The Big DumpTruck

I'll let you all get together and make the decision as a group. I wouldn't want to receive multiple copies. So I added one to my amazon wish list so that if someone does buy it the rest of you will know because it won't be listed there any more.

I told Mr. Dump that I was going to try to be good this year and not buy any Dept. 56 houses (which I suspect he thought was a nice try on my part, but did not believe me). And then, I was searching for one of the houses on Google and unfortunately clicked a link to a site that showed me this:



[Click the link to see a larger picture of the item in all its glory!] As you can see, there is no way I will be able to live a long and happy life without this house. I'm almost depressed because I don't have it yet, and I've known about it since this morning!

I'll let you all go meet now, so you can decide who will get to buy it. Don't worry, I won't peek. Oh, and if you get one for yourself, because you are a fan of the Big DumpTruck, do let us know, okay?

Labels: gifts, Xmas

Big Meanie is making me clean the house. Get rid of the clutter. Can you believe what a big meanie he is? Why, can't you see I need all this stuff? Sure, that box of photos could be stored somewhere other than the living room, but what if I have an emergency need to look at myself wearing a wedding dress? You know? And at some point we may actually need all these candles. Sure, maybe not all at once, but you never know. We could have a need to simulate the set of Harry Potter. In fact, we would not even have enough candles to do that. I'd better go to the store.

Okay, maybe he's not being a total Big Meanie. If I don't clean up in here, there will be no room for the Christmas tree. That would be a most horrible horrible thing. Okay, so I should probably go finish my chores so that I'll be allowed to fill the empty spaces with other things.

Labels: cleaning

Happy food coma day, everyone! Remember, though - gravy is not a substitute for love. Or root beer.

I am thankful for each and every one of you, but especially the people who invented gumballs. You rock.

Labels: holidays

I think it's obvious that they are running things around here. I find myself experiencing an uncontrollable urge to watch anti-predator shows on Animal Planet.

Keep an eye on these guys.

Okay, I know you all count on me to amuse you periodically. Here is a link that I got via a link a friend posted. I love love love stuff like this. I could remain amused for DAYS with this site. FAIL Blog: Pictures and Videos of Owned, Pwnd and Fail Moments

Wowee! I'm in heaven!

Okay, one of the Dump regulars is a certified USB genius. Without him, apparently, we would not be able to plug in and power up LED Christmas trees, which would make the world a much more horrible place. I post this link for him, as he mentioned wanting the coffee cup warmer. So glad you worked on inventing USB, dude, cause I don't know where I would be without it.

The link that got me to that site in the first place was over on Facebook - it was for the world's largest gummy bear on a stick. Which weighs half a pound. I was thinking of getting one each for the kids but they appear to be out of stock of the good flavors. And who can blame the buying public - such a treat cannot possibly be kept in stock!

I wish I could say I got money for sending you there, but I'm willing to send you there for free. Unless they want to send me something for free. I think the USB Missile Launcher would do. http://www.vat19.com/dvds/showProducts.cfm?categoryID=31

Labels: toys, websites

I know that my many, many regular readers (all 3 of you) have been wondering where I've been. Just a little family thing involving surgery, but the patient is home and should be driving everyone crazy within a day or so, max. Also, I did live through a round of layoffs, but what happens is the remaining people get to divvy up the work of the people who are gone. You do the math. Oh, so all that stuff has also put me almost impossibly behind on NaNoWriMo. I will try to make up my word count this weekend, but I'm just not sure how well that is going to work.

Last night we checked out the upgrades Microsoft did to the Xbox 360 software, and decided to link up to our Netflix account. VERY easy to do, and boom, suddenly everyone in the house saw all the crappy movies I had placed in the "View Instantly" queue. Urp. "Why do you have a Scooby Doo movie in there?" "For Junior!" We watched a Pink Panther cartoon (from a collection) and the movie Underdog. There were a LOT of things that bothered me about the movie, but overall, I was not the target audience and it was really kind of cute. And hey, free with my Netflix membership, right?

Labels: movies, stuff

Oh God I hate when I try to do something and it doesn't work properly and that causes another problem and I don't see it so I don't know to fix it and I get news that some people think my site has been down since Saturday.

It hasn't been. That was operator error. I was trying to create a placeholder home page for a new domain I registered and the turdlett software stored the index file in the home directory instead of the proper subdirectory, but my BigDumpTruck bookmarks point to index.php (that's actually the file I use) so I did not see what apparently you all were seeing.

That would explain why the past few days my hit count has been....17. For the day. Down from the heady years when I was getting 150+ hits a day, I can tell you that.

So please come back! I'm here, I swear!

Labels: stupid people, websites

Nano makes you do really weird things.

To be fair, this guy has every right to choose to vote the way he ended up voting. On the other hand, the reason bothers me. A lot. Without giving away the plot, I think it's pretty interesting that he got to be as old as he is and was honestly surprised when the kindly people at the polling places had to set him straight.



Courtesy of C.Monks.

Labels: politics, stupid people, video

I let another domain I owned lapse, but replaced it with a new one. So that's two I let go but one new one. No hosting required, it points to a subdirectory on my current hosting account. Lots of storage space = love.

http://www.photojody.com No "real" content yet, just a placeholder photo. I should do something about that, but I realized I don't own HTML editing software. D'oh!

Labels: photos, websites

My novel sucks. But it usually does. I went off on a long ramble in an attempt to hit 10k words this morning. I need to write 4k this morning to be back where I'm supposed to be by now. "Supposed to be" is relative, of course. I'm sure if I focused I could actually be close to done. I just get easily distracted by shiny objects, like the "Watch Instantly" feature on Netflix that was finally released to beta for Macintosh. I may never leave my comfy chair again.

Here's the excerpt for you. Not criticism is allowed, the whole point is to write, not to write well.

I flipped open my phone to read the text message. I have to do that because of the model phone I have. It is so funny, if this were 10 years ago, I would be so mady in love with this phone, and the simple act of flipping it open would give me thrill like no other because it is so futuristic and I could pretend I am James T. Kirk. Not that I wouldn't do that even if I did not have a flip phone that looks a bit like a tri-corder. I want to state for the record that I am not a science fiction geek, but I am a television geek and while the two may seem very similar they are very different. The only reason I think having a tri-corder phone is cool is because it was on a famous television show. Actually, I would probably be just as excited to have the telephone on the wall from Lassie or the one at the top of the telephone pole from Green Acres. Okay, the last part might be a little bit of a stretch. While I am a huge Green Acres fan, the thought of having to climb up to the top of a telephone pole to answer the phone or make a call is a little daunting to me. Daunting might not even be the right word, but after a while, I'm pretty sure I would balance an old-fashioned answering machine up on the top of the pole and never answer the phone again. That’s another thing. In today's world of phone company voice mail, there is no way in hell I could ever get to the top of a telephone pole to answer the phone before it went to voice mail.

Labels: nanowrimo, stuff

You must always vote, even if you fear your candidate is doomed, or hell, running unopposed. Why? Because it's the only way you can put a "don't blame me, I voted for _____" on your car.

If you don't vote, you don't get to complain later. Period.

Labels: current events

Netflix streaming for Macs was released as a beta. I am doomed. I will never finish my Nano Novel now. Curse you, Netflix!

The first movie I tested was "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." I believe that movie has the longest opening credit sequence in the history of movies. Five minutes of animated credits. Junior thought I was watching a cartoon. I watched 10 minutes before realizing that I shouldn't be watching a movie until I finish my NaNoWriMo word count for the day. Bad Jody!

Labels: movies, nanowrimo

This is my 7th or 8th year of doing NaNoWriMo, and every year I go into it with a slightly different attitude. This year I was looking forward to it for the past two weeks (of course - when I wasn't allowed to type a word) but this morning there was very little if any excitement. And I had things that needed to be done today that did not allow me to sit and write, including spending 5, yes 5, hours at the baseball field while my son played his game AND the one that followed, because they didn't have enough kids. He was psyched because the 2nd game was far more laid back and he got to try catching for the first time. He caught for two innings - the first and the last, and definitely did better the 2nd time. Maybe it won't be a bad thing for him to try to pick up, although personally, I would never want to be a catcher. Way way way too much pressure. That kind of stuff doesn't seem to bother him, though.

So anyway, I hit the minimum word could for today (the words I'm typing here don't count. D'oh!) which is good, but really, I should have been able to do much better. The first day of Nano you should be like a crazed monkey, just typing until you pass out, especially if the first day of Nano is on a weekend. I feel like I did not take advantage of the free gift of November 1st falling on a Saturday. Oh well, too late to do much about it.

For the record, the first few pages of the novel are kind of a young adult thing, because I realized that my son and his friend are going to want to see what I've done with the names we all came up with for my characters. I don't know if I'll be able to carry this through 30 days, and there are no clear plot ideas yet (unfortunately for me, I actually try to NOT think about my Nano novel prior to November 1st because that feels like cheating. But that means I don't have any idea what the hell I'm writing about for the first couple of days. We'll have to see how that goes.

Labels: baseball, nanowrimo