Pager Burn and Horny Jigsaw | Part Three

Well, I got a few things to say before I leave you all for a month. I know I probably don't have to, but I feel a little bad. This will be the longest you guys have gone without a QOTD since probably about December. Anyway, if any of you have been writing me at my BumpSetNet@aol account, stop it. I'm going to dump that account because I don't use it and it sucks, in that order. Also, I stepped into the world of technology and finally got a pager. So now you guys can get a hold of me anytime you want, and I reserve the option to pretend to have had my pager off so I don't have to call you back. A lot of you are about to find out if you're really a good friend of mine or not. I also received my first major burn as a result of having a pager. I was cooking a burger tonight and I happened to have taken it off and set it on the counter right next to me. Well, I had never been paged before, and it was apparently set at 24 decibels. Tony thought it was the smoke alarm. I scared the crap out of myself, which in turn caused me to, for some unknown reason, shove my hand in the grill. I figured out how to set it to vibrate. Anyway, the number is 410-307-3491. Don't lose it. I refuse to give it to you again. Well, I'm going to critique the superbowl this year. It gets 9 bugs. It was an awesome game that came down to one singular yard on one hand, but on the other hand, Buffalo wasn't in it and that massive party we were supposed to have that was going to involve about 20-25 people boiled down to 5. Me, Tony, Good Joe (who had come down Saturday night), Jason, and Jess, who didn't even want to be there, but got snowed in. Everybody called and canceled on us with little wussy excuses about how they were stuck in their car on 95 facing the wrong way and shit. Well, y'all suck. You stuck the five of us with 20 beef patties, 12 soft pretzels, 10 chicken breasts, 30 buffalo wings, about 3 pints of cheese dip, beacoup de salsa and tortilla chips, and 3 1/2 cases of beer, which is an intolerable amount of food. And Joe and Jess weren't drinking. Well, I didn't quite finish all 37 of my share. I think somebody like maybe Andre the Giant could handle 37 cans of beer, but I'm a pretty convincing lightweight. I traditionally need to be cut off somewhere midway through my 4th. But it was a great game, and it would have been cool if there were other people to jump up with and scream when shit happened. Oh well.
We actually had the superbowl party a few days late. The volleyball team was coming back from our match at Navy and everybody was starving and broke and thinking "Damn! If only there were someplace that we could go that had lots of free food and beer!" So about 15 of us went to my place late Wednesday and finished off most of the stuff. It was the best superbowl party I ever had. If only we had the game on tape! So anyway, I'm thinking about hosting another Superbowl party in a few weeks.
I'll let you know how that pans out.

We were coming back from the aforementioned trip to Navy when Lauren inquired about my cat...


Quote Of the Day 1/31/00

Lauren: "Is you cat still in heat?"
Me: "No."
Clint: "Why not, did you take care of that?"


Actually, Jason's the one trying to have babies with it.


Good luck in my absence,
Pager Boy X.


Still Standing Right Here...

Review of The Thomas Crown Affair

I saw I really good movie last night on DVD. It's a little known movie called the Thomas Crown Affair. Actually, I didn't hear about it as much as I think I should have. Everyone that I talked to said it was really good and I believed them, but I think they should have been more animate about it. Like nobody actually went out of their way and told me to go see it without first being prompted. Like I'm doing to you right now. That's what people weren't doing.
So it starts out with a really good action scene in which a couple of guys steal an expensive impressionist painting. That immediately sets the tone for the film. In the next scene, a couple of cops show up and hypothesize what they think happened when the sexiest version of Renee Russo anyone's ever seen shows up and throws wrenches all over the place (not literally). It looks like a really good Columbo-type mystery that I haven't seen in a while. Except nobody's dead. So I'm psyched to find out what happens next. Then 45 minutes into the film, I got scared. It started to turn into a romance. I figured they had just wasted a perfectly good storyline by turning it into a romance. About half an hour later, it got better again. The last couple scenes fixed everything I had questioned about the film to that point. It actually knew of its flaws, which weren't really flaws at all, because they were resolved. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's because I'm not making sense. Well, for example, I had figured that it was just a romance story, but they showed me that they just needed to use romance as a plot device to further along the whole mystery angle. And I was pissed that they didn't resolve Dennis Leary's character. But with 5 minutes left, just before time ran out, they did. And the close to last scene was an excellent climax just where it needed to be. Anyway, go see it. They're grammar is a lot better than mine. 9 1/2 bugs.

I had to go to somewhere on campus I usually don't go, and I felt like I had entered another universe. It was weird. All they talked about was politics. And they kept laughing. I had no idea what they were talking about. Occasionally I recognized a name, like Strom Thurmond, but I was lost. I felt so stupid. Then I realized that to them, that stuff is like sports is to us over in the Retriever Activities Center. They'd probably be lost if we started talking about the Australian Open, I'd bet. Or maybe I really am just stupider than them. Anyway, I was speaking with another two ladies and a third lady who I swear to God I've never seen before walked into the office. We stopped talking as we noticed she needed to say something, and just before she started telling Norma what she came to say, she glanced at me and said "Oh, Hi Dustin" and continued on talking to Norma. I was stunned by this. I had no nametag on, and I hadn't ever been in that building in the past year, let alone that office.
Was I really that popular? Or notorious? Or drunk?


Quote Of the Day 1/28/00

Me: (to Norma, after she left) "How did she know my name?"
Norma: "She probably watches Cops."


Or maybe she's a member of the AOL Video Personals.


Holding out for a cyberbabe,
2big4U25.


Still Standing Right Here...

One Horny Jigsaw | Part Two

You know what? I remember who we were talking to. I was right. They're unimportant.


Quote Of the Day 1/28/00

"Actually, we don't need to get the cat spayed. We just need to get its vocal cords removed."
-J-Scratch.

While we're at it, let's at least take a sander to those f*@#ing claws.


Bleeding in the bad way,
Scratched Cricket.


Still Standing Right Here...

One Horny Jigsaw | Part One

Let me describe to you, in case I forget and don't get a chance to, the difference between our cat when she's in heat, and when she's in just normal vicious piranha mode. Normally, when you try to do something risky like... say... pet it, you have a 50/50 chance of survival. Continual petting increases the likelihood of pain. In fact, it's almost like the "how many licks to get to the center of a tootsie pop?" commercial. How many pets before your hand gets pierced and held with her two claws, bit relentlessly, and kicked with her hind legs much like I would imagine a small kangaroo with really sharp claws would do? And this is provided she's not in a bad mood. Sometimes, petting isn't even required. You could just not be paying attention, have your hand on the arm of the recliner with remote in hand, and all of a sudden... JIGGY ATTACK!!! And she won't let go or give up as easy. The easiest way to get her off of you is to lift your arm up in the air. But it's also the most painful because she doesn't let go. She'll get a few more kicks in before her claws slide down your naked arm, drawing blood on occasion. So instead, you have to wiggle, maneuver and distract, much like a championship boxer does. When they fight cats. It has a lot of pent up anger in it that it enjoys expressing as noted by the scars up and down my forearm.
Then it gets horny. For like an entire week. It won't bite or scratch, no matter how much you instigate. Trust me, I've tested it to certain limits I shouldn't be telling Tony and Jason about. It just mopes around crying and rubbing up against your leg, arm, foot, or whatever it can. It's really cute and a deserved break from the norm. It makes you think she likes you until you see her rubbing up against the kitchen table and couch just as affectionately. And I would certainly prefer this behavior with the exception of the fact that she won't shut up at night. She just sits outside all of our respective bedrooms crying all night until somebody goes out and wraps her up in duct tape. Which is usually me. Well, somebody has to be the bad guy. Anyway, Tony and I were on the phone with... well, I forget. It's unimportant. And if it was any of you, I apologize for calling you unimportant, but... well, they asked why we haven't gotten the Jigsaw fixed yet, to which he interjected...


Quote Of the Day 1/25/00

"Well, Jason wants to try to have babies with it first."
-Tone-Scratch


I always knew he was the kinky type.


Ignoring those noises in the night,
eXtendo.


Still Standing Right Here...

The Jessup Mafia

The Jessup Mafia

Hey. It snowed again. A lot. But just to throw a little wrench into things, it alternated snow, sleet, and rain. So there are a bunch of different layers out there, but ice is at the root of all of them, which makes for much more fun driving. I knew I was going to have problems when I started fishtailing around a corner in my sneakers. Never a good sign. But it does make driving a lot more "fun." I've gotten the controlled fishtail down to a science now. I was passing people on 95 who had skidded out of control into guard rails and were facing the wrong way and what not. Good Joe, wus that he is, asked me to slow down and stop doing donuts on the aforementioned major interstate. He was a little concerned about the aforementioned backwards cars. They just obviously couldn't drive. Modern day Darwinism at work.

There's a cool game a few of us have been playing recently called "Mafia." I'll spare everyone the details, but Russ is really good at guessing who is in the Mafia. I don't understand it. It's like he's been given one talent in his life, and this is it. How unfortunate. But anyway, he's really good at the game. In fact, he's so confident sometimes, that he lays $5 down on the table for anybody to take and says he'll bet that $5 that Julie or whoever is in the mafia. We questioned why just $5 if he was so confident. Then he showed us the glaring emptiness of his wallet with the absence of the dollar bill. Well, the game ended, proving Russ correct again, and he sighed a sigh of relief, picked up his money and said...

Quote Of the Day 1/24/00

"Thank God! Now let's put this money back in my wallet. In fact, let's put it in with this condom where I'm bound to not find it again for a good long while."

-Russel "Mafia Killer" Johnson


That'll really get you in good with a girl. Heat of passion, you pull out a condom and a $5 bill at the same time. But that's probably you're type. ;)

Carrying condoms and 57 cents in change,

X.


Still Standing Right Here...

Review of Galaxy Quest | AIM at Its Best

Somebody liked the plot of A Bug's Life so much, they turned it into a live action film set in space. And it works. So how did it work? Well, it was like a Star Trek film and a farce of a Star Trek film all wrapped into one. Kinda like how Good Burger was a bad film, and a farce of a bad film at the same time. They had ILM do the special effects and it showed. The actors and the casting was excellent. Tim Allen played an untalented, arrogant hack of an actor. Alan Rickman played an English Shakespearean actor who always finds himself in roles not worthy of him. And Sigourney Weaver played a chick with breasts. This one I didn't understand. I saw the entire Alien trilogy, for better and worse, and I don't remember anything like that ever happening. Kinda makes you appreciate wonder bras and the like. And this black guy from Veronica's Closet played a character that came dangerously close to being a Chris Tucker, Martin Lawrence, or Jamie Foxx type character in the beginning. But he regained his composure and didn't ruin the film for me, where someone in his position easily could have (as noted by the fact that I cannot watch The Fifth Dimension ever again). So I definitely recommend this film to everybody. It's funny in a non-typical Tim Allen way. And there's a little drama in there too that he doesn't screw up. So bare through the necessary 45 minutes it takes to set up the main plot, and I can guarantee laughter. 8 bugs. But 8 big ugly scary alien bugs.

I don't know if you know the principals behind AOL Instant Messenger, but if you type a message to me, the entire sentence pops up on my screen when you hit enter, and vice versa. So many times, when both parties are typing at the same time, the messages will pop up one right after the other, before the parties have a chance to read what the other had written first. Well, you get the point, I hope. Here's what happened in a conversation between Good Joe and Tony the day it snowed a lot and Joe was supposed to come down to MD for the night:


Quote Of the Day 1/21/00

WhiteTony: Smart move by not coming down here today.
GoodJoe4U: Thanks.
GoodJoe4U: I think Dustin has a small penis.
WhiteTony: They changed the forecast to as much as 14-20 inches.
GoodJoe4U: Laughing...too hard...can't...type...


This was an actual conversation, and mind you, I have no idea where that penis remark came from. I hope it was just random, because if it was inspired by "smart move by not coming down here today," I'm scared. Also, I guess I should be a little bit discouraged that they aren't calling for many inches at all this entire winter.


Doing blizzard dances,
X.


Still Standing Right Here...

Room to Ski

I'm finally going skiing again!!! I've wanted to go again since I went for the first time last January, and haven't gotten the chance to until now. Actually, remembering last time, I had a lot of fun, but I recall not being able to move laterally too well for a week. And my knees spent entirely too long twisted around each other with one of my skis stuck behind my other leg. I think I'm going to take the next two weeks and just stretch. And I'll plant my foot down and twist violently for increasingly longer everyday to prepare myself for next weekend. But I still can't wait. The planets have aligned once again and the many jobs of Mr. Whistlehead all have a well-placed break on the exact weekend that I was asked to go skiing. This was like Fate telling me I needed to go skiing. A higher power is at work here. Which means Good Joe needs to come too. In fact, the fact that I could make it was a big selling point for him...


Quote Of the Day 1/20/00

"You have off that whole weekend? You don't have any basketball games to do or new cars to tow or anything?"
-Joey Big Stuff


No inflatable obstacle courses to oversee either.


Marking the spot,
X.


Still Standing Right Here...

PHED 154 Winter y2k Duck Pin Bowling Final

1) What days do we have class?
A) Mondays and Wednesdays
B) Tuesdays and Thursdays
C) January
D) I have not attended class enough to judge
E) All of the above

2) You get off the beltway onto which road?
A) Route 40
B) Security Blvd.
C) Peakaboo Street
D) The Road Not Taken
E) All of the above

3) Which movie is about bowling?
A) King Pin
B) Not Without My Daughter
C) Saving Private Ryan
D) Frankenhooker
E) All of the above

4) My name is
A) Dustin
B) Mr. Whistlehead
C) Screaming Cricket
D) Extendo
E) All of the above

Turn your papers into me when you are finished. Highest score gets a free beer on me. Good luck!


Drew was really sick last week. He woke up at 6 PM on Tuesday just to drag himself to volleyball class. But he wasn't making too much sense whenever he spoke...


Quote Of the Day 1/18/00

Drew: "How's Lauren?"
Me: "I have no idea. Where did that come from?"
Drew: "Didn't you ask Bart how Lauren was?"
Me: "No."
Drew: "Oh... Well, maybe it was Julie that asked Bart how she was."
Me: "Why would Julie ask him how her roommate was?"
Drew: "Well, uh... maybe it was just Bart asking me how I was."


Or maybe it was just you asking yourself how I was.


Nothing but gutter,
DuckPin Dustin.


Still Standing Right Here...

Safe Kids

I have to tell you about this job I did last Tuesday. Now, being as though I don't have a real job that pays a real salary, I need to take a lot of part time jobs to stay only a few pages behind. Well, the guy that got me the job with the Ravens asked if I was available to work from 10 PM until 3 AM on Monday night and the following day from noon until about 5. I said "sure" and hung up not even thinking to ask him what I'd be doing or what I'd be getting paid. A few days later, he called back just to tell me exactly where and when to meet him. By then, I had the presence of mind to ask him what I'd actually be doing. He told me I'd be driving new cars back and forth to DC. Sure. Whatever. Well, I got there, and I found out that I would be driving these brand new Chevy Ventures from a firehouse in Crawford to the Washington Monument for a Safe Kids promotion that they (I still don't know who "they" are) were doing. Including me, there were 18 vans driving down to DC at a time. Now I've only been to DC once or twice, and I've never driven there. And when we started driving, I didn't know A) where exactly we were going, B) how to get there, or C) where the hell I was. They didn't think to go over directions on how to get there. A few people knew where they were going because they had been there already, but this guy mostly thought that we would never get separated. And if we did get separated, we'd be going slow enough that the others could catch up. First of all, I've been in a two-car caravan that has gotten separated before. And before we left, the guy in charge asked if there was anybody who didn't know DC at all. I was 1 of 4 people that raised their hands. And somehow, inevitably, I got stuck in the lead at a red light. In fact, it was within a mile of the firehouse. Everybody made a left onto route 50, and I got stuck waiting for the light. I figured, "I'm pretty smart. I'll just figure this out." Well, it's not that easy. I made the left and the road split immediately into 3 different routes, all looking just as good as the next to me. So rather than guess, I pulled into the very right lane, put my flashers on and drove about 30 miles an hour. At least 6 people behind me decided to follow me. Apparently, they didn't understand my sense of desperation. Finally, somebody passed me and I floored it and cut across three lanes of traffic and a small median to stay with him. And I had to do 85 to catch him, and he was still pulling away. So much for the "plan." But I stayed with him when I got him. There was a point in which I looked behind me and realized that I had nobody there. So if I lost this guy, I was screwed. Left to just wander around DC for eternity in a Safe Kids Chevy Venture. Or until I ran out of gas. So I was staying with him no matter what. I wasn't looking at street lights, oncoming traffic, small children, nothing. Nothing but the tail lights, that is. I ran 9 red lights between the two days. I found it kind of ironic we were driving vans with "Safe Kids" written all over it 85 miles an hour through red lights all night. But irony or no irony, I got a paycheck before I left.


Quote Of the Day 1/17/00

Me: "I've been driving so long my ass is starting to hurt."
Guy: "I think you're doing it wrong."


Why do they give minivans names like "Venture," "Expedition," and "Pathfinder?" Who are these parents kidding. You're not going to pouch cheetah, you're picking up Billy and Jenny from soccer and choir practice.


Driving a Chevy to the levee,
X.


Still Standing Right Here...

Watering Lights

Just to warn you, I'm going to skip the movie review this Friday because the last movie I saw in the theater that I didn't already review was Double Jeapardy, and I can't remember enough about it to do a review. And I'm tired of stealing the Brunching Shuttlecocks' reviews anyway. As if I needed to give you guys a reason.

Well, to end the long reign of my car having at least something illegal about it, Tony, Flynn and I put my headlights in this past weekend. We actually did it with relatively little difficulty, which I know isn't funny at all. Part of me wishes we screwed up at least a little bit so I'd have a story to tell, like maybe we accidentally plugged in a weedwacker instead of the headlight, but it went pretty smoothly. Sorry. Though I have since forgotten that they still point straight down. I had almost forgotten how much "fun" it is not knowing exactly which way the road turns 50 feet in front of me. Couple that with this new habit I have, which is bound to total my car and kill me soon enough. See, I've now started drumming along to whatever song is on the radio. OK. Well, it's not a new habit, but now I use actual drum sticks. When Stryker owned the car ages ago and I rode as a passenger, he had these drum sticks in the passenger's seat for whoever might be the passenger to amuse themselves during the voyage while he amused himself by driving there. Well, he sold the car to me with them in it, and it took me until a few weeks ago to realize that they can be used almost as easily by the driver of the vehicle. Well, maybe not just as easily. In fact, once I found out that the middle pad of the steering wheel functioned as almost a natural drumpad, I've had a lot more near accidents. And sometimes when I don't feel like driving, or just when I feel like doing this instead, I stick the drumsticks up between the steering wheel and I pretend I'm driving an X-Wing fighter. It makes the trip more "fun."

Well, I was driving the ole car with Stryker as a passenger the other day, and we were stopped at a red light. Apparently it turned green and I wasn't paying attention enough to realize it...


Quote Of the Day 1/14/99

"It doesn't get any greener unless you water it."
-HeaD FaTKiD


I found another use for the drum sticks.


Writing my will,
Drumming, Sightless Cricket.


Still Standing Right Here...

"Fun"

Well, it snowed. And mind you, I've never driven a rear wheel drive vehicle in the snow before, so I was in for a treat. Stryker told me it would be "fun." I guess he's talking about that kind of "fun" that accompanies looks of terror and moments of panic as the back end of the car begins creeping slowly and involuntarily toward the row of parked cars on the right every time I try to make a left turn. They always tell you to turn into a skid, which makes no sense to me. That's like telling a boxer to lean into a left hook. But it works. Temporarily. What happens is that you regain control of the vehicle, which is good. But you also happen to be under control going in a direction you don't want to be going, possibly toward a group of parked cars on the right side of a road. Which is bad. I haven't quite mastered the art of not hitting parked cars, but I'll give you updates as I learn them. Actually, my snow tires are kick ass. They're probably the coolest thing on there besides the Extendo license plates. They look like they belong on a monster truck. They have thick treads and illegal metal studs and everything (if you're a cop, substitute the word "emergency" for "illegal"). Anyway, get yourself a pair of those. I'm not so sure that they help, but they make your car look bigger and badder than it did before.

Tony and I were watching the weather forecast last night when they said there was a 100% chance of precipitation...


Quote Of the Day 1/13/99

"Well that's pretty cocky."
-Cool Tony


Another reason I loathe meterologists.


Avoiding as many parked cars as possible,
Extendo.


Still Standing Right Here...

How to Run Out of Gas

First of all, I would like to apologize for the last two messages being labeled improperly as 1/7/99 and 1/10/99. That was not a joke. It was a mistake. And I guess I'll warn you now, but I'm taking the whole month of February off. I know a lot of my attempts at jokes are unfunny and just sound like obscure statements instead, but the previous statement is really just an intentionally non-funny factual truth. I'm not going to be doing any quotes of the day for the entire month of February. I have my reasons, and I'll tell them to you for a price, but just sleep assured that at least I'm not taking off January or March or any month with 31 days. Just little old February. Even though it is a leap year. And don't tell Jessie Jackson if it comes up. He'll probably sue me for intentionally boycotting black history month. And it's not because it's Valentine’s Day month either. Even though I will manage to avoid having to come up with another bitter spite-filled rant about women or relationships. I'm running out, believe it or not. I haven't been dicked over in a while. Tell you what guys. I'll spend all February trying to get taken advantage of so I have more material for you, OK? Well that having been said, I would like to go back to the quote I sent out back toward Christmas about how I'm getting old because I got a blender and a humidifier for Christmas. Well, I jokingly asked for jumper cables and a 2 pint sauce pan for my birthday. Good Joe got me jumper cables, an ice scraper, a headlight (which makes two I have in boxes, unable to put them in because I still don't have a star ratchet), and a ratchet set including a star ratchet with which to install said headlight and its older brother (good thinking on his part), and it was the best gift I got this year. So I'm old. Or mature. Or probably just grown up, which is somewhere in between. But not really. I still shower with my bathing suit on.

Anyway, I was driving along with said Joe and all of a sudden I looked down at my gas gauge and it was on E. I could have sworn I had just filled it up. Well, I was a bit surprised...


Quote Of the Day 1/11/00

Me: "Ah! When the hell did that happen?!?"
Joe: "What?"
Me: "I'm outta gas."
Joe: "I'm guessing gradually over the last 250 miles."


I will admit, he has a strong argument.


Faking it all,
Extendo.


Still Standing Right Here...

Quote From the Past

Hey there folks. For those of you that don't know, I'll be at my parent's place all weekend in PA. This computer doesn't have a Pentium and seems to be experiencing some y2k problems. Every time I try to sdkjj udus dgu dsshiopi sdiubsiduh;i; sdubiab [[hdfa;ug a[

------------------------------------------------------------------------
[transfer interrupted]
[fatal execution error 19624-06]
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Subject: quote of the day 1/6/1900

Greeting, plebeians. Well, this new century brings with it much promise for the future. In a lightning quick 3 hour long address, President McKinley announced that coal is going to be the wave of the future. At approximately 12:00 noon, he cut the ribbon of the new Rockefeller Plantation and two gigantic smokestacks simultaneously let huge clouds of beautiful black smoke into the air. Shortly afterward, the 300 16-yr-old Rockefeller employees were ordered to get back to work. Also, I have just found out through the Trans-Atlantic Cable that the dawn of the new century has not stopped the kindly British from teaching the ways of Christ to African savages. Nothing can stop those guys. Except maybe the race of titan-like creatures they just discovered were living in the wild west. It's not a good week to be a buffalo fan. On a slightly more embarrassing note, I was out with a girl the other night and one thing led to another, and... well, to be honest, I couldn't figure out how to get her corset off. It was a rather complicated strap in the back. It had like two little hooks going one way and a third, bigger hook... well, it's not important.

Now what the hell is going on in the art world today? One century, Van Gogh is painting a beautiful version of the night sky, and the next century, this guy named Picasso decides the human form is not correct the way God intended it, and puts both our eyes on the same side of our face with a nose sticking out into nowhere. I guess the guy must have a plan of some sort. Or maybe he was just doing a portrait of somebody really ugly, and decided he needed to pretend to invent a new way of painting so he wouldn't get shot. That's probably what happened. And what's the big deal with this "Scream" painting? It sucks. It's a ghost in front of a bunch of spilled paint. I was tempted to just rip that right off the wall and take it home with me.

My witty grandpa from New York paid us a visit today, and just as he always is, he was right on top of his wits as soon as he got into the house. Before he even said hi, he uttered a classic line...


Quote Of the Day 1/6/1900

"I just rode (rowed) here all the way from New York, and boy are my arms tired!"
-Grandpa


Get it? Like rowing? What a card.


Progress at all costs,
Dustin Glenson.


I Can't Stand It..

Personal Fouls and Bowling Homework

My friend's mom suggested that we get 3 personal fouls a day. I like the number, but I think that might be a bit much. If this gets out of my little click of friends, the world could turn violent. I think 6 a week is a good number. It's more challenging to save them for the weekend, when you'll probably really need them. I think you should also get a challenge a day, in case you don't think a joke was really funny but everybody laughed out of politeness, or if you think the cab driver made a wrong turn but won't admit it. Of course if you are proven wrong, you lose a time out. And while we're sort of on the subject, my first quarter has just ended and the second quarter already begun. I didn't get too much of a break between quarters here, so I'm taking the next few days off and going back home again. It's really rare that I get all the planets to align and I don't have to work at any of my jobs for 4 days in a row. Well, unless you count the last week and a half.

I had my second day of bowling class yesterday. We went over the 7-10 split and the proper celebratory technique after one gets a strike. The kids are really catching on quickly. I'm proud of them. Tuesday night, I was sitting in my chair making up a homework assignment for them to make sure they knew how to keep score properly. Tony asked what I was doing...


Quote Of the Day 1/4/00

Me: "I'm actually making up homework for my bowling class."
Tony: "What are you doing? Giving them a pop quiz on directions to the bowling alley?"


You make a right on:
A. Security Blvd.
B. Route 40.
C. Sesame St.
D. The Road Not Taken
E. All of the above

How does that strike you,
Dr. Extendo.


Still Standing Right Here...

Bowling and Real Life Time Outs

Well, I already fucked up the year on the date of one of my checks. I tried to write January 3, 2000, and it came out January 3, {undefined}. That was weird. Apparently, my wrist is not y2k compliant. At any rate, I started teaching bowling Monday. What a tough job, let me tell you. The first day, we went over how to keep score and how to get there. Nobody asked me any questions about fatty amino acids that I didn't know the answers to, and a couple of the guys had a beer or two during the 3 hour bowling outing. Now this is my kind of class! Next class we're going to discuss lane courtesy and what to do when you spill your drink at the console. The kids can't wait.

If you don't know me that well, you probably don't know that I've started instituting a time out policy in actual life. (You get 2 a day, by the way.) I thought the concept of getting time outs should extend passed just the sports world. Often times I find myself in a conversation that begins innocently enough but gradually degenerates toward something I don't really want to hear about. Rosanne Barr and nakedness comes directly to mind. Anyway, I had to tell Mike, Kevin and Joe about this time out policy that I had already founded back in MD, because I called a time out and they gave me that "we're not the correct crowd for that particular inside joke" look, which I had grown accustomed to seeing because of them, as opposed to seeing it from them. They laughed, dismissed it, and shortly afterward, we started up a harmless enough conversation. Then I make one little anal sex joke and Mike glares at me rather harmfully...


Quote Of the Day 1/3/00

"How many personal fouls do you get?"
-Heterosexual Mike


I had to waste a time out there.


Faith, hope, and charity,
Mr. Dustin.


Still Standing Right Here...

Review of Dogma and y2k

Really quick, I'm gonna go over how I felt about Dogma, my most recent theatrical sojourn. Instead of doing this in paragraph style, I'll give a test group of ten factors of the film a bug rating between 0 and 1.

Original and interesting story idea: 1
Application and/or entertainment value of story idea: 0
Chris Rock falling out of the sky naked: 0
George Carlin playing a cardinal: 1
Attempt at witty one-liners: 0
Alan Rickman (bad guy in Die Hard) showing his naked crotch: 0
Salma Hayek not showing hers (and trying to act): 0
Alanis Morissette as God: 1/2
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon: 1
Jay and Silent Bob as prophets: 0

My head explodes when Alanis sings too. So it looks like Dogma gets 3 1/2 bugs, which is about right. I appreciate its attempts at making a farce of organized religion, but most of its attempts seemed flaky and not completely executed. The film was well researched, which is something most open attempts to mock religion are not, but it wasn't enough to keep me interested. And Jay and Silent Bob type humor is just a little too crass and unfunny for me. Ben and Matt really carried the film for those people who feel the same way I do about Kevin Smith. Of course I didn't like Chasing Amy at all, for what it's worth.

Well, it certainly appears as though we survived y2k with only a few minor scratches. For example, if you checked UMBC's Athletics webpage yesterday in Netscape, it would have said "Jan 03, 19100." But there was no major power outage, no idiots strapping themselves to bombs and walking into Central Park or DC, and frankly, I was a little disappointed. Apparently, they closed the tunnels in and out of New York and went so far as to wire the sewer lids shut to avoid such an incidence. Seattle even cancelled their planned New Years Eve shindig to avoid terrorist affairs. I agreed with them at the time, but now that nothing happened, I think Seattle is a big wus city. I guess all the smart terrorists will be out next year, at the end of the real millennium, when the ill-equipped, short-sighted public who all decided sometime last year that the fact that we get to write a 2 as the first digit of the year on our checks now was a good enough reason to ignore certain historic data will just treat it as any other minimum security New Years Eve. It's just me and Al Franken left, isn't it?

Anyway, my mom asked what I was doing for New Years Eve, if I had planned on going to DC or New York or anything, to which I told her that I was just going into Baltimore City if anything...


Quote Of the Day 1/1/00

"OK. So just your local looting and rioting."
-Mom


It wasn't even that exciting.


Happy New Year!
The Dustin.


Still Standing Right Here...