Theme Week, Part I

Jeremy’s Sametime Status Proudly Presents:  Little-Known Batman Facts Week!   

The Joker never had a real name until the 1989 movie starring Jack Nicholson

So, the big box office news today is that Ice Age 4 topped the moviegoers' list for the weekend, pulling down a respectable 46 million dollars.  The film's day in the sun will be short-lived, as "The Dark Knight Rises" descends upon theaters Friday, and will decimate other movies' paltry earnings for the next month or so.  

To celebrate, Jeremy Is In The Office will be edutaining you all week with some little-known facts about Batman.


In a rare and special gift, this will be a completely unprecedented 6-Day Theme Week, culminating monday in a full review of "The Dark Knight Rises" from Jeremy Is In The Theatre, because Jeremy is stupid enough to go see the film on opening night.  It likely won't be a very in-depth review, as Jeremy will spend the entire three hours gawking at Anne Hathaway, but we'll take whatever we can get.  




Today's interesting fact about Batman actually centers around one of the greatest villains in the history of villainy, The Joker.  Having made his first appearance in comics in 1940, and being a mainstay in nearly every incarnation of Batman media ever since, The Joker never had a real name until 1989.  In fact, there was never any official back story for the character until a comic entitled "Batman: The Killing Joke" was released in 1988.  The author of that comic was Alan Moore, who also created "Watchmen."  Even in the comic, no real name was given to the character who fell in a vat of acid and became The Joker, but Tim Burton gave him one.

Named after the actor who originally portrayed Bruce Wayne's quintessential butler, Alfred Pennyworth, The Joker was given the name "Jack Napier" in the film.  In this particular movie, he was also credited with killing Bruce Wayne's parents, a deed canonically attributed to a gangster named Joe Chill, so there certainly is some discontinuity here, but that's beside the point.

There Are Mega Stores, I Guess

Grocery stores have been stuck on “Super” for a while now.  They need to move on to “X-Trememarket”

 I would totally shop at a place called "X-Trememarket!"  

The problem with innovation and progress is Marketing.  

Oh yeah...THAT's the problem...

We like to use adjectives to describe stuff to convince people that it's better than some other stuff, but we never seem to leave room for growth afterwards.  We're too quick to get to the extremities of description.   

Things get labelled "Greatest" or "Best" or "Extreme" all the time, with reckless disregard for what will happen when something better inevitably comes along.  

Wait, what kind of phone do you have again?

That's beside the point.  

What's important to know is that this little oversight doesn't seem to happen in the realm of groceries.  Why?  I have no idea, but the term "Supermarket" has been around since "King Kullen" opened in Queens in 1930.  I dare say that grocery stores have come a long way since 1930.  The sheer breadth of products available to be sold in a single place has grown by a factor of 83 times since then.   So why haven't we moved on from the arcane "Supermarket" to something that more accurately resembles the extraordinary shopping opportunity afforded us by today's grocery stores?   

I Should Charge For Reading This

Today’s Sametime Status is in 5 parts, but the last part will be made up of two parts

So, I guess this is part 1?  When do we get the rest.  Maybe you should have done this as a Theme Week.

I did actually consider that, but decided that I didn't want to take up a whole week of Sametime Statuses for one dumb joke.  

Why not?  You've Done It Before.

True enough.  Anyway, today's Sametime Status deals with movies. 

None of us saw this one coming...

Film studios suck.

Ooo!  And we get a rant too!  Bonus day for Blag Readers!

Over the last few years, a remarkably disturbing trend has popped up in film making.  Pure, unadulterated greed for the sake of greed.  Greed at the expense of whoever happens to be on the business end of the studios' greed.  It's crap, and it really should stop...but I know it won't.  

One of the examples that I've talked about a couple times is the recent Transformers series of movies.  These are films capitalizing on nostalgia of 80s kids who grew up and have money to spend on movies and toys now who remember wanting to have money to spend on movies and toys back when Transformers were initially popular.  This is a cash cow waiting to be milked.  No matter how bad the films were (and boy, did they ever test that limit with the sequels), the studio knew that they were going to pull down a fantastically huge payday at the box office.  So what did they do?  They signed lucrative product-placement deals with companies like GM, Coca-Cola, and Hewlett Packard to make even more money by splattering their products and logos on the screen while there's supposed to be a movie going on.  There was no reason for this.  They knew the movies were going to make more money than they knew what to do with, but they milked huge billion-dollar corporations for more money while they were at it, taking away even more quality from the films themselves.  Why?  Because of unabashed greed.  Pure and simple...there is no other possible explanation.  

Then, only slightly more recently came a more disturbing trend.  Film studios making films about remarkably popular book series'.  This, in and of itself is not a problem...but when they decide to squeeze more money out of people for no other reason than to squeeze more money out of them, it becomes a problem.  How do they do this?  By making more movies than there are books.  This has happened twice in recent memory, with the final volume of both the Harry Potter and Twilight series receiving the double-film treatment.  I've never read any of the Twilight saga, but I can assure you that neither that last book, nor the final Harry Potter book deserved two movies.

Why do I bring this up now, you may ask?  Well, yesterday came the news that "Mockingjay," the final book of the "Hunger Games" series is going to be released........wait for it........as two films.  That's right, kids...they're doing it to us again.  They're making us fork over two times the money to see the ending of a film series for no reason other than the fact that they can make more money off of us by doing it.  The mere millions upon millions that the studio was going to rake in by making movies of three books was simply not enough.  

I hate them.     

It was also revealed not long ago that the "Fifty Shades" series is being made into a set of feature films...I've got five dollars on the table right here that says the final book of that series will be split into two movies.  Anyone taking that action?  

This Is What I Think About

There’s something far too entertaining about throwing rocks into a body of water

Today, Jeremy will take you on a trip through his mind.  Careful...it's a bumpy ride.

 So not long ago, I had the opportunity to take a bike ride next to something called a Lake.  Growing up near one of the Great Lakes, I wouldn't exactly call this thing near my bike path a "Lake," since it's WAY too small and covered in moss and lily pads, but the people who named it got a little overzealous, so they called it a Lake.  That's beside the point.  

I took a break from my biking to toss a couple rocks into the lake, which I find more entertaining than I probably should.  In this particular instance, the bike path is on a former railroad bed, so there are lots and lots of smallish stones which are great for light tossing and make an amusing little splash and causing nearby frogs to jump around.  No, I was not aiming for, not did I hit any of the aforementioned frogs.  While being amused by my little game of "Throw Stuff Into A Lake," I thought of the fun variations on throwing rocks into water that I like to play.  Here they are, in no particular order:

There's your standard, "Pick up a nearby rock and toss it into the water."  The simplest and purest form of the sport.  You can add difficulty to it by either trying to ht something in the water (A stick or lily pad, for example), or by throwing the rock as far as you can just to see how far you can throw a rock.  

A classic is, of course, stone skipping, or skimming.  You take a flat stone and throw it side-armed near the water so that it bounces off the surface and keeps right on going.  This is a great game to play with friends, because you can compare number of skips and distance in a whimsical competition.  For an interesting variation, try to skip a stone for height instead of distance....see how high you can get it to bounce off the water.  

For those who like bubble wrap, but crumple it all up at once instead of popping the bubbles individually, might I suggest the "Handful of pebbles" method.  As you might think, you grab a handful of small stones or sand and toss it into the air.  The dozens and potentially hundreds of little impacts over the surface of the water make for seconds of fun.  

If you have a bridge or dock nearby, you can play a variation whereby you find the largest rock you can maneuver adequately and heave it into the water.  If your water is deep enough, the sound and splash made by a huge boulder are quite impressive.  

Finally, there's what is perhaps my favorite game, the stone-throwing equivalent of the Olympic high-dive.   You take a stone similar to one you'd use for stone skipping, and instead of throwing it low and far, throw it as far up into the air as you can or feel like.  The air resistance during the rock's flight will straighten it out into a near-perfect vertical line during its descent.  When it hits the water, it will be absorbed with a strangely satisfying "THIP" sound and virtually no splash at all.  

There you go, folks...now off you go to your nearest body of water.  Have fun, everybody!

Eyebrows, too!

All limbs intact, I guess it’s time to get back to work

Glad to see you back in action, Jeremy.  We were worried that you might have blown yourself up over the 4th of July.  

Nope...I'm all set here.  All my fingers are whole and not a burn mark on me from the festivities.  Granted, the "festivities," in terms of fireworks amounted to a handful of sparklers and little spinny things that shoot inch-long flames on the ground, but that's hardly the point.  The point is that I'm back at work, diligently making it a better place to be...or whatever it is that I do here.  

Hopefully you know...nobody else seems to.   

Boom Goes The Low-Grade Dynamite

I’m just glad we didn’t declare independence from grills and fireworks

If only we could declare independence from Lee Greenwood, then we'd really be on to something.  

Agreed.  

So today's Sametime Status is a cute little remark about the true meaning of the Fourth of July...grilling and blowing crap up.  Not necessarily together, but not necessarily apart, either.  So, enjoy the holiday safely, because you all need to come back next week for more Sametimey Goodness!

Jeremy Is In The Office will be Out Of The Office the rest of the week, to celebrate Independence Day.  The Holiday, not the Will Smith movie...although it's not entirely out of the realm of possibilities that both with be involved.  We'll return on monday, July 9 with all new Status Messages and frivolity. 

Bailey?

How long can beetles survive in mobile captivity?

Well, that depends entirely on the species of beetle.  Most common beetles, like the firefly or the dung beetle have lifespans of 3-8 weeks once they reach adulthood, whereas your less common Stag Beetle may have a lifetime of 12 months or more.  

That is the creepiest insect I've ever seen.  If I saw one of those in my house, I'd have a lifespan of less than 12 months...holy crap! 

So I guess, to answer your question, you can probably expect to keep a beetle alive in captivity for just a couple weeks, depending on how well you maintain the environment and provide enough food and water for beetle sustaining.  Why do you ask?

Well, there's a beetle in my car, and I want to know how long before the stupid thing dies.  I've had no luck trapping the thing, and one of its favorite hobbies seems to be flying past my ear when I'm driving, and there's just no reasoning with it.  I'm sure it will be able to survive for a while on food rations left from me eating the car (Dunkin Donuts bagels are really flaky when they're toasted), but there shouldn't be any standing water around, so maybe dehydration will be my friend here.