Being a tree

The tree in the office was slowly dying. To others it was quickly living. Either way, it wasn’t happy. The tree made a plan to make its escape. It was a half-assed plan, but it was a plan all the same. The tree waited till everyone had left for the day to carry out the plan. In the empty office, the tree made its way to the supply closet and grabbed a brown marker. Using the marker, the tree quickly changed the color of its leaves from green to brown. The tree put the marker back and then went back to its spot in the corner of the office and waited for the morning.

The next morning, the workers filed in. They all put their coats in the coat closet and made their way to their stations. The tree was not noticed until the plant lady came around at lunch time. She shrieked at the sight of the tree! Thinking that she would get fired for killing the plant overnight, the plant lady cracked a window and threw the tree out. Five stories is quite a fall for anyone, whether you’re a human or a dog or a tree. The tree rested on the sidewalk for a minute. Once the impact of the fall had worn off, the tree righted itself and began looking for a new home.

marathon stuff

Dear Fellow Consumers,

Let me first congratulate you for opening this email. I understand how busy everybody is and with the influx of spam received in email inboxes in today's economy, it is a wonder how anything gets read. Currently, I have 308 unread messages sitting in my inbox and I do not expect to get to them in this lifetime. I will try to keep this email brief and to the point so I will move on. If you would like to unsubscribe from this email (expect 2 more similar emails in the next to months) please click repeatedly on the following and shout:

UNSUBSCRIBE

For those of you aware of my existence, you may know that I have spent 2009 getting back into the fine sport of running. Running was a sport I (kind of) enjoyed during my high school days, but quickly gave up at the first opportunity. Ten years later, I decided to get back into the sport because I have finally given in to the fact that I will never make it into the NBA and most likely won't make it into professional baseball or mixed martial arts. Since I love sports I decided to get back into the easiest sport there is and run.

It's been about a year since I started to get back into running, and I've progressed pretty steadily I think. At first I had difficulty running for 20 minutes, but I am now able to hit 15 and 16 miles at a time twice within one week. Running a marathon, which seemed impossible to me 6 months ago, now seems like an accomplishable goal and as a result I have recently decided to spend a decent amount of money to register for the SunTrust National Marathon that will be held in Washington DC on Dan's birthday (March 20th). The point of this email is not to remind you how awesome I am, but instead I am asking you to consider the following:

The Back On My Feet organization is a charity that is linked to the SunTrust National Marathon. I am familiar with the organization since they originated in Philadelphia and they were featured in a Runner's World article at one point in the past year. I'm going to recommend you check out their site (www.backonmyfeet.org) for a better definition of what they do, but to sum it up briefly, they basically try to boost homeless people's self esteem by getting them involved in running. At first, that probably seems completely idealistic and I can understand how there can be doubts in how a program like this could work. However, in a short time, the organization has opened up a second chapter in Baltimore and are planning to expand to Washington DC and Boston within the next few months. Sure the program doesn't work for everybody, as there are possibly as many failures as success stories, but I think that could sum up just about anything. So I think it's worth checking out.

After discussing this issue with my wife and my liver-shunted cat (I don't intend to be Bono), I've decided to get a fundraising page going. If you feel like helping Back On My Feet get their Washington DC headquarters established, please visit this link: http://www.active.com/donate/BOMFNatlMarathon2010/safetyrope . If you're wondering how much to donate, I suggest donating the cost of two beers (nondrinkers, please donate the cost of three burritos). If you don't want to donate, I suggest you just reply to this email and insult me mercilessly.

Please feel free to forward this to as many frenemies as you want.

Take care,
Todd

NFL Championship Series

I'm 6-2 in the playoffs. That's not bad. Although my 2 losses included the two teams I thought would be in the Super Bowl. So I'm really like 0-2,000.

Two pretty interesting games on Sunday. Here are my predictions:

Jets 74-Colts 56 wait...
Jets 64-Colts 48 wait...
Jets 28-Colts 24 OK!

Blah blah blah blah blah blah. You can analyze it all day. Pick the Jets because it's a cooler story.

Saints 42-Vikings 21

It's going to be loud in New Orleans. Brett Favre can't make it to the Super Bowl. That'd be lamer story.

Divisional Playoffs

I had decent football picks last week I guess. I went 3-1, hit a couple of exact scores, but had Green Bay being the only loss. That game was stupid. I had some confidence last week because I didn't believe what was going on in New England or Cincinatti, and I didn't think the Eagles would change their game plan enough (or at all) to confuse the Cowboys. The only thing tricky about the Dallas-Eagles game was Donovan's fantastic entrance. Oh well. I was wrong in thinking that Green Bay was a complete team and I guess I should have remembered that Kurt Warner is pretty good at home in the playoffs.

I have zero confidence in picking the AFC this week, so I will pick the home teams. I have a lot more confidence in the NFC, but will still pick the home teams. If anyone can tell me the last time all four home teams won in the divisional round, I will proudly give you something great. It never happens...but it will this weekend.

PICKS!

Saints 30-Cardinals 24

Kurt Warner is undefeated at home in the playoffs, so I imagine that his road record isn't that good. I would look up this stat if I was getting paid to write this blog. I'm not, so please look it up yourself. This game is in New Orleans. Advantage Brees.

Colts 24-Ravens 17

Indy is terrible after a bye in the playoffs. The Ravens defense is good. Ray Rice and Baltimore's running game is good. I think Peyton will get going early, which will mean Baltimore will have to make some passing plays. So this game will depend on Flacco's hip. What?

Vikings 42-Cowboys 14

Dallas is not the next anything. Vikings balanced offense will kill the Cowboys hype. Guaranteed.

Chargers 21-Jets 20

I want to pick the Jets real bad, but I think the Chargers are just too good. The best part about last week's Jets game was how they won without using a real punter. Hopefully they have a punter this week. If not, double the Chargers score.

Thank you thank you!

Wild Card predictions

Wild Card Weekend

The playoffs start this weekend and I’m super excited about it. Well sorta excited about them. There are three rematches of Week 17 games in the Wild Card round of this year’s playoffs, and if the losing teams do not make some serious (so serious) adjustments, the first weekend of playoffs will be pretty boring (so boring)! Here are my predictions:

Jets @ Bengals:
Prediction: Jets 24-Bengals 17

Zila likes the Jets. That is not the reason I am picking the Jets. Rex Ryan asked Joe Girardi to teach Mark Sanchez how to slide. In the next game after the lesson, Sanchez hurt himself sliding. This is also not the reason I am picking the Jets. The reason I am picking the Jets is that their defense is pretty nasty. Defense wins championships! In this case, defense will get the Jets into the second weekend of the playoffs

Eagles @ Cowboys:
Prediction: Cowboys 34-Eagles 24

In my opinion, it is difficult to beat a team three times in a season. I also think it is tough to beat a team in back-to-back weeks. That being said I think the Cowboys will beat the Eagles because they seem to have a handle on Desean Jackson, and I think the Eagles’ offensive line injuries are too difficult to overcome. It also seems that the Cowboys are playing with a chip on their shoulder after the repeated media coverage of their recent December and beyond struggles. Cowboys win despite another missed field goal from Shaun Suisham.

Ravens @ Patriots:
Prediction: Ravens 27-Patriots 21

I’m forecasting a cold, miserable day at Foxboro. In my world this gives the advantage to the visiting team because Ray Rice is real good and Welker’s season-ending injury is not so good.

Packers @ Arizona:
Prediction: Green Bay 42-Arizona 10

Green Bay should have the home field advantage since they finished with a better record and also destroyed Arizona in Week 17, but due to the genius seeding of the NFL playoffs, this is not the case. Green Bay will have to go back to Arizona and try to repeat what they did last week. I believe they will. However, Arizona proved last year that they do not need momentum to succeed in the playoffs.

If Green Bay does win the Arizona game, they will be my pick to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl, where they will lose to the San Diego Chargers.

scooby doo

An overnight news report stated that the Mystery Machine van was found totaled on the side of I-90 in southern Minnesota. There have not been any reported injuries or deaths since no passengers have been found. 4 sets of footprints were discovered in the snow near the scene of the accident. The news report claimed that when the emergency response crews followed these footprints, they were lead to a dead-end and the footprints simply disappeared. The news reporter also asked all viewers with any information on this accident to please call a telephone number that was displayed on the television screen.

Bug clicked off the television sometime around 3:30 in the morning. He was curious about the disappearance of the Scooby Doo team, but he also was not positive that what he was watching was reality. Bug hadn’t paid a cable bill in months and his television wasn’t actually even plugged in so it’s possible that he made the whole news report up. To verify the authenticity of the news report, he decided to call the phone number he wrote down on his notepad that was flashed across the TV. When he dialed, he was greeted with a friendly voice of someone saying they were with the Minnesota State Police.

“I’m calling about the Mystery Machine van accident”

“Please hold.”

Bug held.

A few minutes later a new voice appeared on the telephone. At the same time, Bug had returned on the television and was watching a documentary about Gandhi.

“This is Sheriff Bill Sanders”

Bug coughed. “Oh, hi. Did the Mystery Machine van really crash tonight?”

“It did. Do you have any information on this accident?”

Bug looked at his watch. It was now 3:30 in the morning still. His watch had broken about 8 months ago but Bug had never bothered getting the watch fixed. It was sunny outside. “No, not really. I think it is a tragedy though.” Bug had no idea why he said this.

“Well, thanks for the phone call. Please keep us posted if you hear anything, Bug”.

Bug stared at the phone in horror when he heard Sheriff Bill Sanders call him by his name. He didn’t remember telling the operator his name. And he was calling from a phone that was not connected to an actual telephone number since Bug never paid for a phone service…also the phone was also not really even plugged in. Bug slammed the phone down and ran outside. Since the sun was out, Bug decided it was time to fix his watch. But first he decided it was time to water the flowers. He went to the hose, turned on the faucet, directed the nozzle in the direction of the plants, and pulled the trigger.

jort party early invite