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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.

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Fans of the Dump on Facebook

Hey, if you’re over on Facebook, feel free to join the Fans of the Big DumpTruck group (do a search people – I want you to put some effort into this, okay? That will prove your fan-dom.)

I cannot pretend that we’ll end up with as many members as, say, the Fans of High School Musical or Obama, but we can certainly break into double digits, right?

Okay, you slackers, here is a link to the group.

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Where is My Macaroni Salad?

Okay, I didn’t lose macaroni salad, exactly, but I did create a whole post about macaroni salad, and when I went to view BDT, there was no mention of macaroni salad anywhere. Not even a whiff of it. So what, now I have to type it in again? That’s a lot of work just to dazzle you guys with nonsense. Let’s not even count the minutes spent pressing the spell check button and correcting all the errors.

I believe I started off by mentioning that Junior’s baseball team won their second game last night with a more reasonable 7-5 final score. Not that 28-4 wasn’t fun. Except it wasn’t, really. Last night’s game was really fun to watch because the teams were so evenly matched. Quite frankly, I was shocked that we won. Based on the first couple of innings, we didn’t, but we really pulled it together at the end.

So the macaroni part of the message was related to me bitching about the weather predicted for this weekend. I hate hot and humid (which should not be news to anyone here) and I said I would probably only leave the house to grill burgers and dogs. And then I asked you all to post your favorite/best/easiest macaroni (aka pasta) salad because I adore macaroni salad and I think it should be required any time you fire up the grill to have a giant bowl of pasta salad available.

I also requested recipes that were mayo based because I’m in search of the macaroni salad of my childhood, and while I “get” dumping a bottle of italian dressing on cooked macaroni, that’s not what I’m looking for. Even though that’s sort of how I’m kick starting the request:

1 pound cooked rotini
1 green pepper, diced
1-2 tablespoons of light mayo
1 bottle of Wishbone Russian dressing (MUST BE WISHBONE. It’s dark red in the bottle)

Mix up the rotini and pepper with the mayo to sort of coat the pasta. This will help the russian dressing stick. Stir in the bottle of Wishbone Russian Dressing. Cool in fridge. Re-stir before serving. This dish is even better after it sits. Even Mr. Dump likes this one.

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Football Score? No, Baseball, Actually

Junior, who was selected to play on one of the Jimmy Fund 10 Year old teams from North Leominster played against one of the Leominster American teams last night. Final score? 28-4. It was a horrible, crushing win. At the top of the 6th the score was 28-0. The parents on both teams were completely subdued – even our kids noticed that their parents were no longer cheering for them. We all just wanted the whole thing to be over. Hey, we’ve been there at a game where our kids were stepped on like that. What I don’t get is why the don’t FORCE a mercy rule (if you’re up by more than 10 runs after the 4th, the game is considered complete) or an inning run limit (normal season is 4 runs except for the 6th [final] inning). I thought I read on the District tournament site that there was a 5 fun limit. I guess that before the game the managers of the two teams playing get to decide if they want to enforce the limit and the mercy rule, and both managers agreed to play without one.

By the fifth inning, several of us were wondering if we should offer them a second chance to call the game, as their players just seemed so horribly sad and crushed, and as parents, we just didn’t want to continue to torture them.

You know it’s bad when we all started to applaud them whenever they got an out, just because we were happy for them. Totally involuntary reaction at that point.

So yes, we were very excited for the win, but nobody wants to see that kind of blowout, unless it’s the Red Sox against the Yankees.

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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.

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