None Of My Bowls At Home Are All That Great

Broncos vs Seahawks.  Who ya got?!

I plan on watching Puppy Bowl.  The competition is pretty strong this year.

So, here at Jeremy Is In The Office, we encourage the use of sporting events as diversions, particularly hockey.  Football becomes significantly relevant once a year, and that happens this weekend, when they play the big game at the end of the season.  I'm assuming I'm not allowed to say the name because the NFL prohibits people from saying it for any purpose other than paying the NFL for the right to say it.  Seriously...even businesses local to the game Can't Hang Signs Saying The Name even to welcome people to the area.   

Either way, that particular game will be happening on Sunday, which means the pregame show starts later tonight.  I should actually let you know about a video guide to attending the game created by resident New York puppet, Johnny T.  Go ahead and watch that, even if you fully expect to skip the game itself.  

Also worthy of note are prop bets, including the length of the national anthem, as performed by Renee Fleming, whether or not Renee Fleming will wear gloves while performing the national anthem, and what color the gloves will be.  Here's what I want to know.  Nobody knows who Renee Fleming is.  I just looked up a picture of her, and if she passed me on the street on my way home form work today, I wouldn't recognize her.  Is there any reason she shouldn't stop off in Las Vegas or log into some online betting website, bet the ranch on going Under the 139.5 second prop bet (incidentally, I had to look this up too, but "The clock measuring the anthem starts on Fleming’s first note and ends when she has completed the word 'brave.'"), then showing up at the game, singing really fast (not fast enough to disrespect America or anything, but easily under the 139-mark), and going back to collect?  Sure, it's the gambling version of Insider Trading, but if nobody recognizes you, it can't be illegal, right?  

Anyway...enjoy the really important football game.  It's going to be Supe....Stupendous!  

Please don't sue me, NFL...

It's Strong? What A Surprise

Rejected State of the Union Speech: “We all know we’re not going to do anything, so who’s up for Scrabble?”  

Today's rant is not sponsored by Hasbro.  Why not?  How about it, Hasbro?

So last night was the big State of the Union speech.   It was the single most important State of the Union speech since last year's, which was the single most important State of the Union speech since the year before that.  You get the idea.  It was a speech.  I didn't watch it.  

More importantly, I didn't watch the increasingly ridiculous parade of response speeches given by the other political party.  This nonsense started fairly recently, in 1966.  Now, it apparently includes a Spanish-language version of the response (by the party interested in deporting immigrants) because they don't get enough of the Spanish-speaking vote, a third response by the extreme fringe of the opposition party, and an online-only response by another guy in the extreme fringe who didn't get picked to give the official extreme fringe response and felt like he didn't get enough TV time.  This is a lot of work to respond to a single speech that accomplishes roughly nothing.  

The net of both speeches is as follows...and please keep in mind, I didn't watch them.  The president wants certain things to happen.  The opposition party claims that those things will destroy America, The American People(tm) don't want them, so they're going to stop the president from doing those things.  In return, they will provide a remarkably limited number of their own ideas (83% of which will be in the form of a Voucher Program), and the other party doesn't want those things because they will destroy America, and The American People(tm) don't want them.  As a result, nothing will happen, but plenty of TV time will be devoted to talking about how nothing is happening and who is to blame and why they should be voted out of office in the 2014 election, and more importantly, the 2016 election.  

In the meantime, all of these people will have jobs and get face time on TV and be on talk radio programs and make campaign trips instead of actually doing...you know...work.  That's okay, because we've actually come to expect that...which brings me to my main point.  

The president knows he's not going to get anything accomplished this year.  Congress knows they're not going to get anything accomplished this year.  We all know that neither of them are going to get anything accomplished this year.  So why go through the exercise of telling us what you want to accomplish this year?  Lose the stupid facade already and just admit that you have no expectations of any real accomplishments.  At least that way, none of you will be lying and need to go on TV incessantly to tell me how the other one is lying.  I stopped listening long ago. 

I Got It For Christmas

Lots of realtors want to sell my house.  But...I’m not done living in it yet

That's what you think.  Pack your things.  I'm going to need you out by the end of the month.

That is so not how real estate works.  

Can't blame a guy for trying.

So, I'm not entirely sure why, maybe the economy is picking up or something, but I've gotten a bizarre spike in mail lately from realtors.  Not email, mind you...that, I can delete with no problems...but actual mail.  Like, the kind I have to walk to the end of my driveway to look at.  What a hassle.  Anyway, many of these mails are the same.  They're addressed to me, one was even hand-written, or at least printed in such a way to make it look hand-written.  I can't authenticate that, because I don't have local handwriting experts like that pawn shop show...the one in Las Vegas, not the one where Everybody Gets Thrown Into The Parking Lot.  I may have digressed a little.   

Anyway, all of these mailings are the same.  They all want to be my realtor and sell my house.  They promise to get the best price for it and to work really hard to sell it for me.  That's very nice of them, really, but it leaves out one seemingly important aspect.  I don't want to sell my house.  

For the time being, I'm quite content living where I am.  It's a nice house in a very pleasant neighborhood, I have payments I can afford, and it's reasonably close to work.  I really have no reason to want to move.  Moving is a major hassle anyway.  There would need to be some really compelling reason for me to sell my house right now.  Something at least a little better than some guy wanting to be my realtor. 

How About It, Nabisco?

Double Stuf Oreos do not, in fact, contain double the Stuf as the originals.  This is an outrage

You know...with the 24-hour news cycle we have going on these days, the level of manufactured outrage is a little ridiculous.  But this one seems to have gone unnoticed, and I have no idea why.  

Indeed.  Last year, a High School Math Class performed an experiment on the amount of creme filling (or "Stuf") in Oreo cookies, coming to the conclusion that the self-proclaimed "Double Stuf" Oreos contained 1.86x the mount of Stuf as the original recipe.  Close, sure, but predictably not double, as the advertisement tells us.  Just one more way corporate America is putting the screws to the little guy.  

Speaking of America...

I unfortunately have to cut my Oreo diatribe a little short today to bring you important news that will cause even further outrage.

Geeze, Jeremy.  All this outrage on a Friday?  

I know, I know...but this can't wait.  

The US Olympic committee, in association with soon-to-be-disgraced fashion designer Ralph Lauren "proudly" unveiled the official uniform for Team USA's march in the Opening Ceremony.  It is Unbelievably Awful.  I've started discussions with some folks at work here to see about getting honorary citizenship to their countries for the duration of the opening ceremonies just so I don't have to be associated with that ridiculous monstrosity.  So far, I've been turned down by Canada, but hopes are still alive for Bosnia.  Seriously...that thing is like Uncle Sam drank a little too much and barfed America all over an Ugly Christmas Sweater.  Also...white pants after Labor Day?  What's up with that? 

Same With "High In The Upper 30s"

Here’s the problem with Celsius: Zero degrees doesn’t have the same connotation as it does in Fahrenheit 

As opposed to the problem with Fahrenheit in that it's a largely arbitrary measurement?

Fahrenheit is certainly not arbitrary!    The Fahrenheit scale is derived from the temperature delta between freezing water mixed with salt, which was set to 0 degrees, and standard human body temperature, which was set to 96 degrees.  Why 96, you say?  Well, 96 is 12 times 8, which makes it really easy to divide the interval into 12 parts and then each part into 8 segments called degrees.  Based on this scale, the boiling point of water was determined to be 212 degrees.  Later on, more accurate and linear thermometers were developed and body temperature was found to be more along the lines of 98.6 degrees.  

Celsius is just as arbitrary, using water and the earth as the base for measurement (and other measurements, as you may or may not be aware).  It's true.  The entire metric system is based on a single measurement...the circumference of the earth, and a single liquid...water.  A meter was originally defined as 1 ten millionth of the distance from the north pole to the equator.  (The exact definition has technically changed since then, but it's still pretty much the same distance)  Sticking with water, if we arbitrarily decide that the freezing point of water is 0, and the boiling point is 100, then we have the basis for the Cesius, or Centigrade temperature scale...but why use water?  Anyway...one cubic centimeter is the same as one milliliter, and one milliliter of water weighs one gram, so the original distance measurement gives us both volume and weight measurements (under standard conditions, of course), as long as we're still using the arbitrarily decided-upon water.  Going even further, one Calorie (technically kilo-calorie, but that's splitting hairs) is the amount of energy required to heat one milliliter of water one degree C.  The entire system is based on water...which seems a little bizarre.  Sure, it's pretty abundant and essential, but it's far from the most basic thing we have available.  I think a new system should be developed using the speed of light as a basis for distance and Carbon the single element for creating the other measurements.  And start at Absolute Zero for temperature.  Stick with the basics!  (Unrelated, I totally need to start a band called "Minus One Kelvin")  When somebody figures this out, call it the "Jeremy Scale.

So this call comes into play when discussing temperature, particularly outdoor temperature.  When watching a weather forecast in the US, we see temperatures displayed in Fahrenheit.  We're used to it.  We have a feel for it.  When you watch a weather forecast in the rest of the world, the temperature is displayed in Celsius.  They're used to it and have a feel for it.  So why is it more than a simple acclimation time to get used to numbers that mean something different?  Well, for the simple reason of connotation.  When we see a forecast in the US, and the meteorologist says "Zero degrees," or "Sub-Zero temperatures," we know to fear.  The number zero means something to us...that number is synonymous with oppressively cold temperatures.  Zero degrees Celsius doesn't do that.  The freezing point of water really isn't all that cold, in the grand scheme of things.  When it's zero C outside, you're okay with it.  You know you have to wear a coat and maybe a hat and gloves, but there's no abject terror.  For the equivalent in oppressively cold temperatures in metric, you have to go down to -17 degrees.  And that, dear readers, is a really weird arbitrary number to try to remember. 

Syrup Comes From Canada. It's Cold There, Too

I think people are getting sick of French Toast Days by now

This is categorically untrue.  Everybody loves French Toast!  Especially breakfast for dinner...that's a special treat.  Incidentally, I'm hungry now.  

French Toast Days have nothing to do with actually eating French Toast, although I suppose there's nothing prohibiting that.  French Toast Days are the days right before a major, cataclysmic weather event where people flock to grocery stores and stock up on all the bread, milk, eggs, and Oxford Commas.  Three of which are the key ingredients to French Toast.

Pro Tip:  Add a teaspoon of Vanilla Extract to your egg batter before you dip the bread in.  You're welcome.

So, as you may be aware, there is a major, cataclysmic weather event happening in the Greater Jeremy Area which promises to dump the worst show accumulation of the week all over everything.  We could be seeing final snow totals of up to 3 inches around here.  As you might expect, all of the schools have closed early, everything's cancelled for tonight, and people are deciding how early they're going to leave work.  

What's unfortunate is the sheer number of times this kind of crap has happened already this winter, and it's only January.  We're sick of snow days and stupid cold temperatures.  It's time to move somewhere warm.  Who's with me!?

Future Deja Vu

To celebrate Major League Baseball’s expansion of Instant Replay, I’m going to use this same Sametime Status Message tomorrow, too!

I think the best part of this Sametime Status is that you're recycling electrons.  Recycling is good for the environment.  Good for you, Jeremy!

Thanks! 

Of course, tomorrow is also Saturday, you won't be working, and you won't have a Sametime Status, so that somewhat renders your point moot.

That's completely irrelevant, if you ask me.  

Anyway, Major League Baseball announced that they're going to be taking a break from publicly shaming steroid users and actually try something that will improve the game.  They've expanded the use of instant replay during games so that the umpires will get three or four more calls right this season.  This seems to be a wonderful use of their time.

That said, the expanded use of instant replay will, in and of itself, directly cause me to watch precisely zero more baseball games than I had planned on watching already (which was somewhere in the zero range, truth be told), so I don't know how much of an effect this will really have on the game as a whole.