Month: January 2008

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On the Go

Posted on by Jody

I have been downloading a ton and a half of video podcasts now that I have a new iPod nano that shows video. I highly recommend the following free, free, all free, podcasts, available for your viewing enjoyment even as we speak:

  • Discovery Channel Video Podcast
  • Nation Geographic’s Atmosphere
  • Onion News Network (Video)
  • VH1 Best Week Ever
  • Vintage ToonCast

Of these, the Onion News Network wins a prize for blowing me away at the amount of effort put into simulating a CNN-like news network. The “set” and graphics and music and live interviews…holy cow, my hat is off to the guys at the Onion.

VH1 Best Week Ever is cool because it’s almost sort of like “The Soup” Lite. I would love for The Soup to be available as a free podcast. I’m not going to pay for it because I download it to my Tivo, but I don’t always have time to watch it. It is one of my favorite shows, though.

The Discovery Channel Video Podcast gives you behind the scenes and background on bits from some of your favorite Discovery Channel shows. I’m in it for my Mythbusters addiction.

National Geographic’s Atmosphere is just gorgeous footage that basically works as an almost screen saver. If you love stunning footage of nature, this is the podcast to end all podcasts.

Vintage Tooncast – public domain cartoons, and lots of videos flagged as explicit because the content is inappropriate for today’s kidlings. You can imagine some of the images from back in the day all on your own, I’m sure. But if you are like me, the slice of American life seen in some of the old propaganda cartoons is endlessly fascinating. (Side note: A friend of mine just mentioned that a new DVD is coming out with old Sesame Street bits and it’s flagged as being inappropriate for today’s toddlers. I cannot WAIT to get my hands on that.)

I have some footage for a new DumpCast just waiting to be processed this weekend, so keep your eyes peeled for that as well. It’s not quite as good as the ones mentioned above, but they aren’t attempting to be mundane, now, are they? No, I don’t think so.

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What Happens Under the Table Stays Under the Table

Posted on by Jody

Had an interesting few moments at UNO last night for Junior’s birthday dinner. We were sitting in the bar area because Junior and I like to play the trivia game and Mr. Dump wanted to watch the San Diego football game.

For some reason, Step-Junior noticed something under the table that Mr. Dump confirmed was [ewwwww] thong underwear.

There was a thong on the floor under our table.

SO many thoughts on this, I almost had a complete mental shutdown. But in summary, I will stay on the innocent side: how spicy do the buffalo wings have to be that you find yourself removing your underwear to cool off?

And no, we didn’t tell anyone. I wanted the staff to assume they were mine.

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10 Years Ago in BigDumpTruck History

Posted on by Jody

You know, I was all excited about dipping in to the archives to pull out some quotes from 10 years ago, but 10 years ago the Dump was sort of in transition and half the content was hand-edited and some but not all was on blogger, and the end result is that a lot of my content was lost when I moved from my ISP and they deleted a bunch of my files on me before I could copy them. Which is the long, round-about way of saying “Happy 10th Birthday” to Junior, who made his first appearance on “Mookie’s Driver Training Page” way back in the day. (Those pages are, sadly, part of history.)

If any of you are obsessed fans who laboriously saved every word I wrote to your hard drive, I’d be more than happy to have a copy of the archives. You know, as long as it wouldn’t involve me having to have personal contact with anyone who would have laboriously saved every word I wrote to their hard drive.

Junior and Step-Junior went for a morning of skiing with Mr. Dump, who will just be watching. I am as sick as a dog today, and am hoping to feel good enough to continue the birthday celebrations after they get home near lunchtime. Wish me luck!

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How Can I Be Sure It’s a New Year

Posted on by Jody

I did not realize I forgot to post my New Year’s Eve story. I apologize for making you wait so long. The shame of it all!

But seriously, Mr. Dump and Junior and I stayed home. Step-Junior went out to dinner with some friends but was home by 10-ish. We stayed up to watch the ball drop, our only snack companion some cheese and crackers, and onion dip and chips. (I think I may have out-grown onion dip. Seriously. 4 or 5 chips and I was done).

The men-folk wanted to watch some true-crime thing on the History Channel, but that is not really festive, if you ask me. We ended up watching a DVD of Will Ferrell’s “greatest” SNL bits. (I have a hard time believing some of the ones chosen were the best he did in 7 years with SNL, but I did not produce the dvd.)

At about 5 minutes of midnight we put the tv back on network television so we could watch the ball drop. We watch the countdown, 5. 4. 3. *click* We’re suddenly watching something on I think the Discovery Channel.

So we missed moment the ball finished dropping. We rang in the New Year with completely puzzled looks on our faces. Now we have a Tivo, and it automatically records things that we ask it to, but there is some kind of bug with ours because it’s SUPPOSED to ask us if we want to cancel the pending recording and stay on what we’re watching, but it only does that I’d say 30% of the time now. Often it will just unceremoniously dump you into a new program. Picture the famous “Heidi Bowl” football game from 1968 – with 64 seconds left in the game, the network cut to a showing of the movie Heidi and anyone watching on television missed a 14 point comeback. Our Tivo often “Heidi”s us, often at very inappropriate times.

So we missed the actual moment it became 2008. So did it happen?

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