Score One For Ornithology!

I think the red-winged blackbird is quite appropriately named.

Explanation: This past weekend my wife and I brought our daughter to a new local park. Our county has made serious efforts over the past several years to create park space around a local river and this park is a result of those efforts. The park has several walking paths which weave around the grounds allowing you to observe the local wildlife. One path leads to a deck designed for observing the birds native to the area.

We got out onto that deck and spotted a beautiful black bird with bright red wings. An older gentleman, who had been sitting down on a bench there when we arrived, saw us point out the bird. He said, "that there is a red-winged blackbird." Then he made a few more comments about local birds and wandered off. Sure enough, later on we saw a sign that described the bird we saw as a red-winged blackbird. The ornithologists got one right!

You just wanted to say ornithologist, didn't you?

You're still here?

Yep. This is the last day of my "Evil Take Time." You are obviously bringing up birds so you can talk about bird flu, right?

Nope. I will, however, be sorry to see you go. It'll be lonely here without you.

You've been blogging for two years without me. You haven't sounded that lonely before. I think you'll manage.

Yeah, you're right, I'll manage. But once you're back home I have to be careful about using italics again. That's annoying.

Annoying you is part of our mission statement. So, can we talk about LEGOs now?

OH! I'm so proud of you! We sure can!!!

First of all, I'm going to have to ask you about your TPS reports...


Next, we have a great castle...


And we'll finish up today with a little Kiss.


Have fun back at your Evil home and remember, there's a little LEGO in all of us.

Lawn Theory 101

Four years in this house and I have yet to find a Hamiltonian circuit of the lawn. Curse you NP-completeness!

Explanation: In graph theory, a Hamiltonian circuit is a path that starts at a point in a graph, travels through all other points in the graph exactly once, and returns to the starting point. Determining whether such a path exists in a graph is an example of what's called an NP-complete problem, which means (among other things) that there is no known algorithm of polynomial time complexity for solving it. In other words, it's really hard.

Consider my lawn to be a collection of points, with each point connected to the points closest to it by an edge. Now it's no longer a lawn, it's a planar graph! Thus, we can apply graph theory, and the most efficient way to mow my lawn is the Hamiltonian circuit that starts (and ends) closest to my garage.

You know, for $30 a mow, you can just pay the local lawn guy to do it while you play computer games.

I really should be thinking of it as a Travelling Salesman Problem instead. In that case, I attach a weight to each of the edges in the graph (the length of the edge) and then solve for the shortest tour of the vertices. It's still an NP-complete problem, but now I not only mow each part of the lawn only once, I also travel a minimal distance in doing so. I can't solve it, but if I could it would give me a better answer.

You think about this stuff while vacuuming, too, don't you?

Yes. And mopping the floor. Mopping the floor is easier to visualize because the floor is neatly broken down in to tiles. It's more difficult, however, because you have to take into consideration that you can never stand in a place where you've already mopped.

This is why mathematicians never work as landscapers or housecleaners.

Interestingly, those jobs are often taken by immigrants who speak little or no English, and therefore have better communication skills than most math majors.

It kind of sucks the fun out of things when you make fun of yourself.

It sure does!

Can we talk about toasters now?

No.

Not-So-Long Weekend

This weekend went by faster than a shaved genetically modified rabbit-panther hybrid with turbines attached, driven by an over-caffeinated fighter pilot with a lead foot, all travelling down an icy ski jump in Switzerland, backed by an unusually strong tailwind under better than ideal conditions.

Source: No, I didn't make this up. For those of you who don't live in Comcast country, this is stolen from a particularly amusing commercial.

Explanation: While searching for this commercial online, I found a discussion forum where people were commenting on it. One commentor was upset because "there is no such thing as 'better than ideal conditions.'" He got to the "better than ideal conditions" before he questioned the plausibility of the scenario? Seriously? This is a Giant Nuclear Lizard situation, if ever I've heard one.

I agree. I spent the weekend attaching turbines to a genetically modified rabbit panther hybrid, but I couldn't find a place for the fighter pilot to sit.

You're really making the most of your "Evil Take Time," aren't you?

I sure am. Tonight I'm going to create a mutant strain of bird flu that only infects demon-infested commercial toasters.

That was actually a rhetorical question.

It'll infect them, too.

A Rhetorical Haiku, Of Course

Friday has arrived.
No rhetorical questions.
How will we go on?

Explanation: It's Haiku Friday! With Evil Jeremy out of town, what on earth will we do without Rhetorical Friday? How can we possibly start our weekend without this mainstay of our Friday routine? How could he do this to us?

Should I even dignify this drivel with a response?

Is the Pope Catholic?

Can we talk about toasters now?

No. I will, however, encourage you to check out this xkcd from the other day. It has nothing to do with toasters, but it was really funny.


Now, turn off your computer and get busy enjoying the unofficial start of summer. Have a wonderful long weekend, everybody! See you on Tuesday.

Just Tell Me, Bob!

It's been four seasons and I still have no idea how my mother knows Bob Saget.

Explanation: Season four of How I Met Your Mother has come and gone and I still have no idea how Bob Saget (the narrator) met my mother. How much longer do I have to wait, Bob? I have other things to do on Monday nights, you know. Jeez!

It's Thursday. Why aren't we talking about The Office?

You're still here? We don't talk about The Office on this blog because I do not watch it. I tried really hard to like it, but I just don't appreciate their style of humor. I'm sorry. This blog probably feels like some sort of Bizarro alternate universe to you. You know, kind of like France.

It's kind of like that, only there's less cheese here.

We don't have any blouse-wearing poodle-walkers here either.

Sure. You just keep thinking that.

Oh, I give up.

There! Now it feels exactly like France! Thank you!

Just for you, I did an internet search to see if there was anything out there involving both LEGOs and bird flu. There wasn't. BUT, there is a cool page about LEGO dimensions which includes the FLU, or fundamental LEGO unit. Good stuff.

Can we talk about toasters now?

I still have nothing about toasters per se, but maybe a LEGO waffle will brighten up your morning?

Double Your Vision, Double Your Fun

Mondays suck.
  Mondays suck.

Explanation: Yes, I know it's Wednesday. Before I continue, I should take a moment to introduce a special guest who I ran into at the post office over the weekend.

Is that my cue? Should I say something witty now?

Yes, that's right! On vacation from Evil Jeremy's blag, it's that guy who always talks in italics!

Technically, I'm not on vacation. It's called "Evil Take Time" and I get two weeks of evil time off at one-third the evil pay.

Wow, that sounds like a great deal. We at Jeremy's Status Message are happy that you're spending your extra time with us.

Well, the corporate email did suggest doing charity work...

Good, because you're not getting paid for this. Anyway, back to my story. This past Saturday, I started to feel like my vision was a little bit off. My eyes were both focusing fine individually, but when looking far to my left or right, I noticed that they weren't playing together as nicely as they should. On Sunday it got a little worse. By Monday, I was even seeing double at times. One particularly bad moment, I was trying to merge onto a busy highway. I could close one eye and see perfectly, but depth perception is pretty important when merging.

Today's status message is simply a visual representation of how I would have seen the words "Mondays suck" while also describing how the day went.

I saw a doctor. Apparently a nerve in my right eye isn't working properly. He ordered some lab tests and wants to see me again in two weeks, but in the meantime, should I have a double vision issue again he suggested that I simply close one eye.

Didn't you just say that you already knew that?

Yep. That was a hundred bucks well spent. Double vision sucks.

Well, at least your day wasn't a total waste - Didn't you mention something about seeing the Olsen twins?

It turned out to just be a parking meter.

Bummer. Hey, can we talk about toasters now?

Not now. Maybe tomorrow.

Shawshank You Very Much

I'm Tommy, the new guy. I'm always happy! I know who killed your wife. Isn't that crappy?

Source: This JibJab video, which presents the Shawshank Redemption in about a minute:



Special thanks to Evil Jeremy for sending me this clip.

Perfect Strangeness

Balki Bartokomous, how could you do this to me???

Explanation: Well, the short explanation is that I had a conversation with Evil Jeremy yesterday and that shouldn't happen just as matter and anti-matter should steer clear of each other, and the bad guy in Time Cop should avoid touching his time-traveling self from the future.

The longer explanation is as follows. Evil Jeremy was trying to sell me on hockey, as he is known to do, and I mentioned that hockey people are just silly, citing the fact that Michael J. Fox and Dave Coulier insist on playing hockey at every opportunity in whatever sitcom they happen to be on. As you would imagine, he mentioned Steve Carrell as well. I said, "Like Tony Danza and tap dancing" to which he replied "and Bronson Pinchot talking with a funny accent." Naturally, I responded "Of course, don't be ridiculous!" at which point we agreed that Bronson Pinchot should give up his old voice for good and stick exclusively to the Balki accent. Then a little research on Perfect Strangers turned ugly fast.

As you may recall, Larry and Balki had a coworker named Harriet who eventually was paired with the loveable police officer from Die Hard as part of a spinoff series called Family Matters. Therefore, as far as I'm concerned, Balki Bartokomous is directly responsible for the existence of Steven Urkel. This is sad, sad news. There is no Dance of Joy in me today, folks.

Special Blog Bonus: Evil Jeremy also discovered that the original unaired pilot featured Louie Anderson as Cousin Larry.


How messed up is that? You can read more about the pilot here. In the meantime, here's a clip from the show:

MAD LIBS: My Dog Ate It

It's MAD LIBS week!

Working from Evil Jeremy's living room today because my dog ate it. I can be reached via smoke signals, spanking emu, or Minesweeper.

Source: The words for today's status message were submitted by Evil Jeremy. Of course, his exact words were "Jeremy's living room", implying that he was working in my living room, but that just doesn't make any sense if I post it as a status message. Therefore, I took the liberty of saying "Evil Jeremy's living room", which is just the kind of thing my evil twin would say. PLUS, it has the added bonus of looking like I'm talking about working from HIS living room, because as you probably know by now, we both think the other is the evil one.

Explanation: I'm not totally sure how one communicates by spanking an emu, but I'll just assume that it can be done and not worry about the logistics.

Special Blog Bonus: Evil Jeremy is running a theme week over on his blog, which contains some fun number sequences. Since he gave me my post today, I figure I should point some traffic in his direction.

That's so very kind of you

Yes, I know it is.

Update 2:41PM: Special thanks to Uncle Willie for this image of an emu spanking. And remember kids, Retirement + Photoshop = Dangerous.


Stay tuned for more MAD LIBS tomorrow!