Half of y'all sensed that Fishkill was a bit too fishy. It was indeed a sham.

There was a fish fight one summer at the farm and "You can throw perch all day, but nothing flies like a crappy" did generate from it but everything else about the story was the product of my fevered imagination. We used to fish a lot up there but the catch tended to be very small - mostly young perch, smallmouth and crappy. We'd bring our haul back to the farm and bury them in the fields. This was supposed to be some natural fertilizer. As far as I know it just made the fields stink like rotting fish.

Anywho...one day while we were sticking our dead fish in the dirt somebody threw one at somebody else (the identity of the instigating cousin has been lost to the ages). It was as if somebody had stood up on the lunchroom table and screamed "FOOD FIGHT!" Fish flew fast and furious as we pelted each other with deceaced piscines. It didn't last very long since we each had only a few fish, but it was great fun.

A few days later we got bitched out severely by Uncle when he found unburied dead fish scattered all over his lettuce field.

One point to each of these folk. For the rest of the guessers this is one that got away.

Contagion
Rob
Jeff
Victor
Clancy (A year and a half, nothing. Now two in a row!)
Helen
Margi
Boudicca
Diamond Dave

Posted by: Jim at 11:20 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 265 words, total size 2 kb.

Da rules: I post an anecdote that may or may not be true. You guess which it is, based on your knowledge of me and my curious ways. Whoever gets it right gets a point when the contest closes. Here we go:

Fishkill

Y'all know what a fishkill is, right? It's when an aquatic ecosystem crashes and the fish die. The cause can be just about anything - pollution, algae bloom, silt, mud from rains, etc. more...

Posted by: Jim at 08:19 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
Post contains 680 words, total size 4 kb.

1 This sounds like a load of carp, er crap. I can picture someone actually doing it, but there are logistic holes in the story, which may have been left out intentionally or due to age forced memory lapses. I'm still saying this is a scam.

Posted by: Contagion at June 08, 2005 08:31 AM (Q5WxB)

2 I am saying it's a Share, cause it's something any boy of youth would do. Actually I know a couple of boys that did just that in their youth.

Posted by: Machelle at June 08, 2005 09:22 AM (ZAyoW)

3 I say share. Although, it sounds like it should be in the movie Stand by Me.

Posted by: Tiffani at June 08, 2005 09:45 AM (KE4Gu)

4 Share, it sounds too much like something I did as a youth and I'm just hoping I'm not the only strange one out there.

Posted by: phin at June 08, 2005 10:30 AM (Xvpen)

5 This close. Very, very close. The problem is that you know how to write. It makes these exercises tough. I'm going with...share.

Posted by: Paul at June 08, 2005 10:51 AM (vbP6L)

6 SHAM SHAM SHAM! Its far to fishy a tail to be legit

Posted by: Rob at June 08, 2005 11:14 AM (kXZI6)

7 I'm going with Share again. How ironic that you would post a story about a fishkill though, since I JUST read in our local newspaper that there were over 1000 fish dead in McDill Pond. Young boys. Dead fish. The boys are not afraid of a lil stench and slime. Gotta be share.

Posted by: Denise at June 08, 2005 12:27 PM (JTlEe)

8 Sham. The story is just a shade into the plausible zone, so it's got to be a sham. No carp.

Posted by: Jeff at June 08, 2005 12:44 PM (ujYyI)

9 Sham.

Posted by: Victor at June 08, 2005 01:43 PM (L3qPK)

10 Sham.

Posted by: Clancy at June 08, 2005 04:20 PM (JxYJc)

11 going with share.... not sure why, though...

Posted by: caltechgirl at June 08, 2005 09:17 PM (eV5t9)

12 I am going to go with share...

Posted by: Wendy at June 09, 2005 12:26 AM (lVGGv)

13 *crossing fingers* Share?

Posted by: songstress7 at June 09, 2005 01:34 AM (ie93s)

14 I gotta go with sham on the dividing of the cousin ranks alone.

Posted by: Helen at June 09, 2005 02:37 AM (Smwda)

15 share. but I wonder about that quote at the end... a bit of brilliance or what started the story and it really isn't true? I still go with share.

Posted by: vw bug at June 09, 2005 11:57 AM (n+JjT)

16 SHAM! A fish story, Jim. Fish-ayyyy.

Posted by: Margi at June 09, 2005 05:47 PM (nwEQH)

17 Crap. I love these, but I hate these. I never know. This so sounds like something a bunch of boys I know would do... not my boys, they're germ phobes... but lots of other boys. Sham. It's too stinky.

Posted by: Bou at June 09, 2005 11:27 PM (z7nbM)

18 I say sham. Would sound like fun, but the stench of dead fish is a little too much to believe. I would HOPE you wouldn't have been that nasty...

Posted by: diamond dave at June 11, 2005 10:09 AM (5qKGR)

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The Unexpected Visitor was a complete sham. The anecdote came about from that line that I attributed to Mom: "Okay, I will take care of it but when you get home we are going to talk. And by 'we' I mean 'me'. And by 'talk' I mean 'scream at you'." I came up with this line a while ago and wanted to work it into one of my short stories but I just haven't had any time for story writing lately. Anywho...it worked pretty well in fooling a whole bunch of you in this Sham/Share.

Some clues that might have tipped you off were my low opinion of Ravi because he read too much (I've been an avidly gluttonous reader since before I could tie my shoes) and my worry over Mario dying if I abandoned the Donkey Kong game (DK on Atari sucked - there would have been no way a bright lad like me would have been that into it. Additionally, there were "safe" zones where you could park Mario and no barrel would ever hit him.)

7 out of 16 of you got this one correct. One point each to:

Paul
Phin
Tiffani
Tony
Machelle
tommy
Clancy. THE STREAK IS BROKEN!!

Posted by: Jim at 08:33 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 214 words, total size 1 kb.

Da rules: I post an anecdote that may or may not be true. You guess which it is, based on your knowledge of me and my curious ways. Whoever gets it right gets a point when the contest closes. Here we go:

The Unexpected Visitor

A little background is needed for this one. My step-dad was a lawyer and trouble-shooter for a gargantuan insurance and banking company that will remain nameless except to say that you used to be encouraged to "get a piece" of it. We moved around a lot as he was sent to different locations to straighten them out. He did a goodly amount of purging and hiring to correct deficiencies in personnel. Okay, background is over.

A few months after we moved to Freehold, NJ (home of The Boss!) I arrived home from school (7th or 8th grade or thereabouts), tossed my book-bag in a corner and turned on my new and beautiful Atari 2600 to immerse myself in its digital wonders. Mom was upstairs cleaning and Little Bro was taking a nap or something. In any case I was completely undisturbed, which was a great rarity. more...

Posted by: Jim at 05:40 AM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
Post contains 731 words, total size 4 kb.

1 Share ... cos it's just too lovely a story

Posted by: Rob at June 02, 2005 05:38 AM (kXZI6)

2 I'm gonna say share too. It sounds reasonable with your stepdad travelling, he may have forgotten to drop the bomb on your mom about the new guest. Yep....... sharing. Plus ......last one was a sham. LOL So its time for a share. LOL

Posted by: Denise at June 02, 2005 06:31 AM (JTlEe)

3 I'm saying true. I don't have time to read it all now, so it's a complete guess...but any story with a Ravi in it has to be true.

Posted by: Simon at June 02, 2005 06:45 AM (UKqGy)

4 Fiction. I know it when I see it.

Posted by: Paul at June 02, 2005 07:38 AM (vbP6L)

5 I'm going with true as well. At least I hope it is a share, it is just one of those lovely stories that are so nice if true.

Posted by: Rachel Ann at June 02, 2005 08:26 AM (Jgwqx)

6 I'm going with Share. It sounds like something my father or I would do to our wives.

Posted by: Contagion at June 02, 2005 08:44 AM (Q5WxB)

7 It's gotta be fiction, Mario wasn't around until the NES days.

Posted by: phin at June 02, 2005 08:49 AM (Xvpen)

8 Mario wasn't around? The blasphemy! You never heard of Donkey Kong?

Posted by: Jim at June 02, 2005 09:02 AM (tyQ8y)

9 I'm so ashamed to have forgotten D.K. I shall turn in my pocket protector at the end of the day.

Posted by: phin at June 02, 2005 09:19 AM (Xvpen)

10 Sham.

Posted by: Tiffani at June 02, 2005 09:26 AM (KE4Gu)

11 I thought it was a crock until I came to this quote from your mother: "Okay, I will take care of it but when you get home we are going to talk. And by 'we' I mean 'me'. And by 'talk' I mean 'scream at you'." Gotta be true--share--whatever--

Posted by: Victor at June 02, 2005 09:32 AM (L3qPK)

12 Not buying it, nope.

Posted by: Tony at June 02, 2005 10:16 AM (4HoZk)

13 I'm far to gullible to participate in these but I'm ROFLMAO at phin. "Turn in my pocket protector." LMFAO!!

Posted by: Margi at June 02, 2005 10:55 AM (nwEQH)

14 Share. I'm going to go with share.

Posted by: Helen at June 02, 2005 01:18 PM (8wm0s)

15 I'm going with sham. I just can't believe your step-dad would forget something this important.

Posted by: Machelle at June 02, 2005 04:12 PM (ZAyoW)

16 True. Very plausible, especially the "oh, I forgot to tell you" part.

Posted by: diamond dave at June 02, 2005 04:32 PM (gkwrQ)

17 I gotta go sham. That "By We i mean ME..." bit seems a bit far fetched, even coming from the woman that wouldn't have her name on a D paper. So yeah, SHAM.

Posted by: tommy at June 02, 2005 08:32 PM (OJ+GI)

18 I figure I'm going to have to start trying to accumulate points eventually, so I'm taking a wild guess here. I'm saying "share". But then, I thought the poisonous Doritos story was true too. Heh.

Posted by: songstress7 at June 03, 2005 01:55 AM (ie93s)

19 I'm going with Sham. I hope I can keep my streak going!!

Posted by: Clancy at June 03, 2005 02:29 PM (JxYJc)

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