Reality JG: Airwolf

Jamie and AG are riding in the car listening to a 1999 broadcast of The Howard Stern Show. Howard is talking to Jan-Michael Vincent’s girlfriend about the deteriorating state of Vincent’s health.

AG: Who’s Jan-Michael Vincent?

JG: You know. He was in Airwolf.

(there is a brief pause)

AG: Airwolf? What did they sing?

JG: …

(end scene)

Thoughts and Prayers: Skip Prosser

The blizzog joins many in mourning the loss of Wake Forest basketball coach Skip Prosser, who died today in his office of an apparent heart attack.

If you read anything about Coach Prosser you’ll find that he was a well-respected man who got into coaching the hard way: through the high school ranks. As opposed to many guys who start their careers as college assistants because they are former alums, Prosser put his time in as a very successful high school coach in Wheeling, West Virginia before working his way through the collegiate ranks. I’ve always thought that was pretty cool.

Wake Forest and the ACC have lost one of the good ones. Thoughts and prayers to Coach Prosser’s family and the extended Wake Forest family. This season won’t be the same without him.

The Other Jamie Gaines

We just got back from a kick-ass weekend in Ohio celebrating Ashley’s birthday with family and friends. (Save your “‘kick-ass Ohio weekend’ is an oxymoron” cracks, you wiseacres.) I’m way behind on posting pictures of our various adventures on my Flickr account, so I’ll try to get some stuff up soon for those that have been asking for it.

Until then, I’ll tide you over with this story. I’m catching up on my various email accounts today, and I come to a thread titled “PCB” on my Gmail account that has about 7 messages in it. This is the first message, sent to me and about seven other people.

Hi! So it sounds like everyone needs to be home on by Monday… So that works out great!

Do we know the final count that is coming? I know Jamie Gaines, Vince and Matt are now coming too. Is Molly?

The keys to the place are getting sent to matt’s house this week. I will get everyone directions. What time do ya’ll want to leave next Thursday? I fly home that day, so will get on whatever flight is convenient for our departure. Also, what time do we start that Friday?

Enough questions for now… I’m sure I’ll think of more soon! Oh, as far as food, should we just make a big list and buy groceries there? I know we sill have over a week, but am so excited!

At this point I’m pretty excited too. I’m clearly getting ready to go on another trip, which is always fun. The only problem is that I have no idea who the hell any of these people are.

It became clear pretty quickly that these nice folks had mistaken my email address for some other Jamie Gaines who gets to go on a fun trip next weekend. Lucky other Jamie Gaines.

The rest of the emails are all from various people in the list regarding what time they are getting to the rental place and what time they are going home, etc. Once I figured out that I wasn’t being spammed or Punk’d, I wrote this message back to the group.

Hi, there.

I have no idea who any of you people are. I think you have my email address confused with that of some other Jamie Gaines, who is apparently going on a cool vacation with you soon.

As much as I would like to go, you should probably send your emails to the real Jamie Gaines - well, at least your real Jamie Gaines - so he or she can go on this fun trip. Otherwise I’m going to show up, which would be pretty awkward at first seeing how none of us have ever met.

Perhaps your Jamie Gaines’ email address is [an email address kinda like mine]@gmail.com, and not [my email address]@gmail.com like mine is.

Oh, well. Have fun on your trip!

- “The Other” Jamie Gaines

So then I get back this response from one of the girls on the list.

Wow….Another Jamie Gaines?! I don’t know if the world is ready for that!

So….Are you single?

This is getting interesting. This girl sounds hot. Of course, I think that about all girls who ask if I’m single. That may sound like shallow praise until you consider that the only time I get asked if I’m single anymore is when I’m filling out a credit application, so this is special.

Anyway, sensing from the emails that this is a fun group of people pretty much like my friends, I sent one more response back.

I know. I was just as shocked as you to learn of this other Jamie Gaines, though I think the world can probably handle both of us. After all, you can never have too many devastatingly attractive, utterly hilarious, and extremely intelligent people to hang out with, and I’m sure your Jamie Gaines must be all those things. How could he (or she) not be? By the way, is your Jamie a guy or a girl? I’m a guy Jamie.

And, alas… I am married, but my wife loves to travel also and I’m sure that y’all would just love her. I’ll see if she wants to go on our trip. We live in Greensboro, North Carolina. Since I Google-stalked all of your email addresses earlier to make sure I wasn’t being Punk’d, I’m guessing that most of you live in Atlanta, a relatively short drive from our house.

We have a bunch of friends in Atlanta, so I’ll make sure I let you know when we’re coming to visit next time. We can throw back some drinks, plan our next fabulous vacation together, and find out if a bar will explode with awesomeness from the sheer power of two Jamie Gaines’ in one place, as I’ve long suspected it would.

Have fun on our trip. You’ll have to send me some pictures so I know how much fun we had. I’ll post them on my blog at… you guessed it: www.JamieGaines.com - and tell everyone about what a killer time I had with my new best friends from Atlanta.

Enjoy your vacation, and thanks for the chuckle on an otherwise lame Monday.

- “The Other” Jamie Gaines

Anyway, I thought this was all pretty humorous. Jamie as a first name and Gaines as a last name aren’t terribly common, and the two together are even less common, so I’ve always thought it would be interesting to meet someone who shared my name.

Maybe someday I’ll get to meet the ATL JG. Come to think of it, I should start trying to track down all the Jamie Gaines’. We could start our own club. Now I definitely don’t think the world is ready for that.

Stupid Mozy Image

Marketing people amuse me. Last week I came across this image on Mozy.com while searching for online backup providers.

This is the button that you’d click if you want to sign up for their unlimited service. I can’t imagine many people click on it. I didn’t. Would you?

There’s something about that dude holding the iPod up in front of his face that screams, “Look! I’m incredibly stupid! This iPod is my magical pirate eye patch. ARRRRRR! See? I’m a pirate with an iPod eye patch, and that makes me grin like an idiot. Sign up for Mozy.”

Brilliant.

Animal Revolution

I think we might all be in big trouble.

While driving home from the gym this morning, I passed a deer on the very edge of the road. Now deer aren’t terribly uncommon around here, but when you do see them, they are usually running away from. Not this one. She was just chilling by the side of the road, half-heartedly grazing, but mostly just watching the traffic go by like it was her job. She seemed to look right at me as I drove by, bobbing her head ever so slightly upward as if to say, “Sup, playa?”.

The whole scene was strange, but I blew it off. She was probably sick, or injured, or got into some bad meth or something, right? Who knows? I was ready to forget the whole thing when I came upon a rabbit along the side of the road. He was doing the same thing: just sitting there, watching the cars go by. The rabbit wasn’t playing it as cool as the deer was. He had a shifty look in his eyes, like he was up to no good. You know how rabbits are.

I thought it was odd to see two different animals doing pretty much the same thing within a mile of each other, but I still didn’t think much of it until I saw the ground hog. Standing by the road. Watching the cars go by. Now this is definitely nothing new in our neck of the woods. There are tons of ground hogs around here that like to hang out by the road. And where a deer or rabbit might usually run away, with a ground hog it’s 50/50. Sometimes they’ll run, but sometimes they’ll just take a step forward and flex on you, like, “What? What you lookin’ at, bitch? I’ll kick your punk ass if you don’t keep driving that car and get the hell up out of here.” You know how ground hogs can be.

So at this point my rationalization engines are in full gear. I have a meth-addled deer, most likely a scared rabbit, and a ground hog just doing his thing. All standing by the road. All watching the cars go by. All things that I could easily explain away… at least until I saw the duck.

The duck was standing no more than 10 feet from the ground hog. Standing by the road. Watching the cars go by. To my knowledge, ground hogs and ducks are not historically homies. Ground hogs like to sit by the road and chew on rocks and flex on cars as they roll by. Ducks like to swim around and dress up like sailors and speak with a lisp and have best friends that are giant talking mice. You know how ducks roll.

So why would a duck be hanging out with a ground hog, standing by the road, watching the cars go by? And why would they both be doing the exact same thing as the bunny and the deer no less than a mile away?

I’ll tell you why: I think we’re about to be attacked. I think that there’s been a wildlife revolution brewing for years and now it’s upon us. All of nature’s critters are tired of being pushed around by us humans, and now it’s time for a little payback. I think the four animals I drove past this morning weren’t just random varmints, but rather the front line in a new war; a war the likes of which we’ve never seen.

I’m kinda freaked out. I didn’t even talk to my guinea pig when I got back to my house. We’ve started putting up this little tent thing in the corner of his cage so he can have some privacy, and I’m scared that he might be hiding a Glock or a switchblade or something in there. You know how guinea pigs do.

No, I came right home and started writing this blizzog post to warn you, the fair and gentle blizzog reader, of the impending animal revolution. Prepare to meet your new beast overlords!