The Big DumpTruck

Thank God it's already Tuesday, that's all I have to say.

Interesting thing about this waterlogged month: Even on days that were relatively nice this weekend, it rained at least once. I'm wondering how many days DIDN'T have at least a little sprinkle this May. I know this morning I was rained on walking from the parking garage to work.

As for our weekend movie making - we kind of got distracted with other things and I didn't get a chance to work on my own movie. Actually, when Junior got up Sunday morning he told Mr. Dump, "If I ever make a movie, I'm going to call it The Attack of the People Named Frank Johnson" so that is the name of the movie that I am working on. Currently, we have several Frank Johnsons lined up, all of them located one toy box or another.

Had the opportunity today to make an official visit to what remains of the amusement park *I* was supposed to own someday (by invitation of someone with keys and permission to be there). I took my camera with me. The very sad photos are located in this album.

Now that Oliver Stone has been arrested for DUI, it's up to the Big DumpTruck to find some way to fill your movie live. Presenting some of the very first movies made by our family.

This first entry was created entirely by my step-son Jon, who obviously has quite a future ahead of him.


Kung Foo Slug (a 1.5meg QuickTime movie)

Joan's been talking to a Slinky. (Actually, this was published a while ago and I just forgot to copy it here.)

Okay, we've done the Pork Rind experiment. And for the record, Bill, I'm not going to do a comparison between the kind you buy in the grocery store and the kind you buy in a pet store. I'll leave that in your capable hands.

I guess the two snack foods that come to mind are Funyons, and those little puffy thingies for which Andy Capp is the spokesmodel. Does Andy Capp still exist? Does anyone carry that anymore? For you kids out there, Andy Capp is/was a comic strip. Basically he was always drunk, smoking a butt, and playing snooker. And his wife would threaten to beat him with a rolling pin. Ahhhh, the classic days of comedy. Is there anything funnier than a drunk snooker-playing smoker? I think not.

So anyway, there was or is some snack out there with him on the bag. I believe this is because the shape of the snack food very closely resembles the cigarette always hanging off his lip. That's the only real connection I can make. Oh here, they are made by ConAgra. And available at fine gas stations everywhere. (Wow, a quick glance through the brands they own shows quite a few that are staples at my house. Gulden's Spicy Brown Mustard, for example, is the only brand of mustard we buy. Period. Don't bring your yellow crap into my house, thank you.)

Okay, so any others to add to the list? And this time, I'll take pictures.

I remember way very long ago (back in April) I brought up the subject of pork rinds. I had never eaten one, which I don't think is unusual. I'm going to guess if I polled 100 random people, 99 of them would say they'd never had one.

Last Friday I was at the Victory/Hannaford (dammit, it will always be Victory to me) on Lancaster Street, picking up a few things for dinner, and ran into a group of Leominster Firemen who were buying snacks or something. One of them had a bag of pork rinds, which just seemed strange to me, but who am I to question a fireguy?

But that made me think about them again. So last night, my sister was hosting a Party Lites party (really awesome candles - you should buy some) and I was asked to stop and pick up something she'd forgotten, and I made a decision. In an effort to make her look bad, I would sneak a bag of pork rinds and some Yoohoo onto the snack table for all her guests to see.

I had no trouble with the Pork Rinds (which in this case, was called straightforward "Pork Skin" because really, rinds? You aren't fooling anyone) but I'll be darned if the hoity toity Donelans in Littleton [waves to Chuck] carries YooHoo. Snobs.

Anyhoo...my sister just rolled her eyes and was refusing to open it, so The Amazing Bob grabbed the bag and ripped it open. Oh. My. God. My sister grabbed her nose and yelled "It smells like fish food" and she was ever so right. Good God, somewhere in the back of my head I was thinking it might smell like bacon. You know, because it's made of pig. But no, this was one of the most vile smelling things ever. I took a nibble out of one, realized it doesn't taste like anything at all, and we sealed up the bag and put it in her garage. I'm sure she's SO happy with me for contaminating her home with those things.

Lord knows why it smells like fish food, but I can't imagine working in the factory where these things are made. And what's the deal with the complete lack of any flavor at all? It's like eating packing peanuts. If I'm going to eat something that unhealthy, it should taste like something, for goodness' sake!

So there you have it. No more burning urge to ever ever ever try a pork rind again. Ever.

I get spam, as you can imagine. Having had my own website since 96, my address has been out and about for a long, long time. A long time. I've been getting spam since before some of you knew what a URL was.

But there are some items that get offered via email that just don't work for me. As in, I wouldn't ever respond to an email offering these items, even if I was stupid enough to buy anything someone tried to sell me in an unsolicited email. So this list is things sold via email, and things offered via email, meaning it might be the bonus gift you get for doing something else.

• Underwear. Luckily, they haven't been trying this one for a while.
• Peach Cobbler. I have no idea what the story is behind this one, but last week I got junk mail offering me free peach cobbler (I don't think it was just a recipe. I believe it was the cobbler itself). I can't think of anything I'd like less than peach cobbler mailed to me by someone I've never heard of.
• Watches. Oh, right, it's a real Rolex.
• Designer sunglasses. Aside from wondering why people need designer sunglasses in the first place (I mean, other than for people who find themselves on the other end of the papparazzi's cameras), who would buy them from someone sending out a random email?

Does anyone see these emails and not think "Gee, I'll bet there's some law enforcement-type person just waiting to nail me for buying illegal product, including illegal drugs." Cause I really want to smack the people who are giving credit card numbers to these people. Seriously.

But more than anything, I want more information about the peach cobbler. I'm a little hungry right now.

It's time for that regular Big DumpTruck feature: How to Be Like Jody. If you buy the following products/do the following things, you can be just like me. Isn't that the goal of each and every one of my faithful readers? Yes, I thought so.

1. Honey Nut Chex Mix. I love this stuff. I could inhale it by the bagful, and this weekend, I almost did. There is something supremely addicting about the salti-sweetness of this product. Don't get me wrong, regular Chex Mix is good, but it's nowhere NEAR as good as the honey nut kind. Don't be confused by the caramel one (I think that's what it was...I have never tried it); to be like Jody you must go for honey nut.

2. Viva paper towels. These are the official paper towels of the Big DumpTruck. I got hooked on these when Junior was a baby and they were the recommended brand if you were going to try to make your own baby wipes. They are VERY VERY SOFT. In fact, my step-daughter actually asked me what brand they were last week. She also wanted to know what brand of toilet paper I buy.

3. Angel Soft double rolls

4. Shaws Brand dryer sheets. I guess this only works for people who live within listening distance of a Shaws. I cannot say for certain if Star Market brand is the same (I know they are owned by the same company). Shaws brand is all that and a bag of Honey Nut Chex Mix.

So there you go, a few things to set you on your way to Jodyness. Watch this space for even more helpful hints in the future!

Sorry, didn't mean to leave you in the lurch for the past few days. I'm sure you were able to find other ways to fill the one minute of the day you usually spend here, so for that, I am thankful. If you did spend a lot of time just sitting at the computer and hitting the refresh button on the browser, well, maybe you can email me offline and I can recommend some hobbies.

Not much exciting in Jodyland. I'm still grumpy about the 3-season room. I know what you're thinking, you're thinking "get over your damned self" but I had kind of had it in my head as a done deal, so that is annoying. I need to undo what's in my head. Do you know how much work that is? The paperwork alone will kill you, never mind the calls to the cerebral cortex and the begging and the tears. Anyway, suffice it to say I drowned my sorrows in the JC Penny shoe department. I only got to pair of clearance shoes, but that feels so decadent to me. Of course, they were summer shoes and today it's not even supposed to hit 50, so I can't wear them. That also makes me grumpy. Do you see a pattern?

I am the kind of person who is into instant gratification. There is another project-y thing in the works, that I'm not privvy to talk about, but I have no clue what the time frame is right now, and it's just making me crazy. I need to follow up with some of the key players to get a better sense of the timeframe or I may have to go out and buy more shoes. Nuff said.

So, what did you guys spend all your sunroom money on this weekend?

I was just thinking how sad it is that there aren't any big splashy movies opening this weekend...

Hey, on that topic, have you checked out [Grocery] Store Wars yet? VERY funny, very well done. I can't imagine what they are going to be charged by their hosting company for all the people who will go to watch this thing.

Personally, I don't know if I'll be seeing that Sithy movie any time soon. Does that make me a bad person? By my count, I've seen 1, 4 and 5. I wouldn't mind seeing this one, but because it's not appropriate for Junior (I hear it earns it's PG13 and then some) it is a much bigger production to get out of the house to see it. Plus there are still a couple of movies that I wanted to see that I haven't. I'm not sure if any theaters are actually showing movies other than SWIII. If I owned a theater, I probably wouldn't.

I'm still not over my overwhelming sadness about the whole sunroom thing. Just in case you thought I'd forgotten.

The sunroom guy came out today, to measure stuff, show pictures, and give us a quote. And what a quote it was! Holy crap, I really really really want this room, but the quote was about 6000 more than the ballpark price that was 4000 higher than I'd hoped. So for those of you who failed 2nd grade math, it's about 10,000 more than I want to pay for a room.

I'm very sad.

Very very sad.

Any of you have an extra sunroom you don't want any more?

Getting in on a web meme a few billion years late, I just visited NameVoyager and started poking around to see trends in names. My name? Not even in the top 1000 baby names (for boys or girls) in 2003. Not with any spelling. It peaked in the 70's, being 174th most popular name for girls, 204th for boys. I'm shocked by that. I know very few people named Jody (as opposed to people using Jody as a nickname.)

My sister's name was the *7th* most popular girls name of the 50s! It had dropped all the way to 23rd by the 70s, and now her spelling, like mine, isn't even a blip on the radar. So I don't need any smart comments from her.

Just for fun, "Junior" ranks higher than "Jody." Not as high as his real name, but I'm fascinated that there are people out there actually giving a wee bitty baby the legal first name "Junior." It boggles.

I have a ridiculous ear worm stuck in my head right now. And because I love all of you, and to punish you for not working harder to make me the Voice of My Generation, I am going to share it with you.

"I Like 'Em Big and Stupid" by Julie Brown. And no, I have no idea why that is in my head. I think it may be time to pull out the Archos to listen to something else. Maybe try to reclaim my youth by listening to Jesse McCartney. Should I be embarrassed to say that I like his stuff? Well too bad. I do.

It's only Tuesday. Oy.

To celebrate 12 years of wedded bliss (*snort*) yesterday, we all went bowling. And because it was a special occasion, we didn't go to our typical candlepin bowling alley (for the rest of the country - those are the little balls, three per-frame), no indeed, we went to Gardner Ten Pin.

And as I flung my big pink ball down the lane, I couldn't help but wonder: is there anything more annoying than hanging your thumbnail ripped off because the thumb hole on your bowling ball isn't the right size?

I would be remiss if I didn't point out that Junior whooped our butts. Sure, he had bumpers, but his score on the 2nd string was 133. I was the only other person to break 100, with 115. First string my total was only 85. 133! Mommy's little bowler!

7:30 on a Sunday night...isn't that just the worst time of day of the whole week? Enough time for you to think "What can I squeeze in before I have to go to bed" and not enough time to actually do something. And so it goes, another weekend spirals down the drain. Wheeeeeeee!

Yesterday was a good day...the step kids were up and thank God for that. My step-daughter helped me run my game booth at the lawn party, and I can't even fathom what I would have done without her help. It really was a 2-person game. I'm going to mention that to them for next year's planning. And then noon rolled around and nobody showed up to relieve us. At 12:15 they finally just shut down our game (I have no idea for how long) because I really couldn't stay there any longer. I was starving and had to go to the bathroom. Not necessarily in that order.

Then after we all kind of passed out for a while, we all went to eat at the Japanese steakhouse part of Chopsticks. It was a sacrifice on the parts of Junior and his brother cause they don't like that food so much. Except actually, Junior did eat some of the chicken, which pleased me, and a few bites of rice. I looked at the $11.00 for his meal as being better than paying a babysitter. Plus they all had a blast - what's not to love about food being prepared in front of you? This was actually where I wanted to go for dinner to celebrate our anniversary, and because it was a kid weekend, we really had to go somewhere with everyone. I'm so glad they were willing to go. It was a great meal.

After that, we headed over to Tri-Town Drive-In to see Kicking and Screaming. It was pretty good; there were some genuinely funny parts, but it wasn't as drop-dead funny that I thought it could be. I'd see it again, but hey, by going to the drive-in to see it at $15 a carload with 5 people is not shabby. If you go, just remember the bug spray. It's nasty outside at night without it.

I'm off to work a game book at the elementry school's lawn party today. The weather is questionable...I'm hoping that I'll be inside somewhere because spending the next two hours standing outside in the dank air doesn't thrill me.

But it's only two hours, and Mr. Crunchy's wife (Mrs. Crunchy?) is doing the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer this weekend. I know some of you sponsored my sister when she did this walk last year - thanks again for that. So if you hadn't already sponsored someone and were looking to, why not visit her pledge page and throw a few bucks her way? Every dollar helps, and whether you are a billionaire (I'm sure I've got a lot of billionaires reading my site every day. That's what gets me through my morning, really. That and tea. And pastry. But mostly the thought that billionaires are fans of mine), or like me, aren't quite in that tax bracket.

In other news...Junior spent all day yesterday throwing up. He was up at 5am on the potty with a "bad belly" but we thought he got rid of it. The school called at 10am to tell me he'd, you know, in his classroom. I got him and he spent from 10:30 or so to 9pm randomly napping and throwing up. That was fun. And this morning, we were awakened by the sound of the electric substation down the street blowing up. BOOOOOM. At quarter of six. So Junior runs in to tell us his belly feels better. At quarter of six. And step-son runs in to tell us the electricity is out. At quarter of six.

Did I mention I've been up since quarter of six?

Nobody from Hollywood has called regarding my show idea from yesterday. I wonder what the problem is?

I thought I'd illustrate for you how my brain jumped from topic A to topic Z. I know this happens to other people, but I'm not here to talk about other people, am I?

Okay, so in the car this morning, WXLO interviewed a comedian who I guess had some connection to the show "This Old House" that ended badly. Or something.

1. This Old House. On Patriot's Day, we took the long way back to my sister's house from Lexington and passed the This Old House house in Carlysle. There are big "no parking" signs all over the place.
   
2. They are selling tickets to tour the This Old House house on Ticketmaster. It's $12 for an adult. I have no idea what they are showing you that is worth twelve bucks. If Norm wasn't there I'd demand my money back. I should go to tell them we used the B-Dry company to waterproof our basement.
   
3. I'm sure they'd care who we used for waterproofing.
   
4. Do they always sell tickets, or is this something the owner is doing? Is this how they can afford to pay for custom molding?
   
5. I haven't watched This Old House in a long time. We used to watch it. There were a couple of houses that we actually watched beginning to end. One house was in Sudbury. One was in Acton - I think it was yellow. And a Cambridge house with almost no yard. I remember when they left New England and did west-coast houses. They also went to Hawaii.
   
6. The Hawaii show was cool. I remember that I didn't like the homeowner. I wonder if you can hire someone to pretend to be you, on the off chance you are normally obnoxious. The camera adds 10 pounds and doubles obnoxiousness.
   
7. They took a field trip to visit a mansion in Hawaii. The television came up out of the floor. That was cool. I think we should do that.
   
8. I remember they had a kind of "culture shock" when faced with the building difficulties in Hawaii. You have to ship materials in and construction debris out. Very expensive. And there was the whole "look, no insulation" factor - it was really odd, coming from New England, to see that as long as the wall is nailed up, it meets code. I think part of the house had barely more than a plywood exterior wall - because that's all it needed.
   
9. Our shed is like that. It would be like living in our shed. That would be cool to order a shed from Home Depot and taa-daa, your new house is here. Where would you like us to put it?
   
10. I wonder if you could live in a shed. Not in the winter, obviously.
    Our shed is probably the size of Henry Thoreau's cabin on Walden Pond. [ed: I looked it up, it was 10x15, so larger than the shed] How much stuff could I fit in our shed? I don't think a bed would even fit.
    
11. Maybe a television producer should make a reality show with someone live in a shed in the middle of the woods.
    
12. Thoreau wasn't completely alone, and did odd jobs to earn money, so I don't know how they'd handle that. They'd have to make the contestant walk 2 miles to a fake "town" to find odd jobs. So you could buy meat that you'd have to cook over an open fire because there is no room for a stove in your shed.
    
13. Odd jobs. Not odd but random. Although maybe now, those same jobs would be odd odd jobs.
    

At this point I arrived at work. So if any tv producers want to use my shed-in-the-woods idea, you can send the check to this address.

[update: changes complete. Thank you for your patience.]

Just a heads up that if you are reading this on Tuesday, you may not see any commenting links on the page. I have to temporarily disable them on all pages so that I can block them altogether on the January and February pages. After weeks, nay, months of not dealing with comment spam, they appear to be hitting my January archive page with a vengeance. No, I don't need any tips for winning at roulette. Here's how to win at roulette: don't play. Every dollar you don't bet becomes a win for you. See how helpful I can be? Someone should nominate me for a Nobel Prize or something.

Hopefully I can do this quickly, and get comments back up for at least the May page(s). I don't have FTP access from work, so I may not get to fix April and March until tonight. If I remember.

*sigh*

You see what I do for you people?

Mother's Day is over. Another 364 days of not being able to say things like "You do it, I'm just going to relax here on the couch and enjoy my special day." Cause really, is there a better day to guilt the family into doing grunt work? "I'm sorry, I don't cook or clean on mother's day. You'll have to figure something out."

We had a low key day, if low key includes having two different meals with 9 people at each - one at the Westminster Country Club (breakfast) and the other at Carrabbas in Tyngsboro (amazing Italian food - I was shocked to learn it is a chain.)

Now it's Monday. I dislike Mondays. Unless they are holidays, then they are good. Three weeks till the next one of those.

p.s. Have I previously mentioned that my kid is a fussy eater? As in, has waffles for breakfast 6 days a week (pancakes on the 7th) and would eat pasta with red sauce for every other meal if we didn't for chicken (nuggets) and rice or fries on him once in a while? Salad (his first green veggies since baby food!) was recently added. Anyway, fussypants was sitting next to me while we were all sampling the calamari at Carrabbas, and my nephew tried the spicy sauce. Junior said he'd try one...with the spicy sauce. After they revived me, I tried to act low key, especially when he ate a 2nd one with the red sauce. It was an Invasion of the Body Snatchers moment.

It's 6:30am. Your son makes gagging noises in the bathroom.

You: What's wrong?
Him: I just saw something disgusting
You: Where?
Him: In my underpants

(So...many...jokes...must...resist...)

Aw, baby's first skid marks! (Well, the first ones he's noticed, anyway.) Maybe other moms get breakfast in bed, but why go that old cliched route?

Went to look at some sunrooms today. I saw one I really liked, but it's oh, 5k more than I wanted to spend. Not even "wanted" to, more like "can". So now I'm kind of bummed and I'm trying to figure out how I can make this all work.

We have a company coming out on Thursday to show us theirs and do all the measuring stuff. I believe they are less expensive, but I can't remember if there were some significant issues I had with the actual product. It's hard to look at all this stuff at a homeshow, when there are a bunch of people selling the same product.

So, feel free to paypal me thousands of dollars. That would be dandy. I'll invite you over for hummus and smoothies in the new room.

Oh contraire. But I'm going to take a break from the professional bowling tour (I'm a groupie, you know. Go Pink Ladies!)

This weekend just looks so delightful. Raining and windy and....40? Gah. Time to stock up on comfort foods, methinks. I guess this will be the third week we don't have baseball practice. It's going to really start hurting them if they're playing teams that actually get a chance to practice. We have a couple of kids who really need that time to work on the right way to swing the bat, etc. You can't practice that when you're at the plate in the middle of a game.

On the way out of the house I noticed something in one of the trees and went over to look. Ick...the entire thing is covered with gypsy moth caterpillars. It sort of freaked me out. This tree will probably be stripped bare by the time I get home tonight, and I didn't have time to "do" anything with them. Not that I knew what to do, but I was thinking of just picking them all off and putting them in something and then blowing that something to kingdom come. Only slightly kidding.

My fear is them going after one of our "good" trees. This one is kind of the scrub that grows up in the uncleared area, so while I'm not happy, it's not a big loss. But I have trees I want them to stay AWAY from, and I have to figure out how to make that happen (if it's even possible.)

Okay, so I got bitter and disowned the Prince company when they discontinued their line of sauces. The big jerks. I felt obligated to leave them in the lurch the way they left me, and now I'm a Barilla pasta devotee. Sorry Prince, we're going to have to take back Wednesday from you. Tell Anthony Martinetti it's over. For good.

And while I'm at it, I'm disowning Kansas for electing a bunch of mouth-breathing morons to the State School Board. If I had my way, we'd be back to 49 states. And Alabama, I'd be happy to move back to 48. You'd better watch that creationism crap.

While I wait for Cmonks to notice we're blogfighting, I'll get back to the mundane...

Mr. Dump and I have been throwing around the idea of replacing our deck with a 3-season room. I think I've mentioned this before. If I haven't, well, there you go. So we're still in the "can we afford this" stage because basically we're in a "cash only" mode these days, and the first quote we got, which was for something not prefab, was a little higher than I'd hoped. So we'd kind of backburnered the thing, given that I'm not going to start that kind of project until my contract is renewed for another six months (due up in June). And then Junior asked us when our new room would be done. I'm not sure where the sudden interest came from, but hey, he's a voting member of the Big DumpTruck Management Team, right? So soon after the conversation where we had to explain that it takes a lot of money to turn your deck into a room, the pre-fab people actually called back. So I have one of them coming out a week from Thursday. I still have to call back the other company. I can't remember which one is which from the Home Show in Fitchburg a couple of months ago. One of them was much less expensive than the others, but I was a little less sure I liked the way theirs looked. But what if it's a case of "good enough and we can have it this year" or "wait until next year for one that's only a little bit better" when better is relative?

So kids, anyone out there have ANY experience with having a 3 season room/enclosed porch/screen room/patio enclosure (pick a name, any name) done up here in the Leominster area? Does a neighbor have one? Are you/they happy they did it? Would you/they suggest one company over another?

Thank you for your prompt assistance. Also, any patio enclosure company that wishes to knock $3000 off the installed price can get free advertising on this site for the next 3 years! Whatta Deal!

I'm in a really foul mood right now. You see, CMonks of Utter Wonder decided to stop writing his fake blog, I'm Stuck in Rehab with Pat O'Brien, which may be one of the stupidest moves in the history of stupid moves. I mean, c'mon, what kind of ass stops writing something that good just because it was cutting into his XBox time? Huh? Huh? The big hulking jerk....why, why, why I declare a blog war against the big dummy! That's it! So go over to his post right here and leave him a message about what a big dummy he is. (No really, go ahead and do it. To the post I linked to, please. And don't forget to mention where you're coming from, but type it slowly so he'll understand). Also, don't forget to mention how he cheats at Hungry Hungry Hippos like a teeeny weeenie baby.

I "May" try to avoid all May puns in blog entry titles, but it "May" be really hard for me to do so. *Knee slap*

Hey, some random updates and thoughts and maybe a brag:

• Junior's running problem? Somehow, last week, he figured it out. So now he runs fast and looks fairly normal doing it. I have no idea what clicked or when (I think it was at aftercare but he says nobody was helping him) but I can cross that off our to-do list.
• They had the Little League Opening Ceremony on Saturday in the rain. Well, at least it's over with. It was actually really nice, and kind of cool to see just how many kids are involved. The funny thing was that they call all the kids names one at a time and they run across the field, and then they name the coaches, who join them. So I'm standing there with my video camera when....they call my name as a coach. See, I gave them my name so they could do the CORY [background] check to allow me to go out on the field and interact with the kids, and apparently that makes me a "coach". Color me surprised!
• I made hummus. I made hummus and salsa and about 10 fruit smoothies this weekend. I am the proud new owner of one of those unfortunately named "Magic Bullet" food processor thingies. We need to do more work on the salsa, as it was good but a little too mushed for my liking, and missing something that I can't quite place (maybe a splash of lime juice?) The hummus rocks and I'm mad at myself because I forgot to take some to work today. Grrr.
• Here is the recipe for my new favorite smoothie (which Mr. Dump totally invented on his very own): 1 cup ice, one of those little single-serving cups of diced peaches and one of pineapple (both with the juice) and two tablespoons of vanilla no-fat yogurt. Whirl that puppy and suck it down. (The M-B makes single-servings of smoothy, so if you are stuck with one of those $300 Vitamixes, you'll just have to adjust to fit your needs. It's like 140 calories total for the fruit, and what, another 50 or so for the yogurt, max? I could lose a lot of weight if I just lived on these things. They are filling. (Mr. Dump added a pinch of sugar to his to balance out the yogurt. Your call.)