Ah, yes.  The seldom-referenced Floating Coefficient.  Often symbolized by a lower-case Greek letter Eta, it represents the ratio of amount of a buoyant object above the liquid surface to below.  Very useful in nautical engineering, but applicable in culinary fields as well.  

Right you are.  So, we've all had this problem: You pour yourself a nice bowl of cereal, then you pour in some milk, causing all of the cereal to rise and promptly dump out all over the table.  Not only annoying in that you now have to clean up a mess, but you either lose cereal or have to eat it dry out of your hand.  Boo.

All of this nonsense could have been avoided if you knew in advance how much your cereal would float before you put the milk in.  You could then adjust the amount of cereal in the bowl to account for the additional milk space required.  As you know, it varies from cereal to cereal.  For example, "Life" cereal doesn't float at all, so you can fill your bowl right to the brim with cereal and add in milk with no danger of spillage, whereas Rice Krispies are mostly air, and float about as well as a beach ball.   

Using these examples, the math is actually quite easy.  "Life" cereal will remain entirely below the milk's surface, since it has a Floating Coefficient of 0.  Therefore, when filling your bowl, you have to leave Milk Space, (or Sm) of the volume of milk multiplied by the Floating Coefficient.  Since Eta is zero, milk space is equal to zero.  Boom.  Done!  Rice Krispies, on the other hand have a Floating Coefficient of 8.3, so whatever volume of milk you plan to add, you have to leave 83% of that space empty at the top of the bowl, or else you will spill cereal.  

Turns out not to matter in most cases, since you just fill the bowl regardless of cereal type and just make a mess, but I like to believe that with a little extra information, and the ability to make a better cereal choice, a lot of this can be avoided.  If you knew in advance that 60% of your cereal would float above the milk surface, you would leave a little extra room at the top.  But since the Floating Coefficient is left entirely hidden by the cereal manufacturers, spillage is all too common.  What is it these factories don't want you to know?  Do they want you to waste cereal?  Are they working in conjunction with dairy farmers to destroy breakfast?  Do I like asking conspiracy-theory type rhetorical questions?  Since the government isn't about to step in, I think it's up to the people to stand up.  Demand that your cereal's floating coefficient be displayed prominently on the box!  Your breakfast depends on it. 

Go Look. It's True

There is a vast conspiracy to get me to open my cereal boxes backwards

Uhm...backwards?  Or are you just opening them upside-down so you can get to the toy faster?  

So I don't eat cereal very often, but when I do, it comes from a box.  I didn't quite realize just how much engineering went into the packaging and design of the box until recently when I stumbled upon the answer to an age-old question I had often pondered.  I've always felt that I was doing something wrong when I go to pour myself some cereal and I'm invariably left looking at the back of the box instead of the front.  Was it mere coincidence that this happens?  I say no!  The cereal company designed the box specifically to be opened so that when pouring, the front side of the box faces away from the pourer so others can see what cereal is being eaten.  Fact!  

Incidentally, I have this same problem with a coffee mug of mine, which I whine about ALL THE TIME.  You can ask people....it's true.  

Anyway...here's how they do it.  

So roughly 80-90% of the population is right handed, and thus would tend to pour cereal into a bowl using their dominant right hand.  So, it stands to reason that when opening the inner bag of a box of cereal, you would pull open the left side.  You use your right hand to tip the box to the left, cereal comes out.  Simple.  So why wouldn't it be a 50% chance which face of the box is facing you when you open the left-hand side?  Because the top flap, which is glued shut, is ALWAYS part of the front face.  The flap attached to the back face is the part that has the little slot in it.  Always.  The only way to open the cereal box is to turn it so the front side is facing away from you and slide your finger between the top two flaps to release the glue.  Once this is accomplished, you're left with little choice but to open the side the cereal company wants you to open, thus showing off the front face of the cereal box to the world.  You've now paid several dollars for a portable billboard for the cereal company, and all you get out of it is a part of a balanced breakfast. 

Probably Not Vulcan

So I guess the government has to admit contact with extra-terrestrial life now

After years of discretion, there can no longer be any doubt about life on other planets.  It's a very exciting time to be alive.

So, as you probably saw on the news recently, the new microwave telescope designed and built by an international team of scientists started collecting data last week, and the first data revealed an unmistakably artificial pattern coming from a star 26 light years away.  This is the most definitive evidence ever that life exists on other planets, and in an impressively short time, too. 

So, for years there has been speculation that alien life has contacted earth, and even Landed In New Mexico, but the evidence has always been minimal, perhaps being kept quiet by the government.  That, of course, would be speculation and wild conspiracy theory.  But now we've finally come face to face with indisputable scientific evidence from an international consortium, so even if you were to believe the wild conspiracy theories about the government, it's pretty safe to assume that the secretive stance is about to end.  I hope you're just as excited as I am to watch the news coming in and wait for the greatest truly life-changing announcement of our generation. 

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.  

Why Would They Do This?

Scientists have created a new, more transmissible strain of Bird Flu.  I’m not making this up

 Wait, what?  They actually created exactly the virus we've been hoping to avoid?

It may not be the super-weapon form of H5N1 that we've all feared for so long, but it's at least one step closer.

As you all know, the saving grace of H5N1, and pretty much the only thing that's prevented the world-decimating pandemic has been the fact that transmission of the virus is at least fairly difficult.  The fact that Bird Flu has a ~60% mortality rate (58.5% to be more exact) hasn't changed.  But now, scientists studying Avian Influenza, and perhaps how to weaponize it (but I'll leave that to the conspiracy theorists), have succeeded in creating a new mutated strain of the virus that is as easily transmissible between mammals as your average run-of-the-mill seasonal influenza.

Simply put, THIS IS TERRIFYING NEWS!

The even more terrifying part of this story is just how easy it was to create this super virus.  A mere 5 mutations to the genetics of the virus is all that it takes to wipe out 60% of the planet.  The MOST terrifying part of this story is that all five of these mutations have already been seen in separate samples of Bird Flu.  THEY ALL ALREADY EXIST!  Once they find a way to exist together, it's all over.

I don't feel that I can stress enough that I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP.

Yakko Agrees With Me

As sad as it is to think about, one of these days, Elvis really is going to die


You mean all those Elvis impersonators in Las Vegas, right?


Tyler Durden once said, "On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero." Sure, he was a figment of the imagination of a fictional character, but you have to admit that he had a point.


Wow. Old-school intro. Most of your loyal readers won't recognize that call-back.


The point is that at some point, Elvis really is going to die. We may not know when that is, since he's been out of the public eye for so long, but it's going to happen. Kind of a sad and sobering thought for your Tuesday, but it's been raining here for the last 3 days, so I'm grumpy.

Also, I heard mention somewhere that today is the 34th anniversary of Elvis faking his own death in a Memphis motel room. He's gone on to release no fewer than 20 hit singles since, been mentioned countless times in cartoons and crackpot conspiracy theories, single-handedly resurrected the velvet industry, and is currently ranked second behind Jesus on the list of celebrities with the most commemorative dinner plates.


In case you're wondering, Jeremy's actually not making up the 20 "posthumous" hit singles. That's entirely accurate. It also leaves out the 79 compilation albums that have also been released featuring Elvis's songs.

Gozer was Sumerian, not Babylonian. Everyone knows this.

The Tunguska Blast actually happened, but not in 1909


Uhm...okay then. When was it? More specifically, what?


The Tunguska Blast, or "Event" was a huge explosion in Russia that took place June 30, 1908 in Siberia. More importantly, it was referred to in the 1984 classic "Ghostbusters" with Dan Aykroyd's character explaining to Rick Moranis's "Louis Tully" that he was part of the "biggest inter-dimensional cross rip since the Tunguska blast of 1909." At the time I watched the movie (and so on up until the time I watched the movie for about the 275th time), I had just assumed that this was some phony made-up para-psychological event to go along with the rest of the movie's fictional canon (I was sad to find that there really is no "Tobin's Spirit Guide" aside from the promotional one offered by the film's producers). As it turns out, I was mistaken. The Tunguska Blast was a very real event, but it happened a year earlier than the film would lead you to believe.

Here are some fun facts!

• The leading theory for the blast is that a meteorite or comet exploded about 5 miles above the earth's surface.
  
• Whatever type of fragment exploded was about 200 feet in diameter, traveling around 22,000 MPH.
  
• Because the explosion took place well above the earth's surface, no direct impact crater was left, leading to rampant speculation about the origin of the explosion.
  
• The blast energy was around 10-15 Megatons of TNT, or about 1000 times as powerful as "Little Boy," the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
  
• The explosion knocked over around 80 million trees over an area of nearly 900 square miles.
  
• The shock from an explosion like this would measure about 5.0 on the Richter Scale.
  
• Lake Cheko, a 400mx700m lake in Sibera is believed to have been created by a fragment of the meteoroid involved in the Tunguska Blast.
  

The fact that something like this can happen sounds like something out of a Bad Bruce Willis Movie, but apparently, it happens all the time. Meteoroids about 30 feet across create explosions in the upper atmosphere similar to the "Fat Man" nuclear bomb about once a year. Of course, those are significantly smaller than what we're talking about here, but it still seems a little scary.

Either way, the Tunguska Blast of 1908 was the largest air burst event of its type in recorded history. And due to it's incredible power and the secrecy of the Russian government for a long time after the event, it spawned a number of whimsical theories. Among those, a chunk of anti-matter falling from space annihilated when it came in contact with the atmosphere, a small black hole traveled through the earth, and an alien spacecraft exploded while trying to land on the earth.

The Tunguska Event has at times been labelled the "Russian Roswell" due to conspiracy theories regarding an alien landing. This is most likely what gave rise to its use in Ghostbusters, as the event could be seen as some form of inter-dimensional para-psychological happening, which made it appropriate for the film. They just really should have gotten the date right.

This is how they get you

Jeremy 1: "The Man" 0


Way to stick it to The Man, Jeremy! I trust you did something courageous and wholly memorable.


I fixed my weed whacker!


So much for trust.


We can go ahead and add "Small Engine Repair" to my vast and growing list of skillz. But this one feels a little more substantial. Here's why.

Most weed whackers that you buy at a large, faceless automatonic corporate home improvement store are pretty cheap. This is great for the consumer, but not so much for the manufacturer, since they don't make a whole lot of money selling them. So what they do is they make them basically disposable by using cheap components and having no features on them designed to make them useful over the long haul. The idea is that once they start to degrade, you either take it to a "certified" repair shop or just give up and buy a new one long before you should have needed to. I was nearly at this point not long ago.

Toward the end of last summer, and into this spring, to put it delicately, my string trimmer started running like hot garbage. It would stall out when it was supposed to idle, the motor didn't run very fast at full throttle, and I'd often have to wait 10 seconds or more for the string to spin up fast enough to actually cut through grass. This is pathetic, not to mention a little embarrassing, since people would undoubtedly see me standing out in the yard waiting for my trimmer to wind up. I tried all the usual stuff...I changed the fuel filter, put new gas in the thing, cleaned up the spark chamber and the carburetor, all to no avail. Since I have plans for the trimmer beyond just trimming (I also have attachments for edging and light tilling), I thought I would need to buy a new identical trimmer, until I learned through the magic of the Internets that there are two screws on the motor to adjust the carburetor's fuel mixture, and that simply turning these would solve all of my problems.

Of course, since the fine folks at the String Trimmer company don't want me to know this, or be able to do this myself, they use a specialized tamper-proof type of screw that you can't turn with a screwdriver, and also recess them inside an aluminum casing so you can't turn them with a pair of pliers or socket wrench. Jerks. Since they're tamper-proof screws, and I wanted to tamper with them, I had to buy a specialized tool online. Well, it arrived yesterday, and within 10 minutes, I had my trimmer working as good as new.

Take that, String Trimmer company! Some other guy gets $3 for a tool, and you get nothing, since I don't have to buy a new trimmer!

But they make so much sense

Isn't it about time for another of those half-baked schemes to lower gas prices?


Social networking certainly has its disadvantages.


Indeed. Right around the time that gas prices start getting into the $3.50/gallon range, the internets start erupting with various people forwarding me emails and posting crap on their Facebook pages inciting a form of passive protest against the high gas prices. They involve stunningly easy methods of boycotts in order to "bring the oil companies to their knees." Every last one of them includes that phrase, by the way. None of them involve any sort of change on the consumer's part, of course, and none of them...you know...work.

So, let's see...there's the "Boycott Gas Station X and only buy gas from Gas Station Y" which will in turn cause Station X to lose business and drop their prices to gain the customers back. This half-baked scheme seems to forget the fact that gasoline is a commodity and is the same no matter where you get it. So if everyone goes to Station Y, their supply will run out, and they'll just buy their gas from Station X.

There's the "Only buy $10 of gas at a time" bit wherein the gas stations will be left with a glut of gas and not need to purchase more, forcing supply to shoot up and prices to come down. It should seem obvious (but doesn't for some odd reason) that this will cause everyone to buy gas about 5x as often, increasing the number of cars at the gas station, leaving the demand exactly where it is.

You can always go with the ubiquitous "Let's petition the President to do something" approach with often involves some form of online petition that you click to sign. A minimum of effort, to be certain, but also a minimum of effect. The numbers don't change. The tax on gas will be the same amount whether it's $2 a gallon or $4. There's simply not a lot any president can do to influence gas prices.

There's also my personal favorite. The classic "Don't buy gas this Friday" which will cause a multi-million dollar profit loss for all of the oil companies and force them to lower prices. Again, stunningly easy, but also stunningly easy to see through. Most people tend to not buy gas every single day. Those who would normally buy gas on a given Friday don't have their gas needs go away...so even if they boycott on Friday, they'll still buy their gas on Saturday, along with the normal Saturday crowd. So while demand would go down on Friday, it would increase for Saturday, and we return to the norm within 24 hours.

I could go on a speech here about how hair-brained schemes like this never work and will never work, so stop spouting on about them in my email...but there's a problem. I haven't gotten any. I'm confused. People aren't smart enough to realize that these things are pointless, are they? Why has the deluge of this moronic crap stopped? Or am I just getting a little ahead of myself, and National Gas-Out Day 2011 is coming next week?

That's where I keep all my stuff

I like the world. Too bad it will end in another month


Uhm...end of the world again? I thought that was supposed to be last year...you know...at the start of WWIII.


Well, clearly that didn't happen, so we've all moved on to the next half-baked TEOTWAWKI theory. (That's "The End Of The World As We Know It" for those who aren't as versed)

Now, we're looking at May 21, 2011 as the date for the Rapture. So realistically, we have 5 months of torment after that, but it's probably best for you to get all of your affairs in order in the next month, just to be safe. Apparently, on October 21st, precisely 7000 years after the flood that made Noah the subject of a Bill Cosby comedy routine, God will destroy the world with fire. This is both good and bad. It's good to know when it's going to happen, so you can make arrangements, but it's pretty unfortunate to know that if you're still on the Earth after next month's Rapture, that you're doomed to be burned to death. I haven't gotten my Machine Of Death Prediction Card yet, but I'm working on it. I really should get it in the next couple weeks to see if I'm going to be Raptured or Burned. Those appear to be the two primary options right now.

So, to those of you who will be leaving us on May 21, have a safe journey, and for the rest of you heathens, enjoy your scorpions, and we'll see you in October!

He's more Sticker than Banana now

Is it just me, or do bananas have more stickers than they used to?


I thought we went over this. It's you. It's always just you.


I've noticed a recent trend of the over-stickering of bananas in grocery stores. This trend is based on buying bananas at pretty much one grocery store over a period of time, and recently thinking, "Hey...there are more stickers than there used to be." It's scientific.

Anyway, I've come up with the only reasonable explanation for this, and decided to both share it with you and Call Bunk on it all at the same time. Lucky you.

So, the reason that the banana companies are putting more stickers on bananas is so that kids will eat more bananas. Kids love playing with the stickers on bananas. It's a thing to do when you're a kid and you haven't discovered the Internets and started your own Sametime Status Message Blag yet. Anyway...banana companies realize this and in order to get parents who insist on buying healthy snack foods for their kids to buy more bananas, put more stickers on the bananas. The more bananas these parents buy, the more stickers the kids get, and the more money the banana company gets. The data is out there somewhere, and finding it has been left as an exercise for the reader.

Here's the problem. Kids don't necessarily have to eat the banana to get the sticker. Once the bunch of bananas is in the house, all of the stickers (At least one per banana, usually more) are readily available. The kid who takes only the sticker off the banana he's eating is much akin to the kid who eats the entire box of cereal and has the prize dump out into the bowl...which is much akin to the Easter Bunny. The instant that box is opened, kids will rifle through the cereal box until he unearths the prize, and if half the cereal pours out onto the floor, so be it.

So, in conclusion, it makes more fiscal sense to lower the number of stickers on bananas to increase the profit margin on the number of bananas sold, and spend the extra money on a lobbyist for congress to declare a National Banana Lovers Day instead. OH WAIT...

Seriously...nobody

Nobody believes that the deaths of entire flocks of birds were caused by "trauma"


Many of you are probably aware of the mass bird deaths that have occurred this week in Arkansas and Louisiana. If not, feel free to check out the Mass Media Report of the events. But, be prepared to draw your own conclusions.


Early reports are coming up with some pretty half-baked theories about how thousands of birds died spontaneously and all within a small time and location. One of my favorites claims that New Year's fireworks exploding nearby disoriented the birds, causing them all to panic and fly into each other en masse. A laughable claim for those of us who know better.

Clearly, there can only be two possible explanations for this phenomenon. The first, of course, is aliens. A large alien spacecraft came to earth in these locations, knocking birds out of the way, since it moved more quickly than they could anticipate.

The second, and more likely conclusion that most of you have already come to, is Bird Flu. This pandemic outbreak could easily cause the deaths of thousands of birds in a remarkably short amount of time.

The only question that remains is, with only two logical explanations, why is the truth being covered up, and who stands to gain from the public not being made aware of the actual events. I wish I had answers for you, my friends...but all I can do today is wait with you until the truth is revealed.

Have You Seen Me?

Beware the Wrath of Murray


Ladies and Gentlemen. A dastardly plot was enacted over this past weekend, resulting in the kidnapping of Jeremy's volleyball mascot, Murray. Any help you can provide to ensure the safe return of Murray to his rightful place would be much appreciated.


Murray is a symbol of all that is right and pure in the Volleyball world, and to think that somebody would kidnap him to obtain some measure of personal gratification is simply unfathomable. Murray is a mascot not just for myself, but for all who rubbed his head for luck.

Sure, some took his presence as a harbinger of their impending doom, (He has a pretty impressive winning percentage, after all) but any victory obtained through these types of unwholesome methods is the emptiest of victories. So, if you've seen Murray, or have any information about his whereabouts, please contact Jeremy Is In The Office as soon as possible.

Attached, please find a recent photo of Murray in his natural habitat. Photo has been borrowed from a store on the Interwebz.


The loss of Murray is certainly what caused me to not win the volleyball tournament as well as mildly injure my partner. The Wrath of Murray is the volleyball-related suffering that will be dispensed upon the parties responsible for his kidnapping until such time as he is returned. Murray is named after a Demonic Talking Skull, after all. Fair warning.

DUUUUUUKE!!!!

Today, I join the ranks of those who hate Duke.


Finally started watching the tournament, did you?


Not as such. Here's the deal:

Since March is over, and the tournament is referred to as "March Madness" (That's probably copyrighted or something, so I'm going to get sued, but whatever) and it's now April, I figured the thing was over, and I should check on the status of my bracket in the pool. To my complete shock and amazement, I found myself in third place...which is especially intriguing because the team I picked to win the national championship lost in the second round because they're a bunch of jerks.

Anyway...since the top 3 finishers in the pool get the prizes, I was quite pleased with myself...until, to my abject horror, I realized there was one game left. Naturally, one of the people farther down in the pool was the ONLY person in the entire game who picked Duke to win the whole show...one thing led to another and because Duke won the championship, that guy took over first in the pool, and bumped me down to fourth. No prize for Jeremy. :(


Awwe...too bad. Better luck next year.


I think what I'm going to do next year is just fill out a bracket in advance based solely on the seedings and fill in the teams later. It will be almost as useful as actually reading the names.

Future Victim of Identity Theft

The cashier at the home improvement store now has a 50/50 chance of guessing my address


This concerns you?


It does. In this day and age, anything people learn about you can be dangerous.


So maybe you shouldn't post your daily exploits on a webpage with millions of loyal readers.


Fair enough. I'll alter some of the details to protect the innocent.

It was time to get a new mailbox. I discovered last week while picking my mailbox off the ground that only about 4" of the post were underground...and the end of it was kinda rotted, too. Overall, it was a pretty sad state of affairs, so it was time to go. This involves buying a new mailbox and post at the local "Highs" franchise of home improvement warehouses. While I was at it, I purchased a new post, some cement to encase the thing in, and some new numbers so the postal worker could be sure they were delivering my stuff to the right address.


They'll still give you your neighbour's mail quite often.


Entirely beside the point. It occurred to me while checking out that the cashier now knows potentially what my address is. For today's explanation, I'll use my old address so you can't hunt me down. Let's say I purchased a "1" and a "9" along with a new mailbox. You'll know with certainty that my address is either 19 or 91. There really are no other options. Now, if you can just determine what street I live on, you now know exactly where I live and which phone line to tap if you plan on stalking me. I unwillingly invited this upon myself, and now I'm a little scared. I mean...this cashier has access to cement and power tools and as much plastic sheeting as he'll need. It's more than a little unnerving.

Theme Week, Part *Wink-Wink*

Jeremy’s Sametime Status Proudly Presents: Conspiracy Theory Week! Donald Rumsfeld profited from Bird Flu at the expense of innocent taxpayers


Don Rumsfeld owns somewhere between 5 and 25 Million dollars worth of stock in a company called Gilead Sciences, Inc., a company for which he once served as chairman. Why is this important, you might ask? Because this company owns the patent on a drug commonly known as "Tamiflu" which has been touted to decrease the severity of an influenza infection and has been claimed as a potential cure for Bird Flu.


So during the last few years, whenever news of a Bird Flu outbreak happened, people rushed to the store to pick up scores of Tamiflu as a first defense against the upcoming global pandemic.


And every time one of those doses flew off the shelf, a Bush cronie pocketed more money. Who was responsible for most of the (albeit justified) fear and panic and making sure that everybody knew about every single outbreak? That's right...the government, headed by Mr's Bush and Rumsfeld.


It's quite plain to see that the government doesn't really have a vested interest in the inevitable Bird Flu pandemic because everyone will die. However, making sure that there is a panicked shopping frenzy because of an out-of-proportion news report about a small potential outbreak really is in their best interests. Or at least in the best interests of their wallets.


That's far from the only Bird Flu conspiracy out there, too.


Oh yeah...The government of China had long-ago suspended research on a cure for Avian Influenza. We can only assume it's because they already found the cure and are holding it hostage to profit from the rest of the world. Or else, they're trying to weaponize Bird Flu and want to make sure their people are safe.


Also, Doctors in Poland are trying to exterminate homeless people by giving them the Bird Flu Virus. They duped people into participating in a drug trial for what they described as a "flu vaccine" without telling the test subjects that it was an unapproved H5N1 drug.


The Indonesian health minister has accused the US government of trying to weaponize Bird Flu as well.


It's a dangerous world we live in, folks. Make sure you keep your eyes and ears open because you never know what THEY are trying to do to you. Jeremy and I, in association with Miracle Posting, Inc. would like to thank you for reading Conspiracy Theory Week and we'll see you on monday.