Dale – Page 34 – Everyday Normal

October 16, 2008

Johrack McBama

I really dislike how divided the U.S. gets every four years and how it lingers for the next 3.7 years then picks right back up. Good news, scientists have found a way to bring two people together in body and mind. They have devised the Voltron Solution.

They have used it to create a candidate that will really unite the people. Last night after the debate scientists kidnapped the candidates and made them drink the Voltron Solution and hold hands. The result is Johrack McBama. He is truly bi-partisan and will bring us all together (Unless, of course, like me, you don’t like either of the politicians that he is made up of).

Johrack McBama in 2008.

If this plan fails to unite us, the scientists plan on releasing their Voltron Solution into the water supply. Thus uniting the entire U.S. population into a massive evil-fighting robot.

October 15, 2008

Dry Ice Bombs

A few years back I was a huge fan of dry ice bombs. My friends and I would go around putting them in all kinds of strange places just for fun. The first time we did it, for some strange reason , we went to the local duck pond to set them off. We packed in the dry ice and threw the bottle out in to the pond. When we threw it we threw it to a clear area, but the ducks quickly gathered around the bottle. I guess if people are throwing things in the water it is usually bread. The ducks were hanging out around the bottle and we were waiting for it to explode. It seemed to take 20 minutes but it eventually blew sending ducks flapping and quacking in all directions. I still wonder how many we killed or if they all survived the blast.

We then went on to try several more things. We buried bombs in playground sandboxes and watched as they exploded with a muffled sound and sent dirt flying into the air. We got some helium balloons and floated them over peoples houses. We exploded the contents of a port-a-potty all over its walls. We would leave them on peoples doorsteps in the middle of the night.

This was all done pre-9/11 and I would hate to know what kind of huge massive trouble you could get in doing this after 2001. We almost got caught a couple of times. Once we were using hydrochloric acid bombs at a park late at night. We buried a 3 liter bomb under the sand and waited for a really long time. It never went off so my friend Rambo pulled it out of the sand and it was huge. It looked like it would hold 6 liters of fluid now. Rambo decided to throw it down at the ground next to him. I thought he had gone insane and that he was going to be seriously injured. Somebody up there likes him though because when he threw it there was no explosion, but rather the bottle sprung a leak that sent it flying into the air spewing a mist of acid behind it. It disappeared above the level of the lights and it felt like it was in the air for a solid minute. It was really probably only up for 10 or 12 seconds which is still impressive. For that time my two friends and I were looking alertly upward waiting for the bottle to hit one of us on the head. It came down a few feet behind Rambo and we looked at the deformed bottle and laughed about Rambo’s death wish.

We decided to give a glass bottle a try. We put in all the stuff, closed the bottle and then took cover in my friends car. After another long unfruitful wait we decided to shoot my friends pellet gun at it. He went back by his trunk and was taking aim to shoot when I saw a police car driving up from the other side of the park. I yelled at him that the cops were coming and he threw his gun back in the trunk and jumped back in the car. The police turned on their lights and we didn’t even move an inch. They had us get out of the car one at a time. They had me put my hands behind my head and they grabbed my hands with a fistful of hair then asked if I had anything in my pockets. I told them about my pocket knife and was anticipating getting my face slammed into the ground as had happened before with police. They set me down in a row next to my friends. We were all pretty close to the glass bottle that hadn’t exploded yet. We began to hear a hissing noise from pressure being released and I was just praying that the bottle would not explode with the police right there. The hissing continued for a couple of minutes and then stopped. Inside the car I had 2 bottles full of acid that we hadn’t mixed yet and when the cops let us back in the car after everything there was only one bottle.

The other close call we had was when we vandalized someones house and left a couple of bombs on their doorstep. We drove away and waited for the bombs to go off. The first one went off but we never heard the second one. We drove away in a hurry. We passed by a while later and saw police cars and an ambulance out in front of the house. Our imaginations ran wild with thoughts of someone getting burned by acid or picking up the bomb and blowing off a finger. We later found out that nothing happened. We were very lucky and very stupid.

October 13, 2008

Autumn Weather Warning

Stay safe everyone.

October 10, 2008

There Goes the Neighborhood

Yesterday at lunch time, my wife informed me that a police officer came to the door and told her to stay in the house and that they “wouldn’t have to evacuate, yet.” And the SWAT team was coming in. Apparently some guys had broken into a house at 2 in the morning and cracked the residents over their heads with a bat. Then they dragged them to the living room and demanded drugs and money while pointing a gun at them. They took a bunch of electronics and told them not to call the cops or they would comeback and kill them. When the perps left the family called the cops. The suspects saw a police car and turned into a trailer park where they got a flat tire. They abandoned the vehicle with everything they had stolen and hid in a backyard. They then got away from there and went to the house of one of their brothers which happens to be in my neck of the woods. That’s where the SWAT team came in. I went home to find my street blocked off and tons of cops and reporters everywhere. I parked down another street and went and asked one of our local newsmen how I could get up to my house. He said he had no idea so I just jumped my neighbors back fence and ran through their backyard to get to mine. (My back fence is a big sound-proof wall so I can’t climb it.) I got in my house and started filming and photographing stuff.

This really makes me want to play counter-strike.

October 9, 2008

Company Policy #3

More from my first job at a CD Warehouse:

In the store we had what we called the “Crap Bin”. It was our 99¢ bin. It was full of CD’s that were from really bad artists, CD’s that we had too many of, or ones that were just in bad condition. There was a lot of Hootie and the Blowfish, Snow, Green Day, Soul Asylum and other stuff like that. The crap bin just filled up, always waiting for that moment of exhilarating joy when someone would want to hear Colour Me Badd again.

Now as the crap bin continually accumulated more CD’s we needed to find a way to reduce the size of the crap bin. We thought of implementing a buy one get one 99 cent CD free promotion, and we tried improving the appearance of the bin and more prominently displaying them but nothing worked. The CD’s in that bin kept growing. One day John was inspired as he remembered the store across town that also buys CD’s. It was a store called Hastings and they had a relatively small collection of used CD’s. They didn’t generally offer as much money as we did for used CD’s. They were known for giving 3 dollars for the good stuff and we usually gave 5 bucks a pop for good material. John and my friend, Rob, who worked there too, loaded up about 30 CD’s and headed over to Hastings. Rob went up to the counter and John went inconspicuously over to the magazines and hid himself, as the Hastings management knew who he was. Rob went over to the counter and offered his stack of crappy CD’s to the girl at the counter. The girl instantly turned around and asked the manager for help. The manager began grilling Rob about the origin of so many CD’s that were from such a wide range of genres. Rob explained that he was very eclectic in his musical taste and that some of the CD’s were his sisters. After filling out an information form Rob looked around for John and saw him hiding his face behind a magazine. The girl told Rob that she could only give him 30 dollars for the entire stack of CD’s. They left with the satisfaction of getting 1 dollar for each of those CD’s from the 99 cent bin. Upon their return they relayed the whole story to me and we all laughed our heads off. I said that I wished I could have been there, John said, “Oh, you’ll get your turn.”

One week later we picked out another stack of about 30 CD’s and carefully positioned them in the stack so as to have the recognizable artists in strategic places. I walked into Hastings with my stack of CD’s and John came in a minute after me. I went to the counter to find one girl behind it and I looked around for a manager only to not find one in sight. I began commenting to the girl on how cool her job was and trying to make small talk. I had to fill out an information slip to make sure they could find me if it turned out that the CD’s were stolen. After I did that the girl handed me 60 bucks. I almost started laughing out loud. I kept my composure until I got outside and met John at his car. After that we just referred to our trips as “The Hastings Scandal”.

Isn’t it a real shame that no one will probably ever know the excitement of selling CD’s to a competitor?

October 8, 2008

SNL Funny????

I haven’t thought anything on Saturday Night Live was funny for a long time. I would tune in sometimes to see if I would laugh and never so much as crack a smile. Randomly there would be something pretty good, maybe. I watched on Saturday and saw a couple of things that I thought were pretty good.

I guess there is some weird editing stuff with this first one.

This one is just a good solid impression.

I have always wanted to be a writer for SNL (even when they are unfunny) so if anyone knows anybody, go ahead and hook me up.

Maybe I can dig up some classics at a later date.

October 2, 2008

Top 5 Burgers

As someone who had burgers and Taco Bell embedded into their DNA as a child and who is a big fan of Hamburger Heart Bear, I can appreciate a solid performance from a burger. These are my top 5 burger joints in order.

5. Burger Master – (Tonopah Nevada)

If it was anyplace else it would be a standard struggling Mom and Pop establishment. But being in Tonopah made it the true burger master. Unfortunately they don’t do too much business because Tonopah is a small town and there is a McDonalds up the street. The McDonalds was disgusting and since there were only about 4 other places to eat in town Burger Master had the best burgers. My favorite thing was the Patty Melt. I often wonder if I hadn’t lived there but had only passed through and eaten there if it would have been as good. On taste alone In-N-Out might deserve my 5th spot but the Burger Master was there when I needed him.

4.Whataburger

If you have ever been to Texas or seen an episode of King of the Hill then you have been introduced to Whataburger even if only subliminally. I can’t really pinpoint exactly what it is that I like about Whataburger. They do have quality food, but most of my reason for putting them on the list has something to do with the enormous number of times that I have eaten there. Even if only for nostalgic purposes Whataburger makes number 4 on the list.

3. Red Robin

This is the only big-name, nationwide chain on my list. I really enjoy that they give you all you can eat fries and they do have more types of burgers than I ever thought someone could dream up.

2. BJ’s Drive-In – (Odessa Texas)

This is a little place with HUGE burgers. The Jr burger is still big. When I was a kid we would go there and one burger would feed 4 kids and feed us well. One would think that you might lose something in the taste department when focusing on making burgers bigger than your head, but they manage to be a quality and quantity kind of place.

1. Five Guys

I went to one of the original Five Guys in the Washington DC area and by the second bite I had placed their burgers at the top of my list. The burger was perfectly cooked and very well put together. It was like it had been made with love and cuddled before it was brought out. Even the cow must have led a good life. The cheese melts perfectly on the meat and the vegetables are actually still nice and cool because they haven’t been under a heat lamp. Find a Five Guys near you and go.

September 30, 2008

Concert #4

When I go to a concert I like to enjoy the music. I like to hear different versions of songs and in a different way than I am used to. I never usually join the Dirty Hazards in dancing and such. In October of 2002 I went with 3 friends, Rob, Bob and Mike, to an Incubus concert. Bob and Mike are brothers and they had never been to a concert before, as far as I am aware. We waited through the boring opening band and I got smacked in the face by a bottle of water thrown by some jerk across the arena. This distracting and annoying action would set the tone for the rest of the night.

When Incubus finally came out people got excited and started rushing closer to the stage. Mike got squeezed into the crowd and began to get carried away. He turned around and he had the most frightened look I have ever seen on anyone’s face. He looked as though he was being dragged into a fiery pit from whence he would never return. Bob grabbed his hand and pulled him back to where he was before he was washed away in the river of humanity. Mike fought for his ground for a good portion of the rest of the night.

When a concert starts, I always like to know where the Health Hazards are moshing at, so that I can not get trapped in their swirling circle of sweaty annoyance. I looked across the crowd and saw that the melee of loadies was in up in front, next to the left part of the stage. I felt some relief that I might actually get to enjoy the music, free from distraction. This freedom only lasted for about a song and a half. The mosh pit migrated over to right in front of my friends and I. For some strange reason people slamming into each other and running in circles always seem to decide to carry on their activities right by me. I like to think that it is because I am a very large guy and I stop the herd from progressing with my brute strength and you would do well to think the same thing.

So, now my friends and I are being constantly bumped into and sweated on by the swarm of stoners. Amidst all the turmoil I am glad to know that some people near us had made a peace pact and were solidifying the agreement with the peace pipe. It smelled like someone had released a skunk in there and the Health Hazards sweat romp was only adding to the stench of peyote. My friends and I didn’t take long to become extremely annoyed with having sweat rubbed on us. When people would run near us we would shove them into other people in the circle. I myself threw several people down to the concrete and we all soon began to enjoy shoving other people around. Rob and myself would take turns running through the circle and running against the flow, knocking people down and giving them the forearm shiver. Anyone who knows Rob would be surprised that he was knocking people down as he has never been given to much physical activity, but I was a witness and he was really into it.

After we stopped running through the crowd wreaking havoc and returned to our spots by Bob and Mike we just did some old fashioned shoving. After a couple of minutes doing this I noticed that my shirt had gotten very tight. I turned around to find that there was a line of girls behind me who were trying not to get run over and had found sanctuary behind the big guy who wasn’t moving. One of them was holding my shirt so that I wouldn’t move from in front of her. I wish that I had a camera because the girls all looked like refugees from a foreign war or disaster seeking refuge. I turned back around and focused on shoving people again.

A couple of songs later I saw a guy heading straight for me from the circle. He was the first guy that seemed to notice that we were there and were shoving people like crazy. He came right towards me and I gave him a good solid shove. He bounced right back toward me and I shoved him back to the center of the circle. On his third attempt I decided to put him on the floor. He came back again and this time I just grabbed him by the collar and yelled in his face, “WHAT??” He said, “Dude, dude. I am just trying to get out.” I still don’t understand why he felt that the only way out was by running towards me.

A few songs later a girl came up to me and recruited me and the boyfriend of one of the refugee girls behind me to throw her onto a group of people who she assumed would catch her. I asked her if she was sure that she wanted to and she said, “Oh yeah, just do it man.” So we each took a foot and we hurled her high in the air. This girl must not have understood that you need to lay flat for people to catch and carry you. She instead did a dive that would have given her a very high score in the Olympics and she went straight down to the floor. I think I even felt the floor shake a little when she hit. I am not sure where she went after that but I hope it was to a medical station.

At the end of the night I realized that I hadn’t actually paid any attention to the music and would have been just as well off to crank up the sound on my stereo at home and bump into my friends for a couple of hours. I did have fun though.

September 29, 2008

Silly Vanilli (Yo, MTV Rapped)

I can proudly proclaim that I never liked Vanilla Ice. I had no idea what the kids at school were singing about when they started singing his song. I actually only ever knew the words to the Jim Carrey parody from In Living Color.

I was, however, nerdy enough to collect comic books for a while. A short time ago I was looking at my comics and I found a small unopened pack of cards that came with a Superman comic. It was a pack of “Yo, MTV Raps” cards. I have never liked rap so it was no wonder that they were unopened. I was curious to see what this time capsule could contain so I opened it up. Inside was a treasure trove of hilarious stuff and I will share the first bit of it with you here.

I love how it says that “he insists he’s not an actor.” Well, we insist he’s not a musician. Plus he made one of the most classically bad movies ever. It’s called “Cool as Ice” and if you want to have an MST3K night with your friends, rent this movie. You will have a ton of material. There will be more of these in the near future, cause these are too precious to not show.