Clearance from God

Clearance from God

OK boys and girls, put on your game face. It's time. Is TO gonna play or not? You wanna know the truth? I don't give a fuck. Maybe it's because it's all I've been hearing about for the last two weeks. The Eagles are finally in the Superbowl for the first time since I was 5 and I have actually found myself turning off Sportscenter because I'm so sick of the Terrell Owens ankle updates. It seems to be all anybody asks me about the game too. If you haven't been paying attention, he's coming back from his injury 3 weeks early because God cleared him to play. Though if he does score, I can't wait to see what he'll do. I think he should just give the ball to the ref and walk back to the sidelines. It will be the most talked about celebration this year. And the camera will stay stuck on him for half an hour. Actually, I would like to see him run over and raise the PAT net himself. That would make his return worth it. But the real game takes place before the game even starts. You can bet on anything in the superbowl. Even the coin toss. This is how I will make my millions. There is something called a two-team parlay in sports betting. You bet that two things will happen and if they both happen, you get paid decent money. Something like 13:5. So if you put up $5 that the Eagles will cover and the score will go over the over/under (if you're lost, don't worry - it gets easier), you get 13 dollars if both things happen. OK, so put down $5 that the Eagles will win the toss and the Eagles will get the ball first. If you're right, you get $13. Then put up $5 that the Patriots will win the toss and the Patriots will get the ball first. If this happens, you get $13. So you'll lose $5 if you choose both of these, but you'll get $13 as long as whoever wind the toss elects to receive the ball. This happened in every Eagles game and every Patriots game this season. So for every $5 you put up, you win $8. Just so the bookie doesn't catch on, place these bets with two different bookies. It's a lock. In fact, it's more like an investment than a bet. And that's what I'm asking from you. Only $500 and you can get in on the ground floor. Now I just need to find two different bookies who will take a bet from somebody who's never placed a bet before. And I'm going to be the one getting my legs broken if the deal goes sour. Well, this is how I'm going to make my millions next year.

I fucked up my ankle again. Not as bad as it's ever been, but enough to sideline me from my lunchtime Tue/Thu old man basketball games. So one of the guys asked me if I'd be able to play next week...

Quote of the Day 2/6/05

"Well, all you need is God to clear you."

-Geoff


Unfortunately, my HMO won't send him my MRI.

Flyin like an Eagle,

Dustin McNabb.


Still Standing Right Here...

Rating Responses to QOTD 1/31/05

OK. This is the day when I normally rate something that normally wouldn't be rated. But you guys seem to be having so much fun with that last QOTD, I kinda want to run with it. I've gotten more responses for a quote than I think I have since the time I gave the Star Wars movie a bad rating. What a fucking debacle that was. And back then, I sent it out so that everybody could respond to everybody else. It turned into this bitter, opinionated e-argument between those people who liked the movie and thought I was unfair in my rating and those people who disagreed with the misuse of my mailing list. It got ugly. I lost two friends over that. But an important lesson was learned. And we can all agree that important lessons are sometimes worth at least the friendship of two Star Wars geeks.

Sorry, I off-tracked myself a little. So I had a lot of fanfare is what I was saying. Now while I don't feel it is right to send out the entire thing to everybody on this list, I can give you all a taste. And with approximately every two sentences in this e-mail, one more person had to temporarily be deleted from this mailing list. Consider yourselves proud to have made the cut. Or to have an e-mail address I couldn't easily associate with you. Anyway, I'm going to rank some of the responses I've gotten from everybody about the letter I sent out, to try to stay with the theme. And in a cheap attempt to make my job easier, I'm going to make them a whole week's worth of quotes. I'm a schemer like that. So I hope you don't mind the personal messages you sent back to me going public. I deleted all the emotional, non-funny stuff. And thanks to everybody that wrote back. Apparently, lots of people have my back.

Responses to QOTD 1/31/05...

Quote of the Day 2/1/05

Stryker: "Women are like a fine wine. You pay a lot of money expecting a nice experience. But most of the time they end up being bitter and dry. That and they stain the carpet." - Here's what I like about this response. And Stryker. He comes up with a completely out-of-the-blue simile that makes a very good and relevant point however random it might be, but to make sure he maintains both his comic integrity and his macho dignity, he throws in a little joke at the end so we know it's not just a sympathetic "I love you, friend" type of note. It's not the funniest thing he's ever said, but he stayed within the framework of his intention. Well done. A

Quote of the Day 2/2/05

Jason Corns: "Despite the random flailings of women who think too highly of themselves... and despite even the staple-proof vest, you are a resoundingly thoughtful friend." Jason had the same concept, but in reverse order. Equally as effective as Stryker's and should show you the difference between the two of them and why obviously one is superior to the other. He started out with the joke and brought it back to the old "I got your back, bro" finale. Well constructed. A

Quote of the Day 2/3/05

Excerpt from 1/31/05:
> So please tell me now if I've ever thought that I was having a
> conversation with anyone on this list and I was actually undergoing some
> sort of exam and wound up failing miserably.

John Sears: "Dustin, it's time you knew the truth. Your parents have the originals." - So that's how it works? Well, this was all joke and John will therefore not be confused for anyone going on "The View." But our friendship is understood. He's pinned it down perfectly so many times, comparing me to comets and tumbleweed. But in a good way. A

Quote of the Day 2/4/05

MJ: "Having to give someone a test to find other whether you like them (or apparently absolutely hate them) is like a doctor giving you his own second opinion in order to validate his first opinion. Now that I just read that last sentence I don't know if that makes any sense. I should probably go get a third opinion. ;)" - Again with the similes. I like it. And this is like a joke on top of joke, the last of which he pokes fun at himself, which is one of my favorite techniques. He also went on to literally say that he had my back. Bro. A

Quote of the Day 2/5/05

Mike Conover: "Holy Christ on a stick! She's fuckin nuts! People don't even think to themselves the things she said, let alone write them and then actually communicate them." - See, Mike had the benefit of actually reading the e-mail in its entirety, so his needs to be graded on a curve. He wrote back a dissection of her hate message that comes close to 5 pages single spaced in Word. I actually read it at work and because I kept getting interrupted, it took me 2 hours to read. And I laughed the entire time. Thanks, Mike. And now there are two copies out there in case of my disappearance. And I finally have a reason to get a safe deposit box. But anyway, Mike's message was awesome, through and through. However, if I printed it all, I'd have to probably delete another 125 people off the list. But I'm sure I'll throw out bits and pieces when I can. This quote was just how his 5 page response started. And it should sum up the tone of the letter. Anyway, good job Mike. Originally A+, but with curve, A.


Whew! Five quotes in one day! I'm beat.

T-1 day until Eagle Superbowl detonation,

Dustin McNabb


Still Standing Right Here...

When Nuts Attack

When Nuts Attack

Now I'm not going to pretend that I'm the greatest guy in the world. Well, at least I'm not perfect. You all know this. I've done some things that some girls I've dated have every right to be angry about. Megan O'Brien had every right to be pissed. As did Maryrose. OK, I'm going to stop this thread now. Where I'm going with this is that I recently got involved with someone who I used to be good friends with. Things didn't work out for one reason or another and she decided she didn't want to see me anymore. OK. I got it. We had very different interests and that was tough to get around...

-----11 days later-----

...then came this absolutely nasty e-mail. It was the most hate-laden flailing piece of anger I have ever seen. And I've seen some anger. Heck, a few of you are responsible for some. Anyway, she started by saying my quote of the day was crap, uninteresting and uninspired. Well no shit it's uninspired! I hope none of you are looking to my dinky little attempts at humor to motivate you to finally write that detective novel or sculpt that enormous red ear. Hell, I don't even really expect it to make you laugh most days. I really just use it as a transition between downloading porn and playing internet poker. If you guys are still reading it, that's an unexpected bonus. Then she went on to say that she was testing me the whole few times we had gone out and I failed every one despite the fact that she made them progressively easier. And the whole time I thought we were just having a conversation. Nope. I was wrong. And it seemed so much like a conversation. But not when you are out with the self-proclaimed "ultimate quizmaster." Nope. Then, you are under a microscope. Two weeks later, she brought up a topic that came up in passing that I didn't bother asking her about. Some musician. Apparently, I was supposed to ask her why she liked this artist. I did not. So I got that question wrong. The e-mail had a few other examples of things I didn't ask her to expand on. This lowered my overall score to finish in the same percentile as that of the average ginkgo plant. If the score I got on her little tests translated into SATs, I probably couldn't even get into Towson (zing!). So please tell me now if I've ever thought that I was having a conversation with anyone on this list and I was actually undergoing some sort of exam and wound up failing miserably. Or please tell me if I passed. Because I want to know what my GPA is for these single-blind quizzes I may have been enduring for who knows how long. And for God sakes, if you want to talk about something, talk about it. I'm not gonna put up with this shit anymore. You've been warned. I had to take a few people off this list for this quote for reasons that would be obvious to some other people on this list and the people I took off, obviously. Though the e-mail she sent was obviously meant to hurt me, it ceased to have any affect on me because it came off as a flailing anger-filled tirade. It did, however, scare me. As out of the blue as this was, who knows what the hell else this girl is capable of. I showed this e-mail to a coworker to get a second opinion...

Quote of the Day 1/31/05

"You're going to want to save this. Your mom will need it for the trial."

-Nancy, my unpaid social advisor.



You're going to want to delete this. Your mom will never need to know any of this.

Wearing a staple-proof vest,

D Rec.


Still Standing Right Here...

Bugged

Bugged

Here's a quick hit because I'm behind and I don't want to be:

A bug buzzes by Jamie during a poker game. He shoos it away. Several minutes later, it buzzes by again and he swats at it once again...

Quote Of the Day 1/20/05

J-Me: "Damn! It's that same damn bug!"
Dad: "Wow. You must have got a good look at it."


The joke's on us. He gave my dad the finger.

The fly in your Vaseline,

D Rec.


Still Standing Right Here...

Rating Times I've Run Out of Gas

Times I've Run Out of Gas

I'm not proud of it, but I've run out of gas at least four times in my life, each of them worse than the last. Except the third one. That's tough to top. Anyway, here are the stories of these events. All dates approximate.


Sun, Jan 24, 2001 1:00am - I-95 on my way back to UMBC from PA on a Sunday night. I ran out of gas somewhere around Aberdeen and this predates my ownership of a cell phone. I had no idea which way was the closest exit, so I just started walking forward. After about a mile, my ankle reminded me that I had just ruptured my Achilles tendon about 4 months ago. Some random guy stopped saw the car about a mile back and saw me limping toward the exit in the freezing cold and put two and two together. He picked me up just as I was getting to the exit and drove me to get gas and a gas can and drove me back and wouldn't let me give him any money. He just made me promise to help somebody else out someday. And that was 5 years ago now. Wow. I just made myself feel like an asshole. Well, it was a cool ending, but lacked the drama some of these next ones come with. B-

Sat, Aug 5, 2002 4:00pm - Route 1 just off I-195. Tony had just told me that his car got 400 miles to the tank and I wanted to try to see if my car could. I pushed it a little too far. On the plus side, I got just over 400 miles. On the minus side, I got about .25 miles less than I needed. I stalled out on my way down the exit and coasted to a stop on the way up a little tiny bridge just on the other side of a gas station. And nowhere to go. Fuck. I couldn't drift far enough back to get on the shoulder and I couldn't push it up either hill. So I shoved the car as far over as I could so only about half of it was in the right lane. Then I started to run to the gas station only about a 1/2 mile away. Meanwhile, some hick in a pickup truck stopped to pick me up and help me out. I really didn't need it, but I didn't want to belittle his attempt to help, so I obliged and got in the cab with his son. He drove me the rest of the way to the station and I filled up a new gas can (cause I never keep them) and he drove me back to my car, making racist comments the entire time I was with him. It wasn't much, but I thought I'd offer him a few bucks to show I appreciated his help and to help his kid realize that good deeds go rewarded. He took it. Jerk. Exciting place to run out, but not a great conclusion. Though it was an idiotic reason to run out of gas in the first place. B+

Mon, Dec 27, 2004 1:00am - Ben Franklin Bridge. OK, I'm coming back from a Jersey bar after watching a meaningless Eagles game with Kevin, Leigh and a few friends. I took my parents car because mine doesn't really have heat. I did not know that the gas gauge reads 1/8 of a tank when it's really empty. So it starts to putter out just as I got to the tolls and I think "OK, I'll just get gas as soon as we get into Philly." Well, Kevin and I make it halfway up the bridge and... pfffftt. That word was supposed to represent the car running out of gas. This is very dangerous. I'm on a bridge in a car going over the Delaware River and all of a sudden, well, I'm not on a bridge in a car going over the Delaware River. But all the cars behind me think I am. Little do they know that I'm on a bridge in a car sitting still about 1/2 a mile above the Delaware River. So I put my blinkers on to signify to all the buses coming up on our ass at 60 mph (if you're my mom, stop reading this now) to get the hell out of the way, there's a big problem. And I definitely lost my cool. I was in fear for my life. Kevin, meanwhile, was writing a country song about it. Well, he was at least more relaxed than I was. I came up with a plan I thought was best at the time, to drift backwards down the bridge into Jersey to at least get onto a shoulder near the toll booth. As I'm doing this, a cop came up behind me. Thank God. I've never been so happy to see a cop before in my life. He puts his lights on and parks behind me. He comes up to the car and asks if I've been drinking. "Drinking?!? I'm out of gas halfway up the Ben Fucking Franklin Bridge and you're asking me if I've been drinking?!? Who gives a fuck?! Yeah, I've been drinking officer, I've been drinking gas and I'm out. Now can you give me a fucking hand?!?!?" Actually, I think I said something like "no." He tells me to put the car in neutral and he'll come up behind and push me to safety. Brilliant! He even did it free of charge! So I was ecstatic when I got to Philly and pulled over. He asked if I had a plan to get out and I lied and said yes and he left. Whew! Thank God that was over! So I start to wander into North Philly to look for a gas station while Kevin gets the guitar out of the trunk and gets back to work in the car. I call my dad, who notifies me that I had just walked into like the heroin capital of Pennsylvania and tells me to get the hell out of there. So I do. This also happens to be the coldest night of winter to date and I'm in the middle of the city with an elf-looking Eagles hat on. And I'm with a guy dressed like a cowboy. I still can't believe I didn't get mugged. Well, thank God for cell phones. I called Leigh, who met me at an intersection I thought she could find and we did the part I've become a seasoned expert at by now. Elapsed time from running out of gas to leaving the scene = 2 hours. Danger factor = about as high as it can get. Other elements - freezing cold, heroin district, faulty design in gas can. A+

Mon, Jan 17, 2005 4:00am - In front of Mike's place. (mom, you can start reading again) Mike and I had just gotten cheesesteaks in Philly and I was about to drop him off and go home. I knew I needed gas soon, but I didn't know how soon (all the interior lights in my car don't work - kind of romantic, very unhelpful). I figured it could wait until I dropped him off and I'd get it on the way back. Well, it might have, had we not sat in my car talking for about an hour. All of a sudden, pfffftt. Not again. Fucking twice in a month. At least I'm in a parking spot in front of a friend's house who happens to have a car and doesn't need to be at work until 5pm the following day. So we drive to my parent's place and get the gas can that still has some gas in it from my parent's car (which it never made it out of) and drive back to Mike's place. Easy enough. Except for the faulty gas can that Kevin never showed me the trick of last time. So while I spilled gas all over the finger of my glove (and none in the tank), and kicked the gas cap so hard it broke, Mike was diligently pouring the gas into his water bottle and pouring the water bottle into the tank. The shit you learn when you get a history degree. The danger factor was as low as ever, but the idiocy factor makes up for it. As well as the fact that I'll have to think about it everytime I get gas now, since the cap is broken. C+

I'm pretty sure I got ripped off by the gas station in Philly for the gas can. It's kinda like a tow truck. They can overcharge, because they know you need the service. I have an idea for a way to make my millions. But anyway, I was pissed about it...

Quote of the Day 1/18/05

Me: "What kind of a place charges $9.00 for a gas can?"
Leigh: "What kind of a 30-yr-old man runs out of gas?"


OK, Rende. You win this round.

Running into the sun but I'm running behind,

D Rec.


Still Standing Right Here...