Uhm… that is just wrong.

I play pool in a local fun league. There’s roughly a hundred people in the league, divided into about 20 teams. Every Wednesday we get together and attempt to pocket balls for the sake of entertainment. By virtue of my ranking (average games won) among these folks I am the captain of one of these teams. This year was a fairly successful year for me and my team. My team finished second in the finals and I personally ranked 7th in the league.

At the end of each season, the league throws a kickass banquet, complete with awards, prizes, and a pool tournament. They cater in BBQ steak and have a buffet-style spread of baked potatoes and various salads. They usually draw names for prizes that vary in size from a $300.00 golfing weekend get-a-way to a $75 dollar Walmart coupon. Usually, there’s about half as many prizes as there are qualifying members. Pretty good odds of winning a prize. But this year, there was a prize for every single player in the league. Pretty awesome. On top of that, they gave away a shitload of Dooly’s cash and Pizza Delight coupons. In the draws, I picked up a pool cue (which I sold for a hundred bucks) and two pizza coupons.

We tried to use the coupons that night on the way home, but Pizza Delight closes a little earlier than 2:30 a.m. apparently. I put the coupons in my shirt pocket, we stopped at Greco for pizza, then we went home, went to bed and the next day continued about our normal business and household chores. Changing clothes from the washer to the dryer, I noticed a bunch of little pieces of paper. Oh no! My pizza coupons! Oh well… shit happens.

That was two weeks ago.

Friday, I was wearing that same shirt and noticed a ball of something in the shirt pocket. It was the pizza coupons, all balled up after being washed into raw pulp and then reconverted to a ball of paper after going through the dryer. I showed it to a colleague and half jokingly asked if Pizza Delight would accept it. She suggested that I wet the paper and attempt to unfold it again. I did just that and after some careful prying and spreading I was able to produce a couple of scraps of paper closely resembling their original form. They looked like something discovered in an archaeological dig. I let them dry and pressed them inside a notebook and went to Pizza Delight lunchtime today. After some giggling and poking fun at my expense, the nice young lady behind the counter wrote me up some new coupons and I was on my way!

The prize that keeps on giving. Free pizza… twice! Kind of.

You might be a redneck if…

Check out the pics below. It’s amazing what some people believe suffices for safe “engineering”. These folks probably ended up at the bottom of a ravine somewhere and/or the proud recipients of a Darwin Award.

He added some heavy-duty chain for extra support on the tailgate (note that he used the “Heavy-Duty ‘S’ hooks to attach the chain). He also paid-up for some BIG 5/16 sheetmetal screws to attach the frame to the tailgate. Yeah, he knows it’s overkill, but he didn’t want the possibility of having an accident.

Much of his time was spent on his front porch whittling down that 4×4 post to fit precisely into the ball mount receiver. Also note that he used a 14″ piece of 1×4 to help distribute the load more evenly! You can’t be too safe, you know. “It cost a little more but, y’know, my yung’uns is worth every penny.”

Thanks Ed.

In the beginning, there was a plan,
And then came the assumptions,
And the assumptions were without form,
And the plan without substance,

And the darkness was upon the face of the workers,
And they spoke among themselves saying,
“It is a crock of shit and it stinks.”

And the workers went unto their Supervisors and said,
“It is a pile of dung, and we cannot live with the smell.”

And the Supervisors went unto their Managers saying,
“It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong,
Such that none may abide by it.”

And the Managers went unto their Directors saying,
“It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide by its strength.”

And the Directors spoke among themselves saying to one another,
“It contains that which aids plants growth, and it is very strong.”

And the Directors went to the Vice Presidents saying unto them,
“It promotes growth, and it is very powerful.”

And the Vice Presidents went to the President, saying unto him,
“This new plan will actively promote the growth and vigor
Of the company With very powerful effects.”

And the President looked upon the Plan
And saw that it was good,
And the Plan became Policy.

And this, my friend, is how …

Thanks Louise!

I’ve written several posts over the years using the word “Newfie” as it refers to Newfoundlanders. Last week, one of those posts, written back in September 2005 (originally on my Blogger site and later transferred to this one when I bought my own domain) was found by someone who enjoyed it enough to leave me a comment relaying her own story which was similar to mine. Essentially, I had run into a person who was perplexed that I had referred to myself as a “Newfie”. She apparently had not associated the term as meaning “someone from Newfoundland”. She had grown up associating the term to mean “stupid”.

Ignorance is bliss, huh?

Well, you know how the thought process works, eh? You think about one thing, see something or hear something and then the synapses in your brain fire up and across and whatever else synapses do. Soon, you find yourself thinking about things you hadn’t thought of in years. Perhaps your conversations lean toward your newly discovered thoughts. My conversations did. I talked to those around me about someone finding such an old post and about the use of the word that, while so many use it to refer to themselves, could be used in hurtful and demeaning ways. My re-introduction to this word stirred memories of a “This Hour Has 22 Minutes” skit that made drew parallels to another “N” word as it poked fun of Michael Richards’ tirade on a comedy stage and his subsequent apology. In many ways, while usually not as harshly intended nor deeply wounding, the two words bring forth similar feelings and social consequences.

In true 22 Minutes style, they made the point very well, possibly seeing through Mr. Richards’ apology, and was hilarious in doing so. Here it is:

I try to avoid using the word now.

Some advice to all you illicit drug transporters out there… when you are shipping over a million bucks worth of marijuana in the trunk of your car, make sure you aren’t giving the cops any silly reason to pull you over.

This guy, on his way to Newfoundland, got pulled in yesterday just outside of Moncton, because he had a headlight burnt out. When the police were talking with him, he was agitated enough to cause suspicion and they brought in the drug sniffing dogs and found 68 kilos of weed in his car. Man! That poor bugger must have been ready to throw up the minute he saw those lights a-flashin’ in his rear view. When they brought the dogs in, he must have filled his shorts.

I don’t know exactly why, but I instantly felt sorry for this guy when I heard it on the news this morning. Imagine how screwed he’d be if he had stolen this stuff!