humor – Page 3 – The Big DumpTruck

Love Boat Questions

Posted on June 11, 2015July 16, 2017 by The Jody

I hate to admit how many episodes of The Love Boat I’ve watched. But it’s a LOT of them. I think my favorite part is the gritty realism. But if you can get past the danger and intrigue and look deeper, you’ll see the pure nonsense that is my favorite reason to watch the show. Here are my some of my favorite things to ponder, in no particular order.

Why is the gift shop so small? I’ve seen bigger gift shops in a Ramada. This is the spot where passengers can buy anything they forgot to pack and various episode that happened to have shot inside show a ton of jewelry and some dress shirts. if you need a watch, they have them. sunscreen and magazines? I’m not so sure.
Vicki is Captain Stubing’s biological daughter but he had to adopt her for some reason. I haven’t seen that episode. So Vickie is on the boat from the time she’s 12. Unlike The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, there isn’t a school on board. I’ve never heard mention of homeschooling, so I guess she’s a University of Phoenix alum.
Vickie worked as Julie’s assistant from an early age, which I assume was an unpaid role because she was only 13. Between her “studies” and assisting Julie in whatever it is she does (see below) Vicki can, uh, swim? a cruise ship is probably an awful place to be an indentured servant.
Why does everyone buy a piñata (or a tiny chair) when the go ashore? You just watch the extras in every episode as the disembark at the end of the cruise.
Captain Stubing doesn’t really drive the boat. he’s never on the bridge unless someone swings by to talk to him and then that conversation gets his FULL attention. I guess there’s another officer who does the heavy lifting, but he/she is faceless and names less. Aside from the main characters, the only other staff we see are engineers, maids, and waitresses in the Pirates’ Cove Lounge (not to be confused with the Acapulco Lounge) dressed like pirates.
Is it really possible to meet someone, fall in love and get engaged on a 3-day Mexican cruise? Apparently true love means never needing more than a long weekend to get to know each other.
Julie my cruise director spent a lot of time walking around chatting and not a lot of cruise directing. Gopher and Doc don’t do much more, but at least Doc once did surgery in his tiny office, and diagnosed a guy with ALS and another with cancer. Doesn’t she have parties and events to plan and oversee? She must be good at her job because once she threw together a pirate party and suddenly all the passengers had costumes. She did accidentally hire a male stripper once thinking he was a regular dancer. Attention to detail much, Miss McCoy?
Isaac is the clear winner of the “Most Valuable Employee” award. He appears to work 18 hours a day and isn’t constantly falling for the passengers unless they are Diahann Carroll. Isaac should be calling to complain to HR about how much more he works than Everyone else. While Doc, Julie and Gopher are hogging seats at the captain’s table sitting *closest* to the captain (what the hell? isn’t that for VIPs?) he’s been seen doing bartender things on the side of the dining room. I’d be mad as hell if I were him.
Would the captain and key staff of a ship that does three-day jaunts to Mexico be asked to all take over a ship with a European trip? They arrive at the ship basically the day before they sail, which doesn’t leave much time to learn enough to help passengers. Or steer the ship. Or get a license to practice medicine in a foreign country. Isaac will be fine, though, because he’s awesome.

humor, parenting, Real Life

Time to Think About My Major

Posted on November 9, 2014December 20, 2015 by The Jody

When my son was very little he became alarmed while watching An Extremely Goofy Movie. That’s the one where Goofy’s son Max (wait, we’ll get back to the fact that Goofy reproduced later) is going to college. My son went into a complete panic at the thought that he’d have to leave home and go to college. At the time, he had probably just started elementary school (there may even be a post on the subject somewhere from when it happened) so I didn’t even think he knew what college was. But he did understand that you moved away from home and lived at the school, thanks to the movie. And he hated the idea.

So he asked me, tearily, if he would have to go to college. I said that I thought he would want to, but that if it would make him happy, I would go to college with him and be his roommate. He was very happy with this, and dropped the subject completely. (See, parents, sometimes when they are little, it isn’t about being honest with them, it’s about making them feel like you won’t ever put them in a scary situation alone.)

Anyway, I’m a woman of my word and he graduates high school in 2016, so he and I should probably sit down and start to talk about what schools we will apply to, and what my major should be.

humor, Real Life

Breaking Down a Recipe

Posted on March 23, 2014December 20, 2015 by The Jody

I was reading a humorous article about Barbie dolls (as one does) and linked to the author’s website. She provided some favorite recipes, which seems normal enough, until I started reading one. I hope she never ever writes a cook book.

My favorite parts:
– The small bowl of butter (I wanted to use my biggest bowl. Darn.) and the bowl of cheese. Cheese (from the bowl?) is mention in two different steps. What kind of cheese? She’s not saying. Figure it out yourself, like she did!
– An oven is listed as an ingredient. If you don’t have one, back away from the website.
– This recipe only calls for 2 green beans. Filling.
– Frying carrots in a “vessel”. Seems like a pan would be a good choice for frying, but she doesn’t want to be dictatorial. Pick a vessel, any vessel.
– Melting the [bowl of] cheese on the fried veggies should cause a nice solid mess. Good luck pouring it into the baking dish of undetermined size in a later step.
– The whole mess gets cooked in an oven “over medium flame.” I am calling her bluff. She doesn’t even own an oven.

Here’s a screen print of the full recipe. Do let me know how it turns out. I’d rather gnaw on dog treats.

humor, Real Life

Sunday Plans

Posted on March 16, 2014December 20, 2015 by The Jody

I think I shall go shoe shopping today. I love overwhelming futility of looking for attractive shoes in my size, and the crushing insecurity you get from clerks escorting you from the aisles of shoes intended for contortionists/teenagers.

“Another one wandered off from the ‘sensible’ aisle, Tyffany.”

humor, Real Life

Existential Sweater Crisis

Posted on December 12, 2013December 20, 2015 by The Jody

Yesterday the people in my work group were invited to participate in an ugly Christmas sweater contest with a group sitting in our section of the building. Normally we have very little to do with these people, which is what happens in company with 40,000 employees. But clearly we have been identified as movers and shakers and people who enjoy embarrassing ourselves, so they reached out.

There’s a dress code policy in the office and one of the rewards we are given as a motivator is the ability to wear jeans on certain days. (I’d like to point out that while we are allowed to wear jeans, at no point are we ever allowed to wear sneakers. Some of us have worked around that ruled by finding brands of sneakers that don’t look like sneakers. I have become a person who went from wearing sneakers to work every day to not even wearing sneakers on weekends. Maybe that’s a sign of maturity. Maybe it’s a sign of laziness, because most of my shoes don’t require me to tie them.)

So when I heard that anyone participating in the ugly sweater contest would be allowed to wear jeans, I immediately started looking online for ugly Christmas sweaters. With only two weeks until Christmas, most of the “good” styles are sold out, or have had prices jacked up. Unfortunately given the time of year and the desperation someone like me feels, anything still available is priced at $40 or higher. I just can’t spend $40 on an ugly Christmas sweater. The prize would have to be cash of that amount or higher. I don’t think there’s a prize at all, just questionable bragging rights. You can get the following for sixty five dollars.

There are some fantastic ugly Christmas sweaters out there. There are also a lot of ugly Christmas sweaters that feature reindeer having sex. I didn’t know that this was a thing, but apparently it is. Three reindeer having sex, two reindeer having sex. I don’t know if any of the sweaters with a single reindeer having sex, I wasn’t looking that closely.

I decided spending $40 on an ugly Christmas sweater just so I could wear jeans on Tuesday is probably not a good use of my hard-earned cash. Last night I was going through my closet I found a sweater that some might consider a little ugly. The design on the sweater is very busy, and looks something like black and white snowflakes. I realized with horror that I could wear this sweater for ugly sweater day, and most people would agree that it was ugly.

Thus my existential sweater crisis. If I wear the sweater for Ugly Sweater Day, I can no longer wear that sweater for Not Ugly Sweater Day. On the other hand, if it fits in so nicely for ugly sweater day, it’s probably an ugly sweater. If I wear it a month from now, will people think, “wow that’s an ugly sweater.” More importantly, have I doomed it by even considering it for Tuesday?

I think the answer is clear. I need to wire that puppy up with blinking lights and appliqué snowmen and OWN Ugly Sweater Day. I’m going to do it for the children.