The Big DumpTruck

Throwing Little Thought Pebbles at Your Windshield Since 1996

Tag: fun

My Stupid Boring July

I have reached the alarmed point in the summer…July is almost over, all 500 days of it, and I have not yet done anything X-treme. As you all know, normally by now I have done enough X-treme activities that I am left happy and content for the rest of the year. But I have not jumped off any buildings, ridden any rocket sleds, or roller bladed down an interstate holding on to the back of a semi. None of those things. No being shot out of a cannon, flagpole sitting or being set on fire for a movie stunt. Nothing. I have done the drone-like “go to work” thing and then the “go watch your kid play baseball” thing, but at no point did I wrestle sharks or attach balloons to a lawn chair and to go for a celestial spin.
I feel like the entire month of July was just a waste, and now I’m going to be all mopey because that’s a month I’ll never ever get back. I completely blew it.

Best Free iPhone Application

Everyone out there is posting stuff about iPhone applications, so I thought I should do the same because if you know me, you know I like to be completely and utterly trendy. It’s almost a genetic thing. That and my need to wear comfortable shoes. Now I can already hear you saying “but Jody, the need to be completely trendy and the need to wear comfortable shoes cancel each other out!” You know, for some people, that would be true. But I can be completely trendy AND wear comfortable shoes and they do NOT cancel each other out. That’s how awesome I am.

So here is my pick for the absolute best free iPhone app. The runners-up, More Cowbell and SimStapler, were very worthy opponents. I’m guessing tens of thousands of people out there did not know they needed an iPhone application that allowed them to make a cowbell sound, followed by Christopher Walken saying “I need more cowbell”.

As for SimStapler, well, where else can you go if you have an urgent need to pretend to staple something? Nowhere I tell you! SimStapler does it all! It pretends to staple, and keeps count of how many pretend staples you’ve done! Perfect!

But to get all serious, the true winner here, in the “I can’t believe it’s free” category, is AOL Radio. All kidding aside, this app (which I’ve run on Mr. Dump’s 1st generation iPhone so it doesn’t need the 3G) gives you access to dozens of radio stations, to listen to live over your iPhone. There are some custom AOL set up stations (comedy, trance, and my favorites, One Hit Wonders and All 80s.) If you hear something you like, you can mark it as a favorite and/or go pull it up in AOL Music (where you can learn more about the song/artist) or iTunes to buy it. You can set favorite stations to find them quickly. And big bonus, it carries some terrestrial local stations, so you can listen to WBCN anywhere.

There are some limitations if you aren’t on wifi or 3g, according to the iTunes site, but don’t let that stop you. If you have an iPhone and haven’t grabbed AOL Radio, go do it now.

Two More Truths and One More Lie

I apologize for the missing blog posts. I was, uh….passed out from being closed up in a room with too much writing on the white boards. Which is not entirely untrue. I was closed up in a room, and there was too much writing, but most of it was on those ginormous Post-It Flip Charts.

Note to the white board marker people: There is no need to add scent to these things. The black marker doesn’t smell like chocolate mint. Please just stop it.

So the other day I thought of a “truth” that I figured nobody would buy. Those are the good ones, aren’t they? The problem is coming up with the other truth and the lie, enough to make them all sound plausible. Ready? Here we go.

1. I own four pair of green pants.
2. The song listed as having the most plays on my iPod is “Banjo Boy”.
3. My boss’s boss squeezed my “squishy stress dog” so hard it exploded on him, covering him with pink liquid.

Homemade Kitt


Kitt, originally uploaded by Big DumpTruck.

Is there anything more one needs to say about a hand-made version of Kitt? The lights were on in front and it was talking to us. It sounded like William Daniels, but I don’t know if it was. I think it would be funny to load it up with stuff Daniels said on a show other than Knight Rider, like St. Elsewhere and Saved by the Bell…

The Spinners game was great – a very close game that almost went into extra innings but for a lovely sacrifice fly that meant we got to go home before the clouds that threatened us all evening finally broke open. It literally did not start to rain until we got in the car, which made the whole endeavor a complete success.

Two Truths and a Lie

It’s everybody’s favorite way to spend Thursday afternoon…two truths and a lie! In no particular order:

  • I have an endless loop video of the gerbils running on a photo frame in my cubicle.
  • I used the last square of toilet paper this morning
  • I was given a pyramid paperweight at work yesterday.

Additionally, the following is true: I just took my shoes off because I was wearing kicky little sandals that effectively destroyed the side of my pinky toe. I brought some Keds with me in a bag and I put them on, even though I’m not supposed to wear sneakers at work. I have decided that no matter what happens, I’m not going to leave my cube for the rest of the day so that it won’t be an issue.

My New Ringtone

[*Updated to fix the broken links*]

I rule. I now have the Mr. Deity theme song as my ringtone, just like Mr. Deity does (except when he has Elton John’s “The Bitch is Back”).

“Who is Mr. Deity?” you ask?

Mr. Deity may be the greatest thing since sliced bread. If you really want a behind the scenes look at what it’s like to be The Deity and to create the heavens and earth and whether or not we’re really supposed to take Sundays off, you should hike over to the Mr. Deity site and either watch the copies there or download the podcast to take it with you wherever you go on your video-enabled iPod.

I’m still floored that something this good is available for free.

Sad Sight on a Rainy Night


Sad Sight on a Rainy Night, originally uploaded by Big DumpTruck.

Saw this at the mall last night when I was running an errand. Hard to tell if it was coming or going, but I assume it’s up for the Mother’s Day crowd.

For the record, I do not want to go to a mall parking lot carnival for Mother’s Day. Sure, I’m a fan of mall parking lot carnivals in general, but not for Mother’s Day. Those are for Father’s Day.

Autographs, $5 Each

Okay, all the cool kids probably knew this, but I’m a Hall of Famer. I’m a rock star. I’m a goodness-to-gracious web celeb. CMonks added me to his Hall of Fame over at Utter Wonder today.

This is the moment I’ve been dreaming of ever since I realized that you can’t be Miss America if you are older than 30 and have been married for 15 years. Well, I hit 15 years in 2 weeks, but you get my point.

I said to myself, “Self, if you can’t be Miss America, or be one of the kids who gets to be on the box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, you could at least be in the Hall of Fame at Utter Wonder because he has absolutely no requirements other than that you ask. And I can do that! I’m a good asker!”

So there I am.

And for the record, I do like dolphins. They are cool. Not as cool as rhinos, but hey, what is?

The Entertainment Portion of Your Day

Here is the part of the website where I try to entertain you by making up a story and trying to convince you it’s absolutely true. Well, I will place two true “truthiness nuggets” in the story, and your job will be to try to determine which those are.

I was eating lunch at Johnny Rockets at the Burlington Mall when I realized I’d left my wallet in the car. This was not cool because, well, Mrs. Rocket was staring at me with a bill in her hand and I couldn’t very well tell her that I did not have any money. I scanned the restaurant to see if I knew anybody, and was shocked and amazed to see Mike Lowell eating a #12 with his family. It turns out Mike is a big fan of the “red red sauce” that they put on the #12, and he often eats there four or five times a week. Now me, if I was a big famous sports star, I would ask if they could hook me up with a bottle of the stuff, but maybe he just enjoys spending quality time at the mall. You never know.
But you thought I was going to ask Mike if he could cover my bill for me, right? Wrong. I could not do that. But what I could do is ask Mike if he was interested in buying my watch from me. It’s a Timex Ironman Triathlon watch with Indiglo, so you can tell what time it is in the dark. I told him I’d sell it to him for $19.65, which covered my bill plus a hearty 10% tip. (Only 10% because Mrs. Rockets forgot to bring me my fries and she forced me to do the ketchup all by myself instead of doing the first pour for me. Beeatch.
Mike inspected the watch for wear and tear and told me he’d give me a full twenty for it, which was fantastic. I didn’t want to give Mrs. Rockets the extra 35 cents, but I felt it would be awkward to ask her for it. But then, Mike Lowell paid for the watch using giant handfuls of change. I’m not even sure how he got all that change into his pockets. He may have been carrying it in some sort of man bag. And you should totally not make fun of him for carrying a man bag because on him it would look very very cool, unless it had some kind of Hello Kitty design on it. I’m not saying he’s partial to Hello Kitty, but really, could you blame the man? It’s so damned cute!
So I handed Mrs. Rockets the twenty, and thanked her for a lovely meal. On the way out of the restaurant I noticed they had a giant gumball machine. I love gumballs, and couldn’t believe I’d just tossed away that extra thirty five cents. All I needed for a gumball was twenty five cents, you see. So I made eye contact with Mike Lowell again and nodded toward the gumball machine. He got up from his table and came over to me, and used his manly baseball muscles to push over the huge gumball machine like it was so many Q-Tips. The ball on top shattered, and hundreds of gumballs flooded the entryway to Johnny Rockets. I gave Mike Lowell and thankful nod and as I grabbed a handful of gumballs, careful to avoid the ones with glass in them, I whispered “until next time.”

A Little Slice of Heaven at Home

I am a happy girl. I have in front of me

  1. My MacBook Pro with a wireless connection to the internet
  2. a cup of coffee that Mr. Dump made from whole Dunkin Donuts beans ground by the coffeemaker right before brewing
  3. a bowl of Special K Red Berries

All of these things made more special because I am enjoying my breakfast for the first time out on the deck. Goodbye, winter, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
breakfast on the deck