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...