Figured Out How To Make Titles Again!

One person’s “Deep Appreciation” is another person’s “Apathy”

Yeah, I don't really care.  

Your support means a lot, thanks!  

I see what you did there.

So today's Sametime Status is brought to you by the workers at the Adorably Tiny Cafeteria Thing In My Building, who are given full creative license over the signs posted around the place.  The same people that brought you Use Your Head When Toasting Bread post random signs throughout the ATCTIMB, some of which are useful, and some of which are borderline passive-aggressive.  They tell us what the price is for a hard-boiled egg (which I never see anybody buying, so I'm a little concerned about these things), and when a beverage fountain is out of order.  

Once in a while, when the cash registers are running low on change, a sign gets carted out which implores people to use smaller-denomination bills when paying for your goodies.  The sign says, and as near as I can remember, I'm quoting:  "Ones And Fives Would Be Deeply Appreciated."  It seems excessive to me that they add the word "Deeply" when describing the appreciation for ones and fives, so maybe I expect too much.  Not long ago, I was in line to buy about 3 bucks worth of stuff, and I had exactly $24 in my wallet (a $20 bill, and 4 $1s).  I could have easily paid with the 20-spot, but since the sign was out and I felt like I could have used some deep appreciation, I decided to go with paying in singles.  

I wasn't sure what was in store for me.  As much as I knew there would be no parade or fanfare for using small bills, I thought there may have actually been some sort of acknowledgment on their part for the fact that I saw the sign and actively chose to help them out.  I mean..."Deeply Appreciated" implies something more than simple appreciation, so I didn't think it was out of the realm to expect some sort of recognition.  Such was not the case...I got the same vacant stare off into space and mumbled "thanks" that I always get at that hour of the morning.  Probably the same reaction the next guy got when paying for his coffee with a 20. 

It might be time to invest in a mattress, and I don’t mean buy a new mattress

Oh dear.  Jeremy's putting on his foil helmet again.  


There's a fine line between paranoia and being knowledgeable.   Woody Allen once said, "Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not after me."  Of course, Woody Allen was a bit of a nut job, but that's hardly worth mentioning. 

If anyone has noticed, the economy kinda sucks lately.  Blame whoever you want, it doesn't change the fact that you're not going to fix it, you can really only figure out for yourself how to manage until it blows over.  Therein lies the rub.  Right now, there aren't any good investments.  Stocks, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies..everything is headed right down the pan.  Even gold has dropped almost $100 an ounce today (accurate as of this writing...that'll change in like 5 minutes). 

The best thing to do, I think, is to stuff all of your money underneath your mattress, and buy a nice, trusty shotgun to protect your valuables.  I've linked to this before, but you can also nab yourself One Of These Gems for a little extra security. 

Apparently, it’s “Drive Really Really Really Really Really Slowly Day”

Maybe you're like Neo, and the world just seems slower to you today for some completely unknown reason.  I mean...you're not that smart.


First of all, as I've shown on Numerous Occasions, I am a genius.  Secondly, there are very simple and straight-forward tools I can use to quantify just how fast somebody is going on the road when I feel they're going too slow for my taste.  Two of those tools being a clock and a speedometer.

Granted, the speedometer in my car seems to be off by about 2MPH.  It tells me I'm going faster than I really am.  It's a conspiracy to get people to speed less and/or to artificially inflate the car's calculation for fuel economy.  Look it up.


You haven't looked it up.


That's entirely beside the point.  The point is that my commute to work involves three somewhat long stretches of road, a few miles each, that are a little twisty and two-laned.  This means if I find myself behind somebody who's driving too slow, I'm pretty much stuck there whining to myself about why they've chosen to drive a full 10MPH below the posted speed limit.  Since not everybody drives the exact same commute that I do, most times this happens, the offending driver will turn off onto a side road or turn a different direction at the next major interchange.  This morning, this happened twice, only to be followed by me immediately finding myself behind another moron driver going too slow.  All three longish stretches of commute were contaminated by losers driving at least 10MPH too slow.  This not only slows down my commute, but also decreases everybody's gas mileage, thereby making this type of driving practice anti-environmental.  It's bad enough that these pinheads decide to be an inconvenience, but do they have to take the world with it?

Folding Tables are doing well, too

Pro Wrestling is the only thing keeping the Steel Chair industry afloat  


That's what you think, Jeremy. But this Sunday, at the New York Nuisance, I'm gonna show you what pain is all about!


Uhmm....yeah. So not long ago, the morning radio show was talking about Pro Wrestling, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to discuss amongst civilized adults.  


Wait until you see just how uncivilized I can be! I'm going to end your career in the ring!


It got me thinking about how often I end up sitting on a steel chair. The answer, of course, is not very often. I have folding chairs in my house, sure...but they're made of plastic or have some kind of padding on them and some kind of powder coat on the structural pieces. They're not the same brown steel chairs that you see in the wrestling ring. For that matter, you don't even see those kinds of steel chairs in the audience immediately surrounding the wrestling ring either. The only place they're ever used is in the ring.  


I'm gonna use whatever I can find to take you down, Jeremy!


As you may know, the world economy isn't the greatest these days. Many industries are feeling the crunch of people not having any money, and I can't help but think that the Steel Chair industry is no exception. I don't know about you, but I've bought fewer folding chairs this year than I have in the past. Based on a study in which I thought about it for a while and said, "Yep, that seems about right," sales of folding Steel Chairs are down 19% since 2007. The saving grace, of course, is that the bulk of the market share is taken up by sales to Pro Wrestling organizations, which are staying strong. Even in a down economy, people need to get hit with steel chairs.

As opposed to?

Unfortunately for you, I can't think of anything today


Yeah, I'm not sure how unfortunate that is, really.


Well, I find it just a little sad. I was on a big field trip for work yesterday, so I didn't get to post anything or have an interesting Sametime Status. This morning, it felt like monday, and my mind was a total blank. Nothing amusing, entertaining, or even mildly informative came to me. It was depressing.


Well, you know. They can't all be gold. Based on your prior history, about 98% of them can't be gold...so you're really in pretty good shape this week.

Wheeeeeeee!

The post office is going to solve their problems by making the mail slower. I'm not making this up


You should take your cue from them, Jeremy. You can solve your Blag problems by writing crappier Sametime Statuses.


I don't have any Blag problems.


That's what you think...


So today's Sametime Status is all about the US Postal Service and their plans to cut services and mail sorting facilities in an effort to save on costs. The net result of this is that the number of one-day mail deliveries for standard first-class mail will be reduced to 0% from the current level of 41.5%.


We know you're not making that up because it's not 83%


It's in the Wall Street Journal if you want to look it up.

Here's the problem. The Postal Service is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic by moving them to the part of the ship that's sinking, thereby only serving to make things worse. You know why people are sending less mail than they used to? It's slow and expensive. At first, the Postal Service was a magnificent thing, delivering a letter anywhere you wanted it to go for the price of a stamp. This was nothing short of an amazing bargain when the alternative would be paying through the nose for a courier or hopping in the car to deliver it yourself. Times have changed, and the world is smaller. 40 cents (or whatever the frig a stamp costs these days) is no longer a reasonable price to pay to communicate with somebody just because they're far away. I have email, instant messengers, social networking, Blags, and a phone with free long-distance. On top of all that, the one thing all of those have in common that the Post Office doesn't? They're roughly instant.

So, for free I can send letters, documents, personal missives, and bill payments (Forget you, Strunk and White, I'm keeping the Oxford Comma!) with no delays at all with equipment I'm going to be using almost constantly anyway...or I can buy envelopes, write stuff (or print it out), assemble it, buy a stamp to stick on the envelope, drop it in the mailbox and wait a couple days hoping it gets there. Seems pretty clear who the winner is in this one.

It's a little sad that the US Postal Service has become antiquated, but it's the reality we face. When coming up with ways to "fix" the postal service so that it makes itself viable again, one must not overlook the reasons for its downfall in the first place.

West Nile, Here I Come!

Eat a gyro outside, get 300 mosquito bites FREE!


How do you pronounce Gyro anyway?


Well, I've always called it "JAI ro" and think of people who pronounce it "HE ro" or "YEE ro" as overly pretentious snobs who just want to say it that way so they'll think they're better than you. Plus, every time I've been to one of the Gyro restaurants nearby (There were two before the one burned down), the people working in the place called it "JAI ro" so I'm going to go with that.

Anyway...not long ago, I decided to stop by the remaining Gyro place on my way to an event. I figured I could get my food, spend 5 minutes on a park bench eating my food, then be on my way. This was a great idea...it was a nice night, the gyro was tasty, it was quiet and scenic. You know who else thought it was a great idea? Every mosquito in a 10 mile radius.

You're probably aware (because of the wealth of weather-related posts here) that we've had an excess of rain up here in the Greater Jeremy Area. All of this rain has made the entire northeast into swampland replete with millions upon millions of extra mosquitoes. Whatever it is that eats mosquitoes hasn't been able to keep up, so I'm getting bitten a lot more than normal, or reasonable. Sitting on a park bench for 5 minutes makes me an even more vulnerable target, and however mosquitoes communicate, word apparently got out. I ended up wolfing down the second half of my gyro just to get out of the cloud of friggin insects. It was pretty obnoxious. I wanted to enjoy that gyro.