The Big DumpTruck

Throwing Little Thought Pebbles at Your Windshield Since 1996

Category: lists

So You Want To Be a Superhero

Welcome to lesson one of the self-paced training session “So You Want To Be a Superhero”. This course consists of 25 lessons, which should be completed in numbered order. You should never attempt to jump to Lesson 15, Stopping a Moving Vehicle with Your Feet” until after you complete Lesson 5, “Verifying Your Personal Strength Limits” and Lesson 9, “Are You Invincible?”

WE CANNOT STRESS HIGHLY ENOUGH THAT SKIPPING LESSONS MAY CAUSE BLISTERING, HEARING LOSS AND/OR DEATH.

Also, lesson-skippers will be blacklisted at the Justice League of America and superhero employment opportunities will simply not be available to you.

Lesson 1: Introduction to Superheroing

Many people who sign up for this class are under the mistaken impression that just about anyone can be a superhero. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not everyone can be a superhero. Some people can’t even be heroes without proper adult supervision.

Here are some questions we would like you to consider before you continue on with your lessons:

Am I Likable?
While not a requirement, it really does help you run your superhero empire if people naturally like you. If you are hateable, people will question your motives, and are likely to try to sue you for the damage you’ll do in the line of duty. Put a whole in a building to stop bank robbers and a likable hero will get a medal. An unlikable one will get a bill for repairs.

 What is My Motivation?
Did bad guys do you wrong? Are you trying to avenge something? Or are you taking this class because you hate math and thought it would be a good way to get on television? Being a superhero is not easy. You’re never fully off duty. You want to go on vacation to the Grand Canyon? You’ll probably spend your time there preventing some villain from trying to fill it with quick-drying cement.

How will I look in Spandex?
This question should not be ignored. Superheroes are attention magnets. You will receive lots of press exposure, and looking good is part of the gig. Nobody wants to be rescued by a guy with a beer belly stretching the limits of his uniform. Are you willing to commit to do the work it takes to keep the spandex lump-free?

 Do You Overheat Easily?
How do you handle warm weather? Do you sweat a lot, get a red face and just generally feel miserable when you get warm? Go get a refund on this course right now. Almost all superheros have alter-egos to hide their true identity. Those alter-egos are nice normal people who wear nice normal clothing. You, however, will be wearing the equivalent of long underwear under your street clothes 24 hours a day. Do you know how hot that can get? Try putting on a shirt and pants over that uniform. Layers suck in the summer. You cannot get away from it, because you need to be in uniform at a moment’s notice. Sure, some superheroes decide to just forgo the alter-ego and be in uniform all the time. They don’t get a single moment’s peace. Everyone needs something every minute of the day.

Are You Prepared to Trust No One?
Nobody but nobody is trustworthy. Your girlfriend? She’s been mind-controlled by your nemesis. Your parents? They have been infected with a toxic mind mold by the League of Doom. Your “best friend”? He’s turned to the dark side and become the Green Goblin. You can never really fully trust anyone. Maybe even the people teaching this course.

Think about it.

2 Comments by on January 10, 2012
filed in coolness, humor, lists, writing
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Christmas Music Purchases: 2011 Edition

I own a ton of Christmas music. I will not apologize for it. I used to have a page on the site that documented it all, with links to Amazon. Back when people used to care about me, my link was on page 1 of the Google results for Charlie Brown Christmas Soundtrack. THAT was how much I ruled the universe.

These days, people don’t need me to find that CD. But, I still have many many (many) fans sitting in their dark and dirty rooms, lit only with the light of a laptop monitor, the buzzing of traffic their only companions, wondering: “For baby Jesus’ sake, WHAT CHRISTMAS MUSIC DID JODY ADD TO HER COLLECTION THIS YEAR??!!”

I will only document complete albums, not individual songs, unless the individual songs are kick-ass. Actually, I’ve downloaded so much free stuff that I don’t know which individual songs are kick-ass yet. (Please, before time runs out, check out the Amazon MP3 site for their 25 free songs – maybe one of them will appeal to you?)

Albums/CDs I purchased this year, in no particular order:

  • Christmas Remixed: Holiday Classics Re-grooved
  • Christmas Cheer – Straight No Chaser
  • Cello Music For Christmas – The Christmas Cello
  • Merry Flippin’ Christmas Vol 1 and 2 – Bowling for Soup
  • This is Christmas – Emmy the Great and Tim Wheeler

So the musical Christmas spirit is alive and well Chez Dump. Keep on singing!

2 Comments by on December 21, 2011
filed in coolness, lists

Items From My Current To-Do List

For those who want to be me, here’s a current to-do list to copy into your own palm pilot or hipster PDA.

  • Process 1700+ photos from 13: The Musical and upload them to maplebarnphoto.com for the nice parents of the nice children who entertained us this weekend
  • Put away the suitcase from my January trip to Florida
  • Decide which week in August to take a vacation
  • Check budget to see if you can afford August vacation
  •  Decide what to do during August vacation
  • Laundry, still and again
  • Write a poem about Jesus Toast
  • Wash the mound of bird shit off the car
  • Lose 50 pounds
  • Get a blood test
  • Throw out all the stuff that’s been in the freezer for more than a year. That would cover everything but the container of ice cream, some Thin Mints, and a package of frozen blueberries.
  • Face the fact that it’s
  • Start my next to-do list
1 Comment by on June 8, 2011
filed in humor, lists
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Useless Writing Advice

I do not have the ability to give advice on being a better writer. I have the ability to give advice on just about anything and everything else, including how to choose a tomato (no skin flaws and it should smell like a tomato), but being  better writer? Well, I suppose I could try, if that’s what you’d like.

Expensive Equipment Helps Create Better Prose

I think this is a gimme. You need the most expensive writing equipment you can find. Take out loans. You need top of the line everything. There’s a pen for sale at the local mall for $10,000. You need that pen. Everything you write with that Bic you stole from a waitress is pure crap. Gerbils can’t even be bothered to shred the paper you write on with your less-than-10k pen. You’ll also need a top of the line Mac laptop, iPad and an iPhone 4. As for the latter, if it isn’t white, you should go turn in your MFA.

Live in a Home with a Real Working Fireplace

If you can’t simulate the working conditions of Charles Dickens or Emily Bronte, what hope do you have of ever convincing a soul that your writing is even passable? You need the sound of a crackling fire as background noise. You need to poke at the embers when you’re having a hard time trying to come up with a new way to describe the angst of the twenty-something. You should just stop writing and call a Realtor. Now.

Burn Candles that Smell Like Lemons

This is a controversial one. I know there are people who would argue with me on this, but you’ve come to me for useless writing advice, so you had best listen to me. Get some lemon-scented candles. You see, what these will do is to trigger strong memories of your mother/aunt/grandmother with the Lemon Pledge obsession and you will get some great material out of remember how much you hated that your mother/aunt/grandmother couldn’t cook/clean/express love. It’s great stuff!

Buy New Camera Equipment

I don’t know that it will really help your writing, but I’m trying to justify a few purchases I’ve made in the past year, so just indulge me, would you?

Get a Metric Ton of Sleep. Nap Like You Mean It.

I can’t say enough about naps and sleeping. I bought flannel sheets and I could live in my bed for the rest of my life. I could be Grandma Georgina, and we would start to wonder again how the four elderly people who never left the bed went to the bathroom after eating cabbage soup 3 meals a day. I promise not to eat cabbage, but I still will probably need to go to the bathroom. Some things can’t be helped.

I think this will help you write better. I won’t know, because I’ll be too busy sleeping to read your book.

2 Comments by on January 17, 2011
filed in humor, lists
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Saturday Around The Palace d’Jody

Greetings, my loyal subjects and people who wandered by because they were searching for dumptrucks on Google and thought this looked interesting. I have no dumptrucks for sale. I never did, and probably never will. I feel confident saying that, given that I’m a horrible salesperson. Now when I do eventually own that toystore/amusement park I’ve always wanted, maybe I will have some little toy dumptrucks on the shelf. I reserve the right to sell toy trucks – just not the big real ones.

It’s fifty degrees and raining here today. I left the Palace d’Jody earlier today to get the blood test I forgot to get last week, and I was wearing clothing that was ENTIRELY INAPPROPRIATE FOR THE WEATHER. It really isn’t short sleeved shirt and sandals weather. I came home, put on socks and a nice comfy sweater. It was like putting on a hug. A hug that makes me want to take a nap. A hug that you wish could get up and make lunch for you while you took that nap. Science should really get to work on this, stat.

I have things I could be doing right now. I could be going onto Netflix to adjust my queue. I received a copy of The House Bunny today, which is what reminded me that I’m the person responsible for making sure there are only good movies in my queue, and it’s my own damned fault that this movie was in my mailbox.

I have to go through my Disney photos from the April trip and put some of them online. I have a bunch of photos of the new Bay Lake Towers resort. I miss our room, with its view of the lake. Other than having a castle view from the Contemporary Tower, this may be my new favorite resort view I’ve ever had. While I do love the Savannah views at Animal Kingdom Lodge, it’s not the greatest view when there aren’t any animals.

I have to go grocery shopping, but that’s not even worth talking about. Because I don’t want to do it. I didn’t want to do laundry either, but that doesn’t require me to leave the house, so I already have a load sloshing around happily. If I thought I was going to have to IRON any of it, we’d be wearing disposable clothes right now. Another thing science should get working on.

1 Comment by on May 8, 2010
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Brainstorming New Hit TV Shows

I think Hollywood is just crying out for my ideas. Not that they have approached me in any way, unless they are getting caught up in my spam filter. That’s always possible. Hey, Hollywood, if you’ve emailed me and I didn’t get back to you, try sending me a @ reply on Twitter or something. I don’t mean to keep you waiting.

Here is the currently list of show ideas I’m ready to pitch to the first person willing to listen. Or you guys, because you didn’t know any better when you started to read. But remember, I posted these here first so no trying to steal my ideas to become big entertainment industry hot shots. That’s MY goal.

This is the list, in no particular order.

  • Bombbob Explodeypants – Kids love guys named Bob wearing pants of some sort, and they love explosions. This show would be like printing money.
  • My Peeps – A gang of completely identical marshmallow chicks share an apartment. Hilarity ensues when week after week we can’t tell the characters apart unless they are speaking.
  • Why Fie – Not a show about wireless internet access, this is a show that asks the question “Why do we need a worldwide governing organization for amateur Olympic fencing”?
  • Your Call Is Important to Us – Game show where ordinary people with everyday problems see who has to wait on hold the longest for a customer service rep. Bonus points are awarded when the contestants guesses match 
    • which company’s tech support line will be the least efficient
    • the exact numbers the caller must press to get into the correct queue for their problem, and
    • whether or not the person answering the phone will be able to handle the caller’s issue(s) without transferring the call to another rep.

Hollywood, I await your call.

1 Comment by on April 15, 2010
filed in humor, lists
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Today’s Book Titles

Here is today’s list. You can’t have the first one, that one is mine.

The Adventures of Keychain and Neil
40 Ways to Prepare Cold Cereal
The Rat in the Hat
Helmet Hair: Spending Too Much Time Playing Halo
Even More Ways to Prepare Cold Cereal

p.s. I think I successfully removed the snippet of code that was automatically adding links to key words in the blog to Amazon products. Some of the links were too odd. So from now on, if there’s a link to an Amazon Product in an entry, I added it there myself.

by on April 9, 2008
filed in humor, lists, writing
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Things I’m Probably Not Going to Get From Santa

I think there are a few things that I am not going to get from Santa that I see people getting all time time in television commercials. I like television commercials because they really do tell me how much my life stinks, and how very much improved my life could be if I would just get off the couch, roll over to the mall and spend my hard earned cash. It’s so easy, even a child can do it. (For the record, Junior is not allowed to watch infomercials because he gets sucked in and he wants everything they sell. Right now the thing is that hydroponics herb garden. Because, you know, he needs fresh herbs.

  1. A Car. An expensive car specifically. With a giant red bow. You know, I’ve been around for quite a few years, and I can tell you that I’ve never seen a car with a giant bow on it in anyone’s driveway. And I notice things like that. Also, if Mr. Dump ever buys me a car without asking my input on make, model, color and options, he will be known from that point on as “Stumpy”.
  2. Gigantic Diamonds. Okay, this would be a very cool gift, I’ll admit. But really, I do not want our checking account drained so that I can get a rock that would look more appropriate on Wilma Flintstone. Or whoever is currently married to Donald Trump.
  3. A BBQ for tailgating. I don’t tailgate. Maybe I would if I had a portable grill that can make a 14 course dinner before the game. But I don’t have one so I will be grilled-meatless this Christmas.
  4. A hydroponics tabletop growing kit. Even if the thought of endless cherry tomatoes is appealing, I’d be all over this if I thought I could get even one good beefsteak tomato mid-winter. I don’t cook with a lot of mint, though, so I don’t know if it’s worth the investment.
  5. Vinyl siding and replacement windows. Gosh, what a thoughtful gift! Could those replacement windows come in, say, a mansion of some kind instead of my little Cape? That would be great!

That’s all I have for now. If I think of more, I’ll add them today, because you know what? You are totally worth it.

And if you’re looking for something uplifting to read (and like me, it’s okay if you tear up at work) I suggest reading The Gift over at Suldog’s blog.

by on December 21, 2007
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