A Holiday Visit to Hell

While on vacation last week, I thought it might be fun to spend some time in Hell. We survived the maddening pace of driving on I-95 in Southern Florida earlier in the week, so how bad could Hell possibly be?

You see, at Grand Cayman there is an actual town named Hell. There is a weird area of rock formations at this area, apparently resembling what Hell might look like. I thought it would be interesting to show up in a hand basket so I could say I "went to Hell in a hand basket," but instead I rented a scooter.

Aside from the rock formations, Hell wasn't much at all what I thought it would look like. Turns out there are a few gift shops there, full of rather cheesy merchandise. There's also the Post Office from Hell, and many free range roosters. There's even a very realistic depiction of Satan himself, if Satan himself is actually made of poor quality wood. At least I know what's in store for me if I don't lead a good and decent life!

Catching the Middle Age Wave

I have talked in previous blog entries about a couple things I consider to be among man's greatest inventions. NyQuil and Advil are two of them. I discovered a new one while we were on our cruise last week: The Flowrider! Wooooo!

The Flowrider is a surfing simulator at the back of the ship, and it is geared toward two main demographics: kids in their early teens, and midlife crisis men. As I stood in line, I could see that many of us middle age dudes were standing in line with our kids, as if they really needed our guidance or something. Of course in reality we were probably more excited about riding it than they were, but we didn't want to look like the old dorks that we are, so we made sure to have kids along to justify our presence. I had to physically restrain myself from jumping up and down in anticipation.

The first time I went on the Flowrider, it happened to be during a surf board session, meaning we had to stand up on the board and try to surf. Thankfully, most everyone fails miserably at this, so I wasn't the only one who managed to stay on it for a total of 1.5 seconds, followed by being swept away by the current and directly into a wall.

Little Smoot wasn't tall enough to attempt the surf board, but she and I both had good luck with the boogie board. Instead of standing up, you ride on this board belly-down. By the end of the week I was doing some actual tricks on the board, some of them on purpose. One time I found myself standing on my knees and surfing backwards, and people were asking me how I managed to do that. I made up some story about how I was leaning into the current, or something. But the real, honest answer was: "not intentionally."

I must have ridden the Flowrider a dozen or so times throughout the week (I have numerous fancy bruises to prove that). I think it's worth mentioning that I never once saw a woman over the age of 16 attempt to ride it. I assume they were busy doing something more appropriate for people my age, like Bingo or napping.

We’re Baaaaack

The Smoot clan hopes you had a wonderful Christmas! We spent our Christmas Day in a very traditional fashion, snorkeling and kayaking in the Caribbean, just like the wise men who were following the Starfish of Bethlehem.

We just got home yesterday after a week of sailing on the Independence of the Seas, which is currently shares the title of being the largest cruise ship in the world with its two sister ships. And since we're home, we can now bore you to tears with stories from our trip. That is, after all, the point of going on a vacation in the first place. If I'm lucky, I may be able to juice an entire month's worth of blog entries on this trip!

Since we're still unpacking and the house is a complete mess, I'll use today's entry as a preview of what is to come… I'll share stories about my visit to Hell, how to accurately have a conversation with a foreign person, and I'll discuss another of man's greatest inventions: the Flowrider! I'll also share stories about the various contests I won on the trip, earning me many of the coveted Royal Caribbean keychains as prizes, and why I was half naked and wearing a woman's bra on Christmas Day in full view of hundreds of people (this happens to me on most cruises, actually).

For now, unless I want to experience the Wrath of Mrs. Smoot, I should probably do some degree of cleaning…

Nooooo! Not the Carpenters!

I got a kick out of the news last week that a group of musicians has banded together to protest the use of their songs as a form of torture for terror suspects. Detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba have been routinely subjected to loud music at all hours, including Britney Spears, Bruce Springsteen, Eminem, and the ultimate weapon in the war on terror: Barney the Dinosaur.

I can certainly understand the effectiveness of this form of torture, especially in the case of Barney and the ever-annoying I Love You, You Love Me song. If I were a terrorist, I'd crack after just a few strains of that song, giving up Osama bin Laden's hiding spot in a matter of minutes.

This got me thinking about other songs that would work well against terrorists. One that springs to mind is Merry Christmas, Darling by the Carpenters. It's not that this is even that terrible a song, it's that it has been really, really stuck in my head these last several days, and I'm thinking about more and more about revealing bin Laden's hiding spot.

The really bad thing about this song is that my brain isn't even playing the whole song over and over again in my head. It's just playing the line that says, "Logs on the fire… fill me with desire." Something about that line strikes me as funny. I don't know. I guess I just think it's funny that logs on a fire get her all hot and bothered, and it makes me wonder what would happen to her if she were to walk through a forest? I suppose she'd just spontaneously combust with desire, or something.

Anyway… I wanted to wish both of my readers (or am I down to just one?) a very Merry Christmas from all of us at Smoot Central. We'll be dreaming of a white Christmas, although in our case we're thinking more along the lines of white sandy beaches. For something different this year, we're heading to Florida to depart on a Caribbean cruise (visiting Grand Cayman, Costa Maya and Cozumel) this coming week. I'll be back with more inane drivel and travel stories when we return. Feliz Navidad!

The Parking Lot Nazi

Wouldn't it be fun to be a parking lot police officer for a few days? I don't mean that it would necessarily be fun to cite people who are breaking regular driving laws, like those who are running stop signs and so forth. I'm talking about arresting people for being rude idiots.

I encounter these people all the time, and I would need many reams of paper to fulfill my citation needs if I were so empowered. What drives me bonkers is these people who just have to have the best parking spot in the lot, no matter what. Just park your stinkin' car!

I was recently driving through a lot at a nearby grocery store, and as I turned in to a row of parked cars, the driver in front of me stopped his vehicle to wait for a parking space to open up in front of him. An elderly man had just started unloading numerous shopping bags into the back of his car, and this guy in front of me was going to wait literally several minutes until he finished and moved his car. I should mention that there were several open parking spots literally three spots further away.

Once it became apparent that this guy didn't care that he was clogging up traffic for whatever time it was going to take, I squeezed past him and pulled into one of the open spots. I timed it. It took me 10 steps and less than 10 seconds to walk the extra distance to the open spots. I gave the guy a nasty glare as I walked by, and he returned a similar look at me. I honestly wish we could have exchanged e-mail addresses because it would have been fun to have an ongoing argument over this one. But then again, he's probably still sitting there in the parking lot.

The Freak Hair Fund

I've got to speak out against this Freak Hair Fund. Every year at Christmastime here in Pittsburgh, KDKA Radio participates in a fund drive for Children's Hospital, apparently for the purpose of enticing young people to get these modern, scary haircuts.

I'm sure you've seen these kids. Just go to Kennywood Park sometime if you want to see some real Freak Hair in action. I can't believe that we're actually trying to get more kids to do their hair like this.

Some of these kids look like deranged roosters as it is, for heaven's sake. Purple, pointy Mohawks… hair with enough grease in it to lubricate a locomotive… this stuff would scare Cyndi Lauper. Yet last year alone, the Freak Hair Fund raised nearly $2 million! What are people thinking? We've got to put an end to the madness.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: We've just been informed by senior staff members here at Hank Smoot Central that this is actually the Children's Hospital "Free Care Fund," not "Freak Hair Fund." Apparently this is actually a very worthy cause, giving free health care to needy children, and the similar sounding names caused Hank some terrible confusion. Please disregard the rest of this post. In fact, it's probably best to disregard this blog entirely, if not the Internet as a whole.

The 10-day Imaginary Forecast

Why do the weather people even bother with 10-day forecasts? The Smoots are heading out on a big trip next week, so that means that I have been spending about 78% of my recent days viewing weather forecasts for our destinations. I was actually relieved when I saw that some of the forecasts were calling for rain for the days we'll be visiting; this almost certainly means that the weather will be absolutely sunny and wonderful!

If the forecasters wanted to be open and completely honest about what they really think is going to happen, they could put today's forecast up with some degree of certainty that they'll be close to being accurate. They can somewhat safely say that today will be "cloudy with a high temperature of 35-ish." They can use the popular "look out the window" method of figuring this out, and chances are their forecast will be nearly on the money.

Tomorrow's forecast will be a little trickier, so they should be a little more vague: "A mix of clouds and sun. Highs between 10 and 50." And they should be a little more vague for each additional day they're pretending to forecast.

Once they get to a 10-day forecast, days 5-10 should really just have a big question mark graphic beside them. If they won't do that, they could have an honest forecast that says, "Some sun or clouds maybe, along with temperatures measured in Fahrenheit, along with the chance that there could be some sort of precipitation in the form of rain, snow, ice, hail or volcanic eruption."

But no, they can't be that honest, so I'll get my hopes up if I see a 10-day forecast with a sunny outlook, or I'll be grief-stricken with the rain forecast. I'd be much happier with a question mark.

Mmmm. Deep Fried Goodness.

Yesterday was basically the "perfect storm" for poor nutrition at Smoot Central. First we had the Steelers game, which was a nail biter, and therefore required a lot of snacks. Thankfully the Steelers pulled off a victory over the dreaded Ravens -- even if it involved a highly questionable touchdown -- and that resulted in celebratory snacking. Just an hour after the game was the 3-hour season finale of Survivor, which also required snacking.

We aren't normally super health conscious people in terms of eating carrots as snacks, etc., but yesterday was a pretty wild ride on the snack express. For the record, we did give Little Smoot an actual meal, in hopes that we wouldn't be carted directly to the Bad Parent Detention Center, but Mrs. Smoot and I enjoyed the following as our evening meal: jalepeno poppers, pretzels stuffed with cheese, potato skins, and egg rolls. Oh, and ice cream for dessert.

The end result is that our house now smells vaguely like a TGI Fridays, I'm feeling a little woozy, and we have dishes stacked up to the point where I have to use a chair to reach the ones at the top. It was worth it, though.

Yacking Up the Holidays

How can we explain to our cat that Christmas is not meant to be edible?

Murray, our family's feline genius, has been making a nasty habit of sneaking around, chomping on various holiday decorations, and then barfing them up in the basement. At least he is considerate enough to throw up in the basement most of the time instead of doing it on the carpeting, or the furniture, or my pillow.

It seems that every day I'll go downstairs and find a new surprise: a big blob of yuck, with remnants of an ornament, mistletoe, or Wise Man sticking out of it. Thanks, buddy!

You would think that he'd eventually learn there's a cause/effect relationship between eating Christmas, and why a short time later he doesn't feel so well. Instead, if I go downstairs and find him there, he'll give me that look as if to say, "I don't know how this happened!" as we survey the repulsive landscape. I don't think he's the sharpest ornament on the tree…

The Downfall of Tic Tacs

It's time to ask the burning question: What's the deal with Tic Tacs? This is a highly contentious issue that has been bothering Little Smoot and me lately.

Here's the problem. We enjoy Tic Tacs, but only for the first 10 seconds or so. When you put a Tic Tac in your mouth, it tastes wonderful and highly refreshing, but only for a very brief period of time. It seems that after that first few seconds, all of the joy and the feeling of freshness just vanishes, and then you're left with this semi-minty thing to suck on for a while.

One strategy is to simply start chewing on them as soon as the short period of freshness goes away, but this idea has its own issues. For one, a new Tic Tac has the same solidity as gravel, so it's rather difficult to start crunching away at them instantly. So this can lead to some potential dental issues. It would seem like a waste to just spit them out after 10 seconds.

I don't know. I guess we're open to suggestions.

The Great Sock Conspiracy

I've been giving it a lot of thought (much more thought than I probably should), and I think I have finally figured out what is going on with my socks. I don't like to sound alarms and unnecessarily claim that there's a whacky conspiracy going on, but I have decided that there is a whacky conspiracy going on, and we should sound the alarms.

I was doing my laundry the other day, and as per usual I came up with an odd number of socks as I was getting everything folded. This happens to me all the time, despite the fact that I am quite sure that I normally wear two socks at a time. This works out to exactly one sock per foot, according to my calculations. On days that I happen to get an even number of socks out of the dryer, I can only assume that I am probably missing two or perhaps four socks.

In the past I have been mildly curious to figure out what exactly happens to the other sock(s). I have given it some more thought, and I'm quite certain that I have it all figured it out: The missing socks are being transported back to the fine folks at the Hanes factory, which is located in another dimension. Think about it. Have you ever been to the Hanes factory? Ever see signs for it on the Interstate? Me neither.

I discovered that there is a mysterious tube attached to the back of my dryer. Perhaps you have one at the back of your dryer – go check! Come to think of it, the folks at Sears installed our new dryer last fall, probably because they're in on this whole thing. The tube runs through our basement to a wall at the side of our house, obviously leading into the Hanes Dimension through some kind of vortex or some such thing. Clearly, the socks are being sucked through this tube, and right back to Hanes where they can be cleaned up, beamed back down to Sears, and resold to unsuspecting people.

Since I keep running out of socks every few months, I have to keep running back to Sears to get more. Those socks will just eventually wind up getting sucked back into the Hanes Dimension, and beamed back to Sears where I'll eventually go to buy them again. Hanes is clearly making a killing off of this never ending cycle; I have probably spent hundreds of dollars for each sock I'm wearing. I can't believe I've been falling for this all this time.

Facebook Scares Me

It could just be yet another sign of my rapidly increasing age here, but I have to admit that Facebook scares me. I signed up for it a while back, for some bizarre reason. I don't really remember quite why I did that, but I think I was mainly interested in seeing who else I could find there. Or maybe it was a midlife crisis thing where I was just trying to be cool.

In any event, I have an account, and somehow or other I have managed to accumulate a list of 60 "friends." There have been actual instances where old acquaintances of mine have tracked me down and contacted me through the site. That part of Facebook is pretty cool, I will admit.

The scary part is that I have no idea what exactly I'm supposed to do with my profile, or the massive list of weird things that appear on my page. For example, as we speak, I have a "Christmas ornament request," a "duck duck goose request," and a "stickers request," among many others. I have no idea what any of that means, or if I should be concerned about the fact that I've ignored all of these things. Why do they keep showing up, anyway?

Worse, I have a bunch of very scary sounding invitations, like an "elven blood invitation," a "blood lust invitation," two "mob war invitations," a "gangster battle invitation," and a "superpoke invitation." I must admit that the idea of superpoking someone sounds like fun, if not downright kinky. But I really have no idea what I'm supposed to do in response to any of this.

I just have this eerie feeling that someone is going to show up at my door someday, wearing a suit and dark glasses and a Facebook nametag, threatening to break my thumbs because I didn't show up for my gangster battle. I live in constant fear.

I Fixed Something!

Sorry to sound so excited, but I actually fixed something the other day instead of making it worse, and that is an extremely rare event here at Smoot Central. Our main toilet (I call him "Marvin") decided that it was no longer going to allow me to flush him late last week. Normally I would simply break into a sweat, say a couple bad words, panic, and call Hubert, a former neighbor who has the amazing ability to fix everything.

This time I simply said a few bad words, and decided to see if I could actually do something about the problem. I took the lid off of Marvin, and took a gander at all of the whacky parts that make up a toilet. Remarkably I was able to spot the problem, and I headed off to the hardware store to buy a new part.

Here's another miraculous thing: I only needed ONE visit to the hardware store! In most cases where I commit an act of manliness, I usually wear potholes into the street from making trips back and forth to the store to exchange things and buy new things to replace whatever additional stuff I break along the way.

But maybe this is a new turning point for me. The last time one of our toilets broke (it was Henry the last time), I immediately gave up on it and was determined to call the plumber. Embarrassingly, I walked by the bathroom a little later and Mrs. Smoot had the toilet completely dismantled and was fixing it, while giving me that look to suggest that maybe, just maybe, the "man" of the house should be doing this.

That was a bit of a blow to the ego. I was apparently absent from school on the day they taught us all of the guy things, like how to fix houses, cars, women, etc. Perhaps I have finally turned the corner and I can finally be Mr. Fix-it. For now, I think I'll go take Marvin on a test drive…

Attack of the Mutant Decorations

It's that time of the year – Mutant Decoration Season!

I may not be the world's best Christmas decorator, but I have to admit that the Smoot family is highly amused by some attempts at decorations. We always get a good chuckle out of people who attempt to illuminate a single tree in their yard with just one strand of lights. Instead of making the tree look festive and cheerful, it makes it look like someone forgot to decorate the rest of the tree. Or maybe they simply said the heck with it after struggling with the one set of lights.

We used to drive through a small town near Mrs. Smoot's family, and there was one tree in particular that really made us laugh. It was at the corner of a very busy intersection, and the owners would decorate it only as far up as they could reach. The result was that the bottom third of the tree was nicely lit, but the top half of the tree was bare. The result? From a distance, the tree looked a lot like a mushroom cloud. We haven't been through this particular town for quite a few Christmases, so we still wonder whether the Mushroom Cloud Tree is still there.

Probably the weirdest attempt at Christmas decorating occurs right on our own street every year. We have a neighbor up the road who has an extremely strange, semi-disturbing, display. He has taken old, foil Christmas trees and turned them into other displays. There's an airplane, and other random stuff scattered throughout his yard. Few things put me into the holiday spirit more than his 7-foot tall, plastic Jar Jar Binks (of Star Wars fame) with a Santa hat. And they also have a big chair with Santa Claus and a child sitting in his lap. This sounds holiday-like, but there's also a glowing light hanging over their heads, and the whole thing looks suspiciously like an electric chair. These neighbors haven't put up their display yet, but if/when they do, I'll be sure to snap some pictures.

Tis the season… to be concerned, I guess!

Tales of a Traveling Monkey

I don’t know where the monkey is, and that makes me a little concerned. Allow me to explain.

Way back around 1985, my uncle took my brother and me on a vacation to an awesome water park in Wisconsin. While we were on the trip, we found that my uncle had a small rubber monkey in his car. I don’t recall why he had such a thing, but I’m sure there was probably a good explanation.

Anyway, the monkey became a bit of a mascot for the trip as we tossed it around the car, torturing it as we passed through several states. At one point we transformed it into a pencil holder, resulting in some serious physical damage to the monkey’s private region.

When we got back home, I discovered that my uncle had hidden the monkey in my luggage, and a new, disturbing tradition was born. Any time one of the three of us was visiting one another, we’d sneak the monkey into someone else’s possession. Over the years it has appeared in suitcases, coolers, car glove compartments, wrapped as a Christmas gift, etc. Any visit was fair game, whether it was a birthday or funeral (in our family, we put the “f-u-n” in “funeral”).

The most notable method of passing the monkey took place after my uncle’s wedding. My brother and I were at his house after the newlyweds had left for their honeymoon, so we took a giant knife from his counter and stabbed the monkey onto his wooden kitchen cabinet. This seemed like a great, creative idea at the time, but apparently our new aunt wasn’t exactly impressed or amused upon returning from their trip.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when they returned so I could have heard the blood chilling scream she let out when she made the discovery. I guess it took my uncle a lot of explaining that this wasn’t meant to be a sick, twisted terror plot or some horrible omen; it was merely a family tradition! Welcome to the family!

It has been several years since I have seen the monkey, which means it could reappear at any time. Every so often, I’ll whisper to my brother, “Have you seen the monkey?” I don’t know if he has it or not. Frankly I just hope nobody ever hears me whispering that to him since it sounds like a secret espionage code phrase, like “the crow flies at dawn,” or “the bald man sings at midnight.”

Anyway, I’m sure that someday, the monkey shall return in all its glory.

Spam Season

Apparently the Christmas Season is Prime Time for the wonderful world of spam dorks. I’ve been getting at least double the amount of junk e-mail than normal these last several days, and it’s driving me a little nuts. I have spam filters in place, but these wonderful folks make sure they figure out a way to circumvent those tools.

Apparently the spam community really, really thinks that I need something called the “Snuggie Sleeved Blanket,” considering I’ve received dozens and dozens of messages about it. I never, ever respond to spam or give it a second thought, but I made an exception out of pure morbid curiosity so I could see what the heck a Snuggie Sleeved Blanket might be, so I Googled it.

I’m rather glad I did look up this fine product, not because I actually need one, but because the commercial for it was absolutely hilarious. The commercial begins with a woman lamenting the fact that it’s cold nowadays, and how can you possibly keep warm? You don’t want to raise the thermostat above 50, what with the rising energy costs.

She continues to explain that “blankets are okay, but they can slip and slide, and when you need to reach for something, your hands are trapped inside.” The footage to go along with that is pretty hilarious. It shows a woman who can’t seem to figure out the complexities of using a blanket as she flounders around, trying to grasp her phone while her hands are stuck. Apparently this product is geared toward profoundly stupid people.

Anyway, the Snuggie is the obvious answer. It’s a blanket with sleeves! Not only that, but when you put it on, you are instantly transformed from a moron who can’t operate a blanket, into a suave-looking person who just escaped from a monastery! These things look truly remarkably dorky, and this is coming from someone who isn’t exactly Mr. Fashion.

If you didn’t have the sound turned up while viewing the commercial, you would assume that the people who are wearing these things were all part of one of those weird cults, like those whack jobs who ate poisoned applesauce at the Heaven’s Gate compound a number of years ago.

At one point in the commercial, there’s a family wearing them at a sporting event. I promise you that if you would show up at a football game wearing one of these things, you will be beaten to a bloody pulp within minutes. And no jury would prosecute anyone involved.

I think I’ll just continue to struggle with the blankets, thank you.

The Cure for Everything

I had mentioned a few weeks back that man’s greatest invention so far is NyQuil. It’s hard to imagine that any illicit drug can provide nearly the same whacked out effects I get with this wonderful product.

I would have to say that Advil is an awesome invention, too, probably also ranking in the Top 10 of man’s greatest works. I can’t think of another pill that is the answer to so many ailments. Headache? Advil. Muscle ache? Advil. Hangover? Advil. Weird unexplained chest pains? Advil. Addiction to Advil? More Advil.

Mrs. Smoot seems to think I have some sort of addiction to Advil, considering I keep some in the car, the bedroom, medicine cabinets, kitchen counter, by the computer, the basement, in the camera bag, on the deck, in my pockets, under our regular pew at church, in the shower, etc. The truth of the matter is that I rarely take more than 20 of them a day. Unless of course I have some sort of ache or pain, and I might take just a few more.

I’d type more about it, but my fingers are getting sore. Thankfully, I have a cure for that.

A Flossing We Will Go

Time to get out the dental floss, at least for the next week.

Normally, the only time I floss is when I have two-thirds of a chicken wing embedded deeply into my teeth, and my tongue just isn't able to dislodge the darned thing. Don't tell my dental hygienist lady, though. As far as she is aware, the grocery store is barely able to keep up with my dental floss needs since I am faithfully flossing my teeth after every meal, before bed, when I get up in the morning, and perhaps during the sermon at church.

It used to be that every time I'd go to the dentist, she'd peer into my mouth and give me that disgusted, condescending look, as if she was peering into a dormitory toilet or something. Then she'd say the same line she has been saying at every visit: "You haven't been flossing, have you?"

Well, in recent visits I've discovered a very handy trick that I thought I'd pass along. Just dedicate a little time -- a week should do the trick -- before the dentist visit to doing a little routine flossing. I have found that if I floss every night the week leading up to my check-up, the hygienist lady will be properly tricked into thinking that I am a Flossing God of some sort. She actually wrote a note in the computer on the last visit saying something about my wonderful hygiene habits.

I'm sure I'll have more dental-oriented tips and such in these next few days leading up to this wondrous and joyous occasion next Monday...

Another Myth Debunked

I was recently reminded about an incident earlier this year where I managed to lock myself out of my car. I now feel qualified to offer advice about how not to go about resolving the situation.

I was at a gathering of fellow photographers, 300 miles from home. My car actually does everything in its power to make sure you can’t lock the keys in it. If you try to lock the car from the outside while a key is still inside, it’ll emit a nice long beep as if to say, “Yo! Moron! Your keys are in the car!” But I learned that if you physically click the lock button and shut the door, you can indeed lock the key inside.

There were probably 20 of us standing around evaluating the situation when one of them suggested a rather unorthodox idea. He said that he had heard that if you call someone who has access to the wireless key, they can point it into their cell phone while you point your cell phone at the car. The wireless signal will transmit through the cell phone and will unlock the door – what a cool, clever idea, right?

Well, it would indeed be pretty cool if it worked. Here’s what happens for real. First of all, it means that I had to call Mrs. Smoot and admit to the fact that I had locked myself out of the car, several hundred miles from home (and this was with a car we had owned for less than a year).

Second, it means that I spent a good 5 minutes wandering around the car, pointing my cell phone at it from every conceivable angle, looking like a complete wonk.

And finally, it means that there are probably a couple hundred pictures of me doing all of this, considering I was doing it in the company of a bunch of photographers.

Little Smoot's 15 Minutes of Fame

Little Smoot is enjoying her 15 minutes of fame. A few months ago she asked me to take a picture of her with her 3 million Webkinz (that's only a slight exaggeration) so we could send it to a magazine that showcases a few kids with their collections in each edition.

Frankly, we had forgotten all about it since we sent the picture back in August, and hadn't heard anything back from the folks at Plushie Pals magazine. But yesterday friends of hers at school said they saw her picture, so she and I began an two-hour odyssey in an attempt to find a store that had the magazine in stock.

After scouring a few locations that normally have it on their shelves, we finally found it at Barnes & Noble. Or possibly Borders. I always get those two confused. Of course we had to dodge the paparazzi at every store.

Anyway, if you happen to stumble upon the new Plushie Pals magazine (Christmas edition), you'll see Little Smoot surrounded by her little friends on page 15.

Tis the Season

I have come to hate my Christmas lights. I have gotten my “dancing Christmas shrubs” working quite nicely, although there are a few strings of light that only light half way, and that drives me berserk. The lights that really give me fits are the ones that go high up on our highest gutters. I am incapable of putting those things up without muttering some very un-Christmaslike words in the process.

Yesterday afternoon was slightly less frigid than recent days, so I thought I’d attempt to get those things into place. I spent a good hour and a half messing with them, and I’m no closer to having them up than I was beforehand. I’m not sure what prompts me to torture myself with these things every year in the first place. I highly doubt that there’s a passage in the Bible that says, “And thou shalt illunateith thine dwelling with thy brightest of twinkle lights,” or whatever.

Anyway, before attempting to string them up on the house, I plugged them in to see if they’d light properly. And only about half of the lights were working. This was actually not such bad news since the lights usually work 100% well when I first test them. They typically wait until I’ve gone through the endless struggle of putting them on the house, and then they’ll fail miserably. So I headed off to the hardware store to buy some more of the stupid things. It really is a good thing that the hardware store is pretty close to home, given the number of trips I make down there this time of year.

I picked up some replacement strings of light, and started working on getting them in place. I don’t have access to a ladder high enough to reach our highest gutter, so I use the ladder I do have, along with my special Holiday Extendable Stick (get your mind out of the gutter; it’s a stick designed to reach Christmas lights into place, not whatever perverted thing you’re thinking), to put those little plastic doo-dads into place. Then I use the stick to drape the lights over the plastic things until the lights stretch the length of the front of the house.

This is where the nasty, non-Christmas words come into play. Invariably, when I try to attach the strand of lights to the first plastic thing, it’s always too heavy and winds up pulling the plastic thing down, along with all of the lights. In the true holiday spirit, I’ll scream non-Christmas words as I thrust the stick directly into the ground like a spear. Fa la la la la.

When we first bought the house, I used to worry that while I was adding lights I’d fall from the ladder or electrocute myself on the nearby power lines. Now I’m not worried about that at all. In fact, sometimes I root for electrocution or a fall from the ladder because that would give me a great excuse for saying the heck with the doggone lights.

So the whole mess is still sitting out there with the lights bunched up on the ground and the ladder waiting for me in the garage. And the Holiday Stick is stabbed into the permafrost of our yard. I can barely wait to continue the process.

ZAP! You're Gone!

Every young student dreams that someday one of his or her teachers will actually go certifiably insane. We certainly had this dream in our school, and many of our classmates got to experience the ultimate thrill: they got to watch the teacher go insane right before their eyes!

You’ll undoubtedly think that this story is purely fictional, but it really did happen. This isn’t one of those stories, like the ones about people who wake up in an unfamiliar bathtub full of ice and with missing spleens, or whatever.

Mr. D., as we’ll call him, was the librarian at the high school. Apparently this must be a much more stressful job than we had imagined, what with the constant fear of paper cuts and such. One afternoon, some kids were making more noise than what is appropriate for the hallowed grounds of a library, and Mr. D. asked them to be quiet.

Well, as school legend has it, instead of hushing up, one of the students made an obscene remark to Mr. D. For a few moments, Mr. D.’s face began to turn red with rage, and eventually he pointed two fingers – his pointer finger and his pinky – at the student, and yelled, “ZAP! YOU’RE GONE!”

The story would have been plenty amusing enough had it ended there, but Mr. D. continued zapping students and objects in the library. As we have heard from extremely reliable sources, he began spinning a globe, zapping off countries. And he even made it into a hallway where he zapped some fellow teachers.

Fortunately, the State Police barracks was directly across the street, and a car was on the scene very quickly. As the story goes, Mr. D. was restrained and led to the police car. But even while restrained, he managed to zap the car with his arms behind his back. And he refused to get in the car “because it had been zapped,” naturally.

Of course, being high school students, we all handled this incident with extreme maturity and dignity, greeting each other in the hallways with the pointer and pinky fingers extended and a friendly, “Zap! You’re gone!” for years to come. Strangely enough, that was the last we ever saw of Mr. D.

Famous? Schmamous.

There are some people in the world that are famous, but for the life of me I can’t quite understand why. Paris Hilton is an obvious example, but at least she has some redeeming qualities in the sense of being rather easy on the eyes.

Let’s review a few others. Kathie Lee Gifford is certainly a prime example. Our local NBC affiliate replays the Today Show during the afternoon. When it comes on I have to quickly scramble for the TV remote for fear of losing brain cells with each additional second of exposure to her. What qualities does she have that qualify her to be rich and famous? Surely most anyone can sit in front of a camera and giggle about various things. Come to think of it, I actually met her one time several years ago. That probably accounts for much of my brain loss.

Dr. Phil is another one. I caught the tail end of yesterday’s show as I was waiting for our local news to start. The theme of the show was shoplifting. Insightful as always, Dr. Phil suggested to his guests that shoplifting was wrong, and perhaps they should change their ways. Amazing stuff. I can't help but think that if I had a show my advice could potentially be just as helpful. If I had a guest on my show and he had been convicted for beating the elderly, I'd tell him, "Stop beating the elderly!" Pretty much on par with Dr. Phil's insightful help, I think.

Then there’s that Jared guy from the Subway commercials. He lost weight by eating sandwiches from Subway, and now he’s filthy rich. There’s just something about him that makes me want to inflict physical harm upon him. I've eaten plenty of subs at subway, and they certainly haven't made me all svelt and fit. Come to think of it, eating their subs haven't made me famous either.

I'm a Toasty Cinnamon Bun

Ok. I’m ready for Spring. Yes, I fully realize that it’s not even technically winter yet, but with temperatures barely making it into the 30s these past few days, I say the heck with it, let’s just skip a bunch of these nasty months and get right to May. Or perhaps June.

The real bugger about the cold weather is that I find it nearly impossible to get out of bed these mornings. There was an early episode of The Simpsons where Homer is all snuggled in his bed in the morning, and he describes himself as a “big toasty cinnamon bun.” He decides that he never wants to leave his bed, at least until he realizes that he has to “take a whiz.”

That’s pretty much identical to my recent mornings. I feel like I’m glued to the bed, and I wake up with the blankets so tightly wrapped around me that it’s difficult to get up, even if I want to. I don’t even like to have my head poking out of the blankets because I can feel the cold air on my nose.

And then every 6 minutes the clock radio turns back on, and it seems to always turn on in the middle of the weather forecast, which only encourages me to slink further into bed and hit the snooze button again. I’ll decide that I’m never leaving my bed. Until I realize that I have to take a whiz…

The Dancing Christmas Shrubs

I think Mrs. Smoot is getting increasingly concerned about my plans for our outdoor holiday illumination this year. I haven't really given her a lot of details about my plans, and she keeps coming home to find more and more extension cords, along with more electronics filling the garage.

I don't plan on going fully crazy in the Clark Griswold "Christmas Vacation" spirit of the season or anything like that (the house in the picture is actually a mile down the road from us... I have no intent on blinding people with something like that). But I do have some fun things in mind this year.

Since I spent many years as a disc jockey, I happen to have all of my old light show stuff stashed away in the attic. The light show was designed to react to music. Seems like a waste to have this sort of ability stuck in the attic, eh?

So I spent a recent warm afternoon disassembling some stuff from the regular light show, and attaching it to Christmas lights, which adorn the shrubs in our front of our house and along the driveway. I'm calling this year's display "The Dancing Christmas Shrubs." I've gotten things to the point where there's an amplifier and CD player attached to the lights, and the shrubs will now light to the beat of the music.

At this point I have only tested it with Halloween music since that's what was in the CD player. The lights are pretty dramatic to watch during "The Monster Mash," although that's not going to get too many people into the Christmas spirit.

Once I'm done, I'll have it set up so that people can tune their car radios to a FM station where I'll broadcast the music that will be simulcast with the dancing shrubs. Our neighbors are just going to love me! Stay tuned. I'm sure I'll create my first ever "blog video" on the subject before too long.

So Much for the Final Frontier...

I've always been fascinated by the space program. I even drove to Florida several years ago specifically for the chance to see a shuttle launch in person (the photo on the right is one I shot during that trip to see the launch of Atlantis -- STS-101 -- in May 2000). Despite the inherent dangers, I have always thought that I'd jump at the opportunity to take a journey into space. There are just a couple things that come in the way of that dream.

For one, I'm vastly underqualified. If I were in charge of the family checking account, I'd still be writing entries like I did in college, like, "The bank says I have this much," because my math skills just aren't that great. I'm sure NASA requires a little math, as well as a few other skills I don't have. I could probably overcome this whole issue simply by winning the lottery so I could pay a few million to be a space tourist, I suppose.

The other stumbling block is a psychological issue I have, which pertains to the current mission that launched on Friday evening. The crew of the space shuttle Endeavor is delivering some new equipment to the International Space Station. The intent of the mission is to expand the living quarters to the extent that six people can live at the station for lengthy periods of time.

The component that gives me some concern is a device that will recycle human sweat, urine and other waste back into drinkable water. Mmmm mmm! Pass me the bottle, I'm parched! I suppose I'm just not astronaut material if I have issues with the idea of chugging my own pee, let alone the pee of my fellow astronauts.

As we were watching the launch on Friday night, I saw two different reporters showing off bottles of water that had been recycled this way, and one of the NASA-TV commentators demonstrated its safety by taking a hearty swig on camera. I'm confident that as soon as the camera was off of him, he undoubtedly sprayed it all over the place with a mighty spit, and ran screaming down the hallway to a room where he could have his mouth disinfected. At least that's what I would have done.

The Extra Ingredient Is Glove

Let’s wrap up the week with one final story (for now, anyway) about the nasty service we typically get at restaurants. I’ll avoid identifying this restaurant by name, again choosing only to note that it rhymes with Schmexas Schmodehouse.

A couple years ago Mrs. Smoot, Little Smoot and I headed to our local location for a meal. We ordered our food, and they brought out my salad and some dinner rolls. Little Smoot was eating her dinner roll when she bit into something strange. I looked at it and thought that somehow a piece of lettuce from my salad had gotten stuck to one of her rolls.

But I looked at it more closely and realized that this thin, white-ish thing she pulled out of her mouth wasn’t lettuce. No, it was a portion of a rubber glove, of all things. Mmmm… mmm! Just the kind of thing to make us really look forward to our main course! How in the world does part of a rubber glove make its way into a dinner roll? I can only hope that the cooks are using these gloves when they’re baking the bread, and they’re not using the gloves to conduct some sort of twisted surgical procedure in the back room.

As a disclaimer I should note that we are not the kind of nutcases who hide disgusting things in our food in hopes of cashing in with a large lawsuit. No, there really was part of a rubber glove in the bread. We pointed out this gem to our stunned waiter, and throughout the rest of the meal a parade of people came over to apologize to us. It was kind of amusing, really, because we could literally look around and see various employees whispering the story to each other as they were gesturing toward our table.

Toward the end of the meal our waiter came over and told us, “We’ll be taking something off the price of your meal for this.” He paused for a moment and added, “We’ll be taking a LOT off your meal.” Actually, they didn’t charge us at all, which seemed appropriate. We do go back to this restaurant rather often, and we generally have good experiences there. We have joked with waitresses about this experience since then, and many of them actually say they’ve heard about this incident, even though it was a few years ago. We’re legendary!

Mis-Steaks Galore!

In Part 2 of our series of bad restaurant experiences, we’ll discuss an incident a few years ago at a local steakhouse. While we won’t identify the restaurant by name here, we will say that it rhymes with “Bone Bar Bakehouse.”

We went out to eat with good friends of ours, and at that time their son and our daughter were very just a few years old. So many things went wrong that night that I have succeeded in forgetting much of it. I can recall that the service was super painfully slow and rude, our orders were almost all completely wrong, and they had run out of many, many stupid things. For example, they were out of bread, which made it tricky for them to make cheese sandwiches for one of our kids. I believe they substituted by using bottoms of buns instead of sliced bread, which was just weird.

I believe they were also out of milk, and after getting the kids excited about the fact that their meals came with ice cream, our waiter announced that they were out of it, too. I should point out that this restaurant was practically across the street from a grocery store, so one would think that in a pinch they could have walked over and grabbed a few essentials.

I wrote a snotty note to the company after this experience (always write these notes the night they happen; you get the best, most sarcastic results this way!), and they sent a very nice, lengthy note back. They apologized profusely for all of the trouble we had, and told me to use the letter to redeem a free meal for all six of us at our convenience.

When we finally decided to return to the restaurant (actually, we went to another store in the chain, figuring that the original location’s employees would spit in our food after reading the letter), they bent over backwards to kiss our butts. It was awesome! We had a wonderful meal, and at one point or another, every manager and employee seemed to show up to make darned sure we were having a great experience. The letter apparently put fear into their hearts.

Some number of months later we went back again, and wound up having yet another miserable experience of doom. Go figure. We don’t go there any more, mostly out of fear. Tomorrow I’ll wrap up the bad service series with yet another bizarre steakhouse experience: “The extra ingredient is glove!”

Apology Cake for Everyone!

I am a bad service magnet. If you ever go out to eat with me, you are very much at risk for having a meal so profoundly bad that you’ll be compelled to write a snotty note to the corporate headquarters. We have had so many bad service experiences that I think I’ll break this up into a miniseries of blog entries.

For today’s entry, we’ll focus on an experience last summer while we were driving out West. We stopped at a restaurant I won't identify (its initials are A&W, though) near Butte, Montana. I ordered a bacon cheeseburger, which naturally came without bacon. Since I had paid extra for bacon, I sent it back. Many eons later, they brought me a brand new burger, which was also missing the key ingredient of bacon. The third time, they finally brought me a burger with bacon on it. Granted, the burger was cold, but I didn't possess enough morbid curiosity to see what they'd bring me next.

Little Smoot had ordered macaroni and cheese from the menu, but the girl taking the order explained, “We ain’t got none.” And needless to say, they screwed up Mrs. Smoot’s chicken order while they were at it.

Later, the store’s manager came around and offered virtually everyone in the store a cake to apologize for the fact that the crew was screwing up everything in sight. She explained that the store was under new management, and they had fired the entire staff in recent weeks “because they were all druggies.” She told us the old staff was replaced by straight-A students, presumably including the girl who told us they “ain’t got no” mac and cheese.

So we continued on our journey and enjoyed our apology cake that night. Tomorrow: adventures at a local steakhouse.

Knock Knock...

I seem to have woken up to a bit of a dilemma this morning. Since Little Smoot didn’t have school today, we slept in a bit. When I got up, I looked out the window and I could see that well-dressed young people are knocking on our neighbors’ doors, which can’t be good news.

Presumably these are either Jehovah’s Witnesses, or they’re selling vacuum cleaners. Or both… who knows? And no offense to them, but I’m uncomfortable dealing with either of those situations because they both tend to have trouble taking “no” as a valid answer.

Usually I can do a fine job of pretending not to be home. The problem is that today is also Garbage Day, so I need to somehow sneak out of the house long enough to get our bags to the curb without being detected by the Jehovah Vacuum People. The garbage truck could be here at any moment. If these folks are observant, they’ll undoubtedly detect that I am home, so I have to develop Plan B.

One time, as Plan B, I pretended that I don’t speak English, which just isn’t very convincing on my part. I can’t fake a foreign accent without laughing, so that gives it away right there, unless I pretend to be from a country where people giggle a lot for no apparent reason.

Another strategy might be to simply keep the garbage for an extra week, but things are going to get a bit nasty in the aroma department around here. Well, I’d write more about this dilemma, but if I don’t come up with something soon, I may wind up with a religion that sucks (get it… vacuum cleaner? Sucks? Never mind…)

Babies Don't Like Me.

I have a knack for scaring the living daylights out of babies. We went out to dinner this weekend with our neighbors, who have a shiny, new baby. Little Smoot played peek-a-boo with her for a bit, and was very successful at making the baby giggle at her. I also giggled. Every time Little Smoot would hide her face, I would wonder where she went. Then she’d move her hands, and THERE SHE WAS! Hilarious, and highly unpredictable.

Anyway, toward the end of the meal I thought I’d give it a whirl, so I put my hands over my face, waited a few seconds, and then let out a bit of a yap as a surprise element when I opened my hands. Well, the surprise aspect of it apparently worked since I alarmed her to the point that she shrieked with terror for several moments, while I tried to figure out how I could crawl under the table or merely become invisible.

Earlier in the week, I had been photographing preschoolers, and one of their teachers had this gag where she’d pretend to tickle me while I was taking the pictures. I’d let out a yap in hopes that the kids would find it funny, and they’d smile for me. It worked like a charm -- every single kid thought it was just hilarious, and I successfully got them all to smile for their photos.

But apparently the same yap that works for the preschool kids is a bit terrifying to a baby. Since I wasn’t able to become invisible or duck under the table, she simply looked at me with a high rate of suspicion for the rest of dinner.

Wakka wakka wakka

If you want to feel incredibly old, I highly recommend playing video games with a child.

Little Smoot just got a new game for her Playstation 2, Spyro Dawn of the Dragon. Unfortunately, it supports a two-player mode, so she talked me into playing it with her the other day. I had no freakin’ clue in the world what I was doing. There were times where she told me I was “doing a good job,” but to be honest, I was just poking at random buttons very quickly. And I think she was just patronizing me.

She’d tell me “Hit the R2 button and make sure you change weapons or you’ll run out of breath!” Sure, honey, I’ll get right on that.

I really hate to admit it, but video games have just kinda passed me by. Back in the olden days, I used to create my own games on the super sophisticated Commodore Vic 20. Granted, I’d always get to a certain point with my development of a game where something didn’t work and I’d be stuck. Then I’d say the heck with it.

As a result, I developed a swell series of “Video Games You Can’t Lose.” I created a version of Pac Man where you could gobble up all of the dots on the screen, but I couldn’t figure out how to get the ghosts to chase the Pac Man. So I eliminated the ghosts entirely. You could go through and eat the dots and not suffer any consequences at all. And you could actually eat through the playing board, making it easier yet.

I also developed a wonderful version of Pole Position (a road racing game) where you drove a car on a perfectly straight road, and there were no other cars. No matter what, you came in first place every time. Ahhh, those were the days.

Oh Deer

Well here it is, my least favorite time of the year: deer hunting season. I don’t mean hunting with a gun in the woods… I mean clobbering these stupid animals with my car. In the past I have hit so many deer with vehicles that I should be set for life when it comes to my venison needs.

Every November I wind up with a bad case of Deer Paranoia Syndrome, or DPS. Just last night I was driving home from a church function and a deer wandered out in front of me on a busy street near home. It actually emerged between two fences, stood on the curb as I slammed on my brakes, and then it gave me that look. You know the look. It was one of those deer-in-the-headlights kinds of looks, I guess you could say.

One time I was headed to work at a Pittsburgh radio station, and I was driving there from a couple hours away. I rammed into a deer and it crumpled the car’s front fender so badly that parts of the fender rubbed up against the tire every time I hit a bump. That certainly made for a fun drive. Oh, and it was Mrs. Smoot’s car, so you can imagine how thrilled she was when I turned it back over to her.

Another time I ran into one on the PA Turnpike while traveling through a construction zone at 50 mph. Oddly, it barely caused any visible damage, but still cost more than $800 to fix. Yet another time, I bonked into one within 300 feet of my apartment. That time, the only damage it did was that it knocked the deer horns off my car. For those of you who don’t live in deer-infested areas, “deer horns” are these stupid plastic things that we can put on our cars to make some sort of high-pitched noise while driving, and they’re allegedly supposed to scare deer away. Suuuuure, they do.

Beam Me Up, Wolf!

We’re all a little bleary-eyed around here since we’ve been up late two nights in a row. Monday night was the Steelers victory over the Redskins, and then last night we were up watching the election returns.

Little Smoot has been rooting for John McCain, so it was a disappointing night for her. She sat there clutching her “Country First” campaign sign she got at the rally last week, and she grumbled every time they changed another state to blue on the big map on CNN. She still hasn't washed her hands after shaking hands with McCain last week. Granted, she probably would have forgotten to wash her hands for that period of time anyway, but still.

At one point she looked at me and gave me her own expert analogy, which I thought was pretty good coming from a 10-year-old. She explained, “It’s like John McCain and Barack Obama are in an actual race, and McCain keeps stopping to tie his shoes.” Being as sympathetic to her as possible, I told her, “No, it’s more like he bent over to tie his shoes, but he fell down a cliff and into a river, and the river is sweeping him backwards.” She didn’t seem to appreciate my analysis.

Speaking of analysis, did you watch CNN’s coverage last night? I am not sure whether to be in awe of their gadgets, or simply be frightened. At least twice during the night, Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper interviewed correspondents via hologram. Seriously. Wolf and Anderson were in New York, but they had some magical, Star Trek-like thing where they’d beam correspondents in from Chicago or wherever, and it would look like the other person was standing with them in the studio.

Granted, the hologram people had a weird blue-ish glow around them and it looked like they had mild disorders of the central nervous system, but I’m sure the technology is still in its infancy. Plus there’s just something weird about the idea of being “beamed by Wolf.” I dunno.

I’m not sure how many other cool gadgets they had because I spent a lot of time channel surfing. Thanks to DirecTV, we have a single channel where we can literally watch eight channels of coverage simultaneously! Could life get any better? I think not.

Me Lose Brain? Uh oh!

Mrs. Smoot and I have been talking about how we both have been losing our minds lately. In my case, I have precious little remaining sanity in the first place, so any degradation of my brain is even more detrimental than it would be for most people.

I have noticed this problem over the past few years, and it certainly isn’t getting any better. At home I’ll go downstairs with a single purpose in mind. I’ll wander around the basement aimlessly for a bit, and maybe do something while I’m down there, and I’ll come upstairs and realize that I completely forgot to do whatever it was I had intended to do in the first place.

On the plus side, this helps me get some much-needed exercise, what with all of the extra trips I’ve been making up and down the steps all day. I’m thinking about attaching Post-It notes to my forehead before I head off to do a task, but I keep forgetting to buy Post-It notes.

I hate to think this means I’m getting old. I turned 40 this year, and I really don’t think that this qualifies me as being “old” by any means. But I did have a rather disturbing encounter this weekend that is making me reevaluate the current state of my elderlyness.

We were visiting some relatives out of town, and we stayed at a hotel. When I checked in, the woman behind the counter asked me if I “had any AAA or AARP discounts.” AARP!?! Oh, man. I wasn’t ready for that one. It's not like I drove really slowly into their parking lot with my left turn signal stuck on, while wearing a furry hat.

When she said that, I didn’t even know how to respond. Being a smart alec, you’d think I could have come up with something clever to say. Or maybe I should have just punched her in the head or something. But instead, like most of my elderly kinfolk, I just stood there with a vacant look on my face.

The Great Grandma Eyeball Episode

We took Little Smoot to a Haunted House this weekend at a middle school. We expected it to be incredibly lame considering that it was being run by kids, but we were pleasantly surprised that the students involved with it pulled it off very well! At one point, one of the “ghouls” was walking around with a fake eyeball, asking if any of us would be willing to provide another human eyeball for him.

Well, I have to tell you that I will never be freaked out by some kid with a fake eyeball, not after the “Great Grandma Eyeball Episode, Circa 1978.” I was something like 10 years old, and was visiting my great grandmother, who lived with my grandparents. She had a downstairs apartment at their house, and for some reason she had one of her eyes removed and replaced with a glass eye.

I assume she had this done for sound medical reasons, as opposed to doing it solely for the purpose of being able to pull off one heck of a prank at any given moment. I know that if I were in this situation, the temptation of pulling pranks with it would be way too great ("Hey, I'm keeping my eye on you...!")

I don’t know how glass eyes operate nowadays, and frankly I don’t want to know, but back then, great grandma had to remove her glass eye at night. There was a period of time where her eye muscles had to gain enough strength to keep it firmly in her eye socket. I was visiting with her one day, and as she was talking, her glass eye went, “PLINK!” out of her eye socket, coming to rest up against the inside of her eyeglasses, and she was oblivious to the fact that it had even happened. I have never seen a Halloween mask that comes remotely close to being as scary as seeing my extremely elderly great grandmother sitting there with one eyeball dangling off her face.

I can still recall the exact words I said at that moment. I said, “AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!” as sensitively as I could, and I ran the heck out of there, never inhaling to replenish my ability to scream, and setting the world record for sprinting up a staircase.

Halloween just isn’t nearly as creepy as some of my real life experiences, it turns out.

Happy Halloween... or Football Game!

Happy Halloween! Well, for most people it’s Halloween… our community had Trick or Treat last night, because you simply don’t mess with high school football in this area. If October 31 falls on a Friday, they will move Trick or Treat night so that every ounce of attention can be focused on football. It’s lucky that Christmas doesn’t fall during the month of October, or it would also occasionally get bumped into a more convenient time slot.

To give you an idea of how big the sport is in this area, the coach of our town’s high school was the inspiration for a Tom Cruise movie about high school football in the early 80s. Don Yanessa, inspiration for the movie “All The Right Moves,” retired from his coaching position at Ambridge High School this week, so I would assume that this will spawn a new annual holiday/parade/statue/church in his honor.

Anyway, Trick or Treat is awesome. It’s a great opportunity for us to send our child out to collect tons and tons of candy for us to eat. As responsible parents, it’s our job to forbid her from eating sweets, so as a precaution we simply eat them ourselves. I am sitting by a mound of empty M&M wrappers, and I’m very grateful to the people in the neighborhood who give out the full-size Hershey bars. Many thanks, guys!

AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!

My apologies for the title of this post. We have come to that point in the political campaign where things have gotten so nasty that I can't take it any longer, and I am going berserk and I feel the need to type in all-caps.

I made the mistake of watching TV last night. During breaks, every single commercial was a political ad. Not only are they all political ads, but they have apparently reached the point where the candidates can no longer think of a single good thing to say about themselves, so they go nuts with the negative stuff against their opponents. And they whip out the slimiest, most derisive ads this week before the election.

It's hard to imagine how the candidates even have time to campaign for the election, what with all of the time they must be spending approving messages.

The commercials all follow the same formula. They start with foreboding music, and slow-motion, non-flattering, pixelated footage of the competing candidate against a dark background. The announcer, who apparently went to Bob's Discount Broadcast School of Sarcastic Annunciation, begins running through the laundry list of atrocities committed by the opponent.

They'll claim that the opponent is guilty of raising taxes, beating the elderly, kicking small, furry animals, having a bad hair piece, or having an annoying, screechy voice with an Alaskan accent. In the last five seconds of the ad, they'll play hopeful-sounding music with a shot of their candidate doing something vaguely related to being a leader, like signing a paper at a desk in the presence of a U.S. flag. Then the next political ad will begin.

While I'm whining, I should also point out to candidates that if you would like to guarantee that I'll cast my vote for your opponent, all you have to do is call my cell phone with a recorded message. That's right! I have had several calls from one local candidate who felt that I could have no better way of spending my cell phone minutes than to listen to a recording of his monotone voice.

Getting back to TV... I'm actually looking forward to next week, when we get back to regular ads that remind us to apply Head-On directly to our foreheads, and what to do if we experience an erection that lasts for more than four hours.

No Pooping in the Yard!

We sat down last night to watch the late news, and a familiar face appeared as the TV anchorperson was reading through the top stories. There was an old boss of mine, being led away in handcuffs! I’m not identifying him in this blog entry; I’m not writing this to drag his name through the mud any further than he has already dragged it himself. Let’s just say that since the time I worked for him at a radio station 15 years ago, his life has apparently taken him in some new, different directions.

I thought I’d bring this up because he authored the single-most hilarious office memo I have ever received, and I thought this would be a fine opportunity to share it. In the early 90s I worked as a DJ at a radio station in Wheeling, WV. Being West Virginia, it was apparently necessary to write a memo to remind employees that it is not good to poop in the radio station’s yard.

Without further adieu, or doo-doo, I present the infamous “Poop Note of ‘92.” In order to keep things as obscenity-free as possible, and to help keep the author’s name anonymous, I have blackened-out certain parts of the document. For most of the blackened-out parts, you can simply substitute the word “poop,” and it will read just fine. Obviously, he chose to use a more colorful form of the word, so if you’re reading it out loud to your friends, you can substitute whichever word you deem most appropriate.

You’ll want to click on the image of the memo to see the full-sized, readable version. Enjoy!

Obama-Rama

Little Smoot and I attended the Barack Obama rally in Pittsburgh last night. I had told her that if she wanted me to take her to see John McCain last week, she was going to have to go to an Obama event the next time he was in town. Gotta keep the kid balanced, you know.

The event was held at Mellon Arena, which was nice because we could actually sit down in an actual seat to watch it, and Little Smoot wouldn’t have to stand on her 10-year-old tip toes in hopes of seeing things.

Now that she and I have been to both a McCain rally and an Obama rally (actually, I’ve seen them each three times now), I thought I’d put together a helpful voting guide based on the knowledge I’ve gained by attending these events:


So there you have it! Hope this helps with your decision next week.

Beware: Mountain Oysters

I thought it would be a good public service effort on my part to alert people about Mountain Oysters. Then again, apparently I’m one of the very few people in the world that don’t know what these are.

This summer we were driving through Texas, and Mrs. Smoot suggested that we ought to find a good steakhouse where we could have dinner as we spent a night in Amarillo. We ordered an appetizer platter, which included an abundant supply of Mountain Oysters. Being a bit naïve, I thought were indeed oysters, based on the name. Silly me.

Well, Mrs. Smoot decided to inform me (three weeks after the fact) that these were not oysters at all. No, Mountain Oysters are actually bull testicles, breaded and deep fried. I can’t help but think that maybe I wouldn’t have ordered them had I known this at the time.


We enjoyed this meal at the Big Texan steakhouse, which is actually very famous. We’ve seen it featured on the Travel Channel a few times since we’ve been home. They’re actually much better known for their monstrous 72-ounce steak. If you can eat it within an hour, it’s free; otherwise it’s $72.

I failed to pay too much attention to the description of Mountain Oysters on the menu. In fine print it said, “If you think it’s seafood, go with the shrimp.” That makes sense now…!

I have to admit that back when I thought they were oysters, they were delicious! We ate many, many of them, and you can see in the picture that Little Smoot also loved them. Someday that picture will make for wonderful blackmail material.

Mmmm. Salad.

Since it’s Friday, I’m thinking about having a big honkin’ salad for lunch. There’s nothing like a great big salad to polish off the week. Sounds healthy enough, doesn’t it?

Of course my definition of a salad is “anything that involves layers of food, at least one of which is a vegetable. But not necessarily.”

So when I tell Mrs. Smoot that I had a “salad” for lunch, she will roll her eyes, knowing that my salad consisted of a base layer of nacho chips (fulfilling my daily requirement of grains), followed by a layer of melted cheese (from the dairy group), onions (there’s a vegetable!), crumbled ground beef (meat group), shredded cheddar cheese (more dairy!) and tomatoes (which can pass as either a vegetable or fruit!).

Sometimes I’ll supplement all of this with some sour cream (to fulfill my daily requirement of sour cream), and a Diet Vanilla Pepsi (to fulfill my daily quota of bubbles).

There you have it. At least four food groups all wrapped up into one delicious salad. At night I often enjoy one final salad, consisting of ice cream with Hershey’s syrup on it. I really do enjoy my salads.

Spooky.

You can only imagine how exhausted I am now that I have finally finished my annual Halloween decorating. I got our light-up plastic pumpkin out of the garage, carried it to the front of the house, and plugged it in. Phew -- I'm whooped!

Ok, I'm not all that tired. I've pretty much given up on any attempt at keeping up with our neighbors when it comes to Halloween. Some of the people in our neighborhood go absolutely nuts when it comes to this holiday -- many of them go more overboard for Halloween than they do for Christmas.

We have had people on our street who have rented Hearses to finish off their displays. Seriously. I used to try to keep up a little bit by using a smoke machine during trick-or-treat night, but it seems a little amateurish compared to people on our road who have apparently hired Steven Spielberg and Disney to coordinates their efforts.

If I get ambitious, I may go out and buy a new bulb for our pumpkin since it has burned out. If I get super ambitious, I might put the fake cobwebs on our bushes like I usually do. Little Smoot actually still believes that a giant spider comes along and does that at this time of the year.

Little Smoot's Endorsement

So Little Smoot decided she wanted to go to the John McCain rally last night. I really didn’t plan on going, but she said, “Why wouldn’t we go?” I figure it’s a good civics lesson to take her to this sort of thing, even though I’m not a McCain supporter. And it’s a rare opportunity for her to see such an event.

I took her to see Bill Clinton speak at a rally for Hillary this spring, and he even held her hand at the end of the speech! Granted, at age 10, she didn’t realize just how famous Clinton was until I showed her an episode of The Simpsons that featured the former president.

Anyway, we headed to Robert Morris University as soon as she got out of school.

Keep in mind that she is in 5th grade, and I don’t even know what her fixation is with McCain. We have quizzed her in an attempt to figure out why she prefers him over Obama, but she hasn’t exactly given decisive answers (perhaps this could be an indication she has a future in politics herself). Hopefully it’s not merely because he has a hot wife; that would be one of the few reasons for me to consider supporting his candidacy. In any case, Little Smoot has officially given her endorsement to the GOP ticket, in case that helps you decide for whom to cast your own vote.

She had a wonderful time collecting Republican propaganda while we were there. She was excited to get a new McCain/Palin sign, and red, white and blue pom-pons to shake in an obnoxious fashion all evening.

She also took great pleasure in announcing to everyone within earshot that her father was voting for Barack Obama. That went over tremendously well with everyone, as you can imagine. Thank you, sweetheart! Next time we’re at the zoo, maybe you can tie some meat to me and throw me into the lion’s den, too!

Thankfully, we both made it out of there alive, and she even had a chance to shake John McCain’s hand after his speech. Just another reason for her to go without washing her hands for a few weeks…

Innermost Thoughts and Feelings

I view my blog as a place where I can sit and reflect upon my innermost thoughts and feelings, give them careful consideration, and then share them with whoever may stumble upon them in this wonderful thing we call Cyberspace. That's why today I want to talk about these weird eyebrow hairs that have been bothering me.

I am having weird issues with two of my eyebrows, which represent 100% of the eyebrows attached to my personal head.

On one side, I have this bizarre single eyebrow hair (I call him Harold) that seems to be extraordinarily thick for an eyebrow hair. If I brush over it with my fingers, it feels as though it's about the same thickness as one of my legs. But the weird thing is that I can rarely spot it in the mirror. When I can identify it, I'll use the tweezers and yank the sucker out of my head, which is not one of the more pleasant routines of my typical day. And it just grows back anyway.

On the other side of my face I have developed some sort of weird eyebrow hair that feels as though it has grown out a bit, and then for whatever reason decided to burrow back into my head. It's a very strange sensation. This one is also generally invisible to me in the mirror, so it just goes on and on, feeling a little weird.

Of course I'd be remiss in this discussion if I didn't bring up my occasional protruding nose hairs. I turned 40 this year, but you'd swear I was one of these old guys in his 90s with hairs awkwardly sticking out of every body part. I had a nose hair the other day that was so long that you'd normally only associate such a thing with Cher.

I'm certainly hoping this trend doesn't continue, because I am beginning to fear that by age 50 I'm going to be mistaken for a Sasquatch. When I start getting the dreaded old man ear hairs, I'm definitely doing to be concerned.

Merry Christmas!

I must say I was a little surprised to turn on my radio this weekend and hear Christmas music oozing out of my speakers. It's not that I don't like Christmas music, it's just that, according to my calendar it was only October 18. My memory could be failing me, but I'd swear Christmas didn't occur until sometime in late December.

But sure enough, there it was: Jingle Bell Rock on 3WS radio in Pittsburgh. On October 18. Given the date, I can't be sure whether 3WS is playing Christmas music absurdly early this year, or perhaps they're still playing it in celebration of last Christmas.

I guess I should dress up as Santa Claus for Halloween...?

The Daily Dorko Spazo

I kind of miss junior high school, because I no longer get to vote on the Daily Dorko Spazo Awards.

Yes, we had some weird traditions when I was in school. During 7th grade, a bunch of us would cast votes every day for the person we thought was most deserving of the DDS Award. We would chose the recipient based on whether the person was acting weird on this particular day, or if they had done something stupid, or if they were actually campaigning to earn the award. I believe we even had a special Dorko Spazo Button the winner could wear on his shirt.

The best thing about the award was the fact that even though I definitely met the criteria of being dorky, I would never win the award. I would have been embarrassed about it and it would have chipped away at whatever little self-esteem I had back then. But the award always went to Mark Stephens. Every day. He seemed to be pretty proud of earning it, so we would always oblige.

Another tradition I miss was the annual Jello-on-the-Cafeteria-Wall Experiment. The first time of the school year that we would be served Jello, we’d flick fragments of it on the wall to see how long it would stay there before the walls were cleaned. Let’s just say that some of those fragments are most likely still there today.

Freeze Frame!

Political season is heating up, and the attack ads are getting more and more amusing. I always get a kick out of looking at ads where candidates include photographs of their opponents, because they always choose the most horrendously unflattering pictures they can possibly find.

Some of the print ads I have received in the mail make me laugh out loud ("LOL" for you hip people). Opponents in these ads always look as though they have just committed some sort of unnatural acts involving livestock, or some such thing.

With this in mind, I got to thinking about how much fun it would be to make a living as a person who takes unflattering shots like these. I'm a photographer, and people normally expect me to take nice photos, so it would be refreshing and fun for me to take pictures that are intentionally terrible.

Heck, I have taken hundreds and hundreds of photos of political candidates, and if you take enough shots of anyone, you'll undoubtedly come up with a bunch where they look completely dorky.

I thought I'd illustrate that with some of my personal favorite shots that I have taken (like one of John McCain, demonstrating what he may look like as a corpse, and one of Hillary Clinton that looks as though she is checking out someone's "economic package," if you catch my drift). I shot most of these during the current campaign season. Enjoy!