Some Wish This Blag Would Do The Same

Why has the Dodo become the poster child for extinct species?

Probably because of how much fun it is to say Dodo.  Especially if you say it like the Dodo at the 4:21 mark of This Famous Cartoon.  

Well, I found it curious that when it comes to all of the extinct species in the world, whenever people talk about extinction or the end of something, we always say that it's "Going the way of the Dodo."  What did the Dodo ever do that was more important than the Tahitian Red-Billed Rail?  Nobody remembers the poor Bourbon-Crested Starling, but it's just as gone as the Dodo.  Also, it was much cuter...I mean seriously....Dodos were pretty ugly, and they had that foot thing going on.  

So, next time something comes to an end, I think instead of further propagating the myth that the Dodo bird is the most important of the extinct species, we should say that the thing we're talking about has gone the way of the Broad-Faced Potoroo.  It's just as fun to say, plus it will educate people, because then they'll go off to look up what a Broad-Faced Potoroo is.  Win-Win! 

A Post About Nothing

I actually bought something at The Christmas Tree Shop.  I’ll let you guess what it wasn’t

I would guess, but you told me not to.  

Indeed.  Today's Sametime Status is left as a semi-rhetorical exercise for the reader.  It's probably not too hard to figure out.  

The important thing to note here is that, for better or worse, I actually purchased something at that store for the first time ever.  I found out later I hay have run a small inadvertent scam on them, but I can't tell the story here since it can probably be used as evidence.  I doubt they'll notice.   

So you're not going to tell a story, and you're not going to tell us what you didn't buy.  Great Blag today, Jeremy.  Top shelf, as always.  Are you planning on actually having any content tomorrow?  

Sure am!  Well...actually....to be more specific...probably not.  See you then!

It'll Be A Thing!

New Word:  Cemuse – to distract someone through comedy

It's a verb!  

Indeed it is.  See, English is a confusing language, and it's even worse when Americanized.  A former professor of mine used to say "Most parts of the world speak broken English except the United States, where it's been ground into a fine powder."  "The Three Amigos" teach us that adding 'in' to the front of a word does not necessarily change it's meaning, but it might.  Flammable and Inflammable mean the same thing, but Famous and Infamous most certainly do not.  Go figure.  

Not long ago, I was reminded of the word "Bemused," and being an online entertainer of sorts, I'm well acquainted with the word "Amused."  

When it comes to this Blag, the rest of us very much aren't...

So I figured, why not help out and make English a little easier to digest.  We have "A"mused and "BE"mused, so why not just continue the trend and make "CE"mused.  To make the definition easy to remember, instead of having it be something totally random and unrelated to similar words like "Guest" and "Quest" (and don't even get me started on contranyms like "Oversight" meaning careful supervision as well as carelessness), actually have the meaning follow long the pattern.  So, to Amuse means to entertain, often in a comedic way.  Bemuse means to distract somebody and get them to think about something.  So from now on, Cemuse means to distract somebody with something funny.  

Now all we need is somebody to Cemuse us away from this site, and we're all set. 

Poor Turkey

Ice Cream Truck + Doppler Effect = Funny

Ice cream man ice cream man ice cream man!!!

Please join me as I take you on an aural journey though a mystical place known as "the road I live on."  

Off in the distance, children laugh and giggle as an electronic calliope chimes out a simple, yet jaunty version of "Turkey In The Straw."  It is the unmistakable sound of the ice cream truck making its local rounds to deliver frozen treats to the neighborhood kids.  The mood is joyous and playful as the little monsters load up on their sugary snacks.  It's not long before the crowd is sated and its time for the truck to move on. 

The truck proceeds down the road, but having reached the far southern end of the neighborhood, there are no more playgrounds, no more gathering places, and no more smiling faces running toward the street, dragging parents and wallets in their wakes.  It is time for the truck to move on to the next neighborhood in the hopes of spreading cheer and cavities.  The engine revs up and the truck speeds down the road, past a local homeowner, let's call him "Jeremy," on its way to other grounds.  While the customers have all come and gone, the music never ceases.  The turkey still in the straw and/or the hay.  

As the truck zooms by, a funny thing happens.  The Doppler effect takes control of the music, and for the next few seconds, the pitch of the music gets ever lower, slowly transforming the poor turkey into a horrible (Dare I say "Foul") version of the song, completely out of tune with itself.  It sounds as if the turkey found its way out of the straw and is now falling off a cliff coyote-style, descending into musical madness.  "Jeremy" listened for a few more seconds before making his way inside, slightly saddened by the fate of the poor turkey.   

And he no longer wanted ice cream.   

The Operator Asked Me Not To Call Back

I tried calling “2,” but nobody from the Mets answered

Well, hopefully by now you know how a phone works, so you weren't actually expecting Justin Turner to answer.  

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about today's Sametime Status, because I finally gave in to public persuasion and made a Status about Carly Rae Jepsen's hit single "Call Me Maybe."  

See, I was made aware very recently that New York Mets infielder Justin Turner uses this song as his walk-up music during games, and I have no idea why.  Not that cheap bubble-gum tripe music is altogether bad for being played in front of 50 thousand people (not to mention however many are watching on TV), but this particular song is about a young girl of questionable morals meeting a guy at a party, which has little, if anything, to do with baseball.  If you haven't heard this song yet, I have no idea what you're doing with your life, but please let me know in the comments below so I can try to duplicate it.  

Anyway, this Status, in addition to being a round-about joke about baseball walk-up music, reminded me of a joke from the great Mitch Hedberg, in which he laments not having the phone number (222) 222-2222.  When asked how to get ahold of him, he can simply reply, "Just press 2 for a while.  When I answer, you will know you have pressed 2 enough."   

By the way, I was told to remind you that today is an important milestone or something?

Indeed it is!  Today's Blag Entry marks the 1,000th post for Jeremy Is In The Office.  

You have got to be kidding me.  One thousand posts of this crap?  Where does the time go?

I have no idea, but the fine folks who read my page sure have wasted a lot of it here.  Over the last thousand posts, we've learned a lot about Hockey, Bird Flu, History (Revisionist or otherwise), Music, Movies, all other forms of Pop Culture, some actual Culture, Webcomics, general Nerdiness, and heard some hopefully amusing stores from the real world of Jeremy.  I feel that we've grown together as a Status-Message Writing family, and look forward to many more posts of the same sort of silliness you've come to expect.

And I'm pretty sure I speak for everyone when I hope it gets a whole lot better.    

Here's to the next 1000 posts! 

It's Happening Again!

For the fourth time, I’ve seen somebody selling a steamroller on the side of the road

You can't be serious.  

Entirely serious here.  It's a little...I don't know what the word is to describe this, but it's weird.  I'm not sure if this is the sort of thing that happens all the time everywhere and I've just never noticed it until now, or if this truly is a landmark event, but people around here love to sell steamrollers.

As far as I can tell, this is an entirely different steamroller than the first three I saw for sale, so it's not the same steamroller being sold over and over again.  At least four different people have not only owned steamrollers, but wanted to sell them and in fact (in three of the cases so far) found buyers for them.  This means that at least seven random people have known the joys of steamroller ownership.  

The joys?  

You can make stuff flat any time you want!  It's great for breakfast and laundry day, not to mention putting in a new asphalt driveway...which some people may do WAY more often than most, I just don't know.  And do you know why?

Because you don't own a steamroller?

Because I don't own a steamroller!  

And now that there exists a fourth opportunity to join the brotherhood of steamroller owners, (Do they have a secret handshake?  When are the meetings?) I don't know how long I'll be able to put off this pleasure.      

You Have Fine Taste In Blag Reading

Here’s a Fun Fact!  Connoisseur is not a French word

How disappointing.  Next you're going to tell us that French Fries aren't French either.

Well, since you mentioned it...

Anyway, the word "Connoisseur" is in fact an entirely English word of French origin, coming from the French "connoistre," meaning "to know," or "to be acquainted with."  When the word is used in French parlance, it is spelled slightly differently, as "connaisseur."  

I was made aware of this Fun Fact very recently, and thought you'd all like to be as apprised as I am.  You are welcome.