What Is "Stormy Weather" About?

Silly AC/DC, Lightning strikes, not Thunder  

I suppose if you were close enough, you could feel some concussion from the shockwave, couldn't you?

Yes, but that doesn't make the thunder an actual tangible thing.  Thunder is nothing more than a shockwave, much like a sonic boom, created by the expansion of air around a bolt of lightning.  There's nothing there.  It's a sound.  

So, when AC/DC comes along singing about being thunderstruck, they're a little off base.  They weren't struck by thunder.  They simply heard thunder, or they were struck by the bolt of lightning.  If that were the case, it would be a much sadder song, I would imagine.  As it is, it's a jaunty little sing about going to a club in Texas and meeting some people.  There's quite frankly not much going on there.  In the theoretical "Lightningstruck," the hero is taken to the hospital with some severe burns and will likely be without hair or hearing for a little while.  It changes the tune a little bit.  

On the other hand, Garth Brooks got things a little more correct when he sang about how the thunder rolls and lightning strikes.  See, there, the actual physical thing (the bolt of lightning) is doing the striking, and thunder is doing a more abstract action.  Of course, somebody gets shot at the end of that song, so I'm not sure it's really helping my case out all that much. 

I Need A Ticket To Jump Overboard?

Silly Talking Heads, houses burn down at 1100 degrees, not 365  

That's 590 degrees Celsius.  Though, at the point where your house is on fire, I'm not sure unit conversions are really your biggest concern.  

It's also not clear from the lyrics which temperature system they're using.  Though, Talking Heads were an American band, and "Burning Down The House" was released in '83, so Fahrenheit is probably a safer bet.  

At this point, I feel like I need to clarify that we're simply talking about the song today, and my house did not, in fact, burn down.  Though, given the recent search history now on my work computer ("Average temperature of house fires" and "ignition temperature of paper" among the items), there may be a little bit of alarm among the government agencies who monitor my web traffic.  

Anyway, the lyrics to the song "Burning Down The House" by Talking Heads (1983) are wacky and best left unread.  There's a reason you're entirely familiar with the song but have no idea what the words are, with the exception of when to sing "Burning Down The House".  However, they contain one conspicuously bizarre line: "Shakedown, dreams walking in broad daylight.  Three hundred, sixty five degrees.  Burning down the house."  This makes no sense.  If nothing else, from a temperature standpoint, the average house fire as stated above burns at approximately 1100 degrees (590 deg C), way hotter than 365.  The ignition temperatures of most common household materials is lower than 365, so that doesn't fit either.  

You can look at the 365 degrees from a mathematical perspective, but that leaves you wanting as well.  There are 360 degrees in a full circle, so 365 would be a full circle with a slight counter-clockwise overturn (that's how math degrees work...they go counter-clockwise).  So why would I need a raincoat to turn in a circle and then 5 degrees left while my house is burning down?  This is weird.  Suffice to say, if I'm in a burning house, I'm not going to be spinning around.  I'm taking a direct route to the nearest non-flaming door.  That's good advice to everyone out there, by the way.  

There are 365 days in a non-leap year, so are Talking Heads getting their units that heinously mixed up?  As an engineer, I would hope not, but it's the only thing that fits. 

Silly Talking Heads.

I'm Not Planning On Leaving My Job At The Moment

Silly CCR.  You can’t roll on a river, you have to float

Well, if the Proud Mary was one of those floating casinos, you could roll dice while on the river, thereby validating the lyrics a little bit.

So today's Sametime Status concerns the classic CCR song "Proud Mary" which repeats the phrase "Rollin'...Rollin'...Rollin' on the river."  The song, I guess, is about a boat, and I've always assumed that it had nothing to do with gambling.  Here are some fun facts about this song:

• John Fogerty had never been east of Montana by the time this song, from the album "Bayou Country."

Despite the fact that the song consists of roughly one chord (The bridge changes, but that's about it), Fogerty claims to have been inspired by Beethoven's 5th syphony.

The song has since been covered over 100 times.  Some Of Which are significantly better Than Others.

"Plasticky" Isn't As Catchy A Name As "Woody"

Silly woodpecker/alarm clock, the siding on my house is made of vinyl

Well, it's tan.  To a bird, there's not much difference.

I would imagine that wood and polyvinyl chloride resin taste very different.

But you wouldn't know that until after tasting it a little.  

So, not all that long ago, I got an interesting wake-up call.  It was that weird time in the morning, about 10 minutes before the alarm clock officially starts going off forcing me to decide if it's time to get up or merely shut off the beeping.  A woodpecker starts going to town on the siding of my house, right outside to the bedroom.

Woodpeckers are jerks.

In theory, the point of a woodpeckers pecking at wood is to eat bugs contained within.  This is all well and good if you're able to chip away at the wood and find stuff underneath.  I would imagine vinyl siding bounces a lot more and would be harder to peck into, exposing bugs.  I would also imagine there are fewer bugs inside than in a tree.  Regardless, this stupid woodpecker diligently pecked away at the siding for a solid 10 minutes, which was really annoying.  

I realize I at least partially brought this on myself.  I recently installed a new birfeeder (one that the Stupid Deer can't get into to eat all of my birdseed), with seed designed primarily for the larger of the songbirds.  Ostensibly, this means Cardinals, Blue Jays, and the occasional Nuthatch, but I do have a small family of woodpeckers nearby who are frequent guests at the feeder.  (On a somewhat unrelated note, the Nuthatches are awesome.  They take a seed, wedge it into the cracks in the wood on my deck's railing, then proceed to peck at the seed until it opens.  Highly entertaining to watch.)  So the fact that I'm encouraging woodpeckers to be nearby is entirely on my shoulders...but they should ave the decency to return the favor by keeping themselves to the trees and feeder.  Also, they shouldn't wake up until after my alarm goes off.  

Whoever Yells "FREE BIRD" Gets Punched

Silly Lynyrd Skynyrd, of course Tuesday’s gone.  It’s Thursday!

Today's Sametime Status makes me want to go to a NASCAR race and complain about liberals.  

You get all that from "Tuesday's Gone?"  I mean...it's a nice song and all, but never seemed quite THAT life-altering.

Nah, I'm just kidding.  It would take a lot more than that to get me to watch NASCAR.  

So today's Sametime Status deals with Lynyrd Skynyrd's song, "Tuesday's Gone."  The reason today's Sametime Status deals with  Lynyrd Skynyrd's song, "Tuesday's Gone," is that this was the first song playing on the radio when my alarm went off this morning.  This thought was actually the first thing to pop into my head today.  You know it's going to be a good day when your first thought is something funny instead of something like "I wonder how much it snowed overnight," or "It's time to get up already?" or "Ow, I just stepped on that thing!"  Those are far more common than comedy. 

The especially nice thing about this particular Thursday is that it's cleverly disguised as Friday, since I have the day off of work tomorrow to celebrate March Madness.  Woohoo!  So long suckers!  See you all on monday.

So, even though Jeremy made it pretty clear already, it's in my contract that I'm supposed to do this.  So, Jeremy Is In The Office will be Out Of The Office tomorrow, returning monday, March 25 with all new stuff.  I've actually gotten a preview of monday's Sametime Status and I have no idea what it means.  We'll all be waiting patiently for an explanation.  

I Said This Song Is Atrocious

Silly Jason Derulo, “Roof” doesn’t rhyme with “Truth”

I suppose that depends entirely on your definition of "rhyme."  Not everyone has a Rhyming Becktionary, you know.  

So today, I delve once again into the world of truly crappy music, so you don't have to.  You're welcome.  

Today's tune is the awful auto-tune wasteland that is "Whatcha Say" by Jason Derulo.  Despite the fact that Mr. Derulo violates Jeremy's Big Rule #1 in the first 13 seconds of the song, I had to look up the artist because I've never heard of this guy.  

For those unawares, "Jeremy's Big Rule #1" states that "If the lyrics of your song include the name of your group, you've written a bad song."  Mr. Derulo here just randomly states his name during the introduction of the song for no apparent reason.   

So this song is about a guy trying to win his girlfriend back after an infidelity.  Common theme, really.  As we muddle through the lyrics, we find that the artist is spitting rhymes with at best a 17% accuracy.  We're introduced to word pairings with tenuous connections at best...such as "myself" and "noone else," "clever" with "forever," "star" and "large."  About the only one he managed to get right is the pairing "go" and "know."  Well done!  

The most common rhyme, as it's found in what appears to be the chorus in this swirling miasma of lousy, is the following line: "when the roof caved in and the truth came out," where we're either supposed to believe that "roof" and "truth" rhyme, or else you pronounce it "troof," at which point, I'm done listening to your music.  All that said, apparently, Mr. Derulo is going to be a star, which is the main reason that the girl is supposed to get back together with him.  After all, they're going to live large...because large rhymes with star. 

So, my overriding message to whoever the mystery girl is in this song...run screaming in the other direction.    

With All This Rain, Everywhere Is Mudville

Silly Joe Walsh, there were only two men on base when Casey went up to bat

So Mr. Walsh got this wrong, how, exactly?

Well, it comes from the lyrics to the popular Joe Walsh song "Rocky Mountain Way."  He clearly states "Bases are loaded and Casey's at bat, playin' it play by play."  This, of course, is a reference to the poem "Casey At The Bat" written in 1888.  

What Mr. Walsh didn't apparently have time to do is actually look at the poem and figure out just how many people were actually on base for the Mudville baseball team at the time Casey came up to bat.  A simple reading will tell you that there were runners on second and third, after Flynn singled and Blake followed up with a double.  

Of course, we can sit here all day and question why, with a 2-run lead and first base open with the most feared hitter in the Mudville roster coming up to bat, the pitcher didn't simply walk Casey to load the bases and take on the #5 hitter.  There were, after all, two outs already.  It's not even a question, really....any manager in baseball would have done the same thing.  Maybe things were different in the 1880s, who knows?  

I suppose I can also concede that "Runners on second and third and Casey's at bat" wouldn't fit in as well with the rhythm of the song, so he took a bit of literary license.  There should just be an asterisk or something. 

If I put out deer food, the Squirrels will eat it

Silly deer, bird seed is for birds!


What a coincidence. This Sametime Status is for the birds, too.


Why so grumpy today?


Well, it's one of those mondays cleverly disguised as a Tuesday, and there was a long weekend, and I didn't feel like going back to work.


You're entirely fictional. You don't have a job, or a regular sleep pattern.


Entirely beside the point.


Anyway, so one of the many projects I completed this Laborious weekend was solving the mystery of the bird feeder.


Surely one of the great mysteries of our time. Right up there with 'Where is Jimmy Hoffa?' and 'Who shot J.R.?'


So, I have a bird feeder, since birds entertain me. Recently, I started to notice the seed being consumed at a faster than usual pace. Since there is usually a pretty steady stream of customers at the feeder, I just thought that I maybe got a few more birds interested or they were getting hungrier or something. Turns out, that's not the case at all. Recently, in the middle of the night, I awoke to some noises in my back yard that sounded like the local wildlife. I'm no stranger to turkeys, deer, foxes, neighborhood cats, and the occasional raccoon, so I wasn't overly concerned. I decided to check it out, so I looked out the window to see two of the local deer standing around eating the bird seed out of the feeder.

Stupid deer. Bird seed is for birds...don't they realize that? Now, I need to come up with some way of still feeding the birds without also feeding the deer.

Another classic movie ruined, courtesy of Jeremy

Silly Kenny Loggins. F-14s have Afterburners, not Overdrive.


For today's off-base rant, Jeremy will be referring to the lyrics to Kenny Loggins' classic song, "Danger Zone," particularly its use in the soundtrack to "Top Gun". Jeremy, please destroy everyone's appreciation.


Thank you, LIR.

My issue with this song lies in the line, "She got you jumpin' off the deck. Shovin' into overdrive". This line is wrong on multiple levels.


Provided, of course, you're a huge geek...


First of all, the movie is about flying planes...Navy F-14s to be specific. There are a handful of scenes where Tom Cruise is shown riding around on a motorcycle, but that's not the main point of the film...so we'll stick with the planes.

First of all, the use of the word "Overdrive" is troubling when referring to planes. Simply put, planes don't have an Overdrive. In the specific case of an F-14, which uses a pair of turbofan jet engines, the method they use to generate extra power is through the use of Afterburners. This means they're able to spray extra fuel into the hot exhaust gasses of the engine, causing further combustion, more power, and flames to shoot out the back...you've probably seen Pictures Of This. (For the sake of simplicity, I made sure to link to a picture of an F-14 using its afterburners so there's no confusion.)

"Overdrive" is actually a bit of a misnomer with many modern cars. Originally, gear ratios on transmissions were tuned in such a way that the car's engine would achieve maximum power at a final drive ratio that would achieve the car's maximum speed (pushing against the air resistance). One method of conserving fuel is to have the final drive ratio be higher than that of the engine, which also serves to lower the power available, since the engine will be turning at slower speeds. This allows cars to cruise at highway-type speeds with the engine running at its most efficient, rather than at its peak power. A side effect of this is that the car can no longer run at its theoretical top speed, since the force of air resistance would be enough to equal the engine's power output. Since this equilibrium wouldn't happen until well over "Pull Me Over" speed, it turns out not to matter much to the average driver, and the gas savings of having your car cruise at 2000RPM vs 4000RPM helps put your mind at ease.

The advent of this technology came about first in rear-wheel drive cars, in which a second gear box was attached and controlled separately from the main transmission. The popularity of 5 (and later 6)-speed transmissions with a direct drive gear and an overdriven gear made the use of the separate gear box obsolete. Also, the increased popularity of front-wheel drive cars has merged all of this into the single transaxle, eliminating the propeller shaft...thus removing the "overdrive" from the equation. Of course, almost all cars on the road now have a top gear over-tuned than that for maximum speed, so the theory still applies, even if "Overdrive" is a bit antiquated.


And the point of all this?


Well, our boy Kenny Loggins is clearly implying that shovin' the plane into overdrive will result in more power and thus a more substantial experience when jumpin' off the deck. Since we've clearly established that overdrive actually makes a vehicle less powerful, the line makes no sense at all.


Get some help, Jeremy.