A Toe-Tappin' Time

There are few words or phrases in the English language that can strike fear and terror into the hearts of parents with as much power and tenacity as: "Elementary Band Concert." Actually, that phrase comes in just behind "Fluteaphone Concert," but it's still very, very high on the list.

I was in band for many of my school days, and I can remember our first concerts. If I'm not mistaken, we began playing instruments back in third grade, which meant that some of the instruments were much larger than the kids were. God help the 8-year-old tuba player, for example.

Many of us kids had trouble holding our instruments steadily, and heaven knows we couldn't play them worth a darn. Yet our parents would come, all dressed up, and pretend that we were doing a great job.

In reality, I'm sure that many of the parents were praying that a beer truck would crash into the auditorium and they could all dance around in Budweiser instead of listening to another single note, but they did a good job of pretending to enjoy themselves.

Well, here we are, 30 some years later, and now we are the parents. What comes around, goes around, I guess.

Little Smoot has been playing the trumpet since the beginning of this school year, and her teacher always tells me she's doing a great job. I have no idea, since she never, ever, ever practices at home, no matter how often I bug her about it, and regardless of whatever threats I make.

We had our first elementary band concert tonight, and it went pretty well, all things considered. Thankfully they taught the kids just a few relatively brief songs, like the toe-tapping favorite "This Old Man."

I'm pretty sure they did a better job with their first concert than we did with ours. At least Little Smoot's group more or less knew when their songs began or finished. Some members of our band would often play a song so far off pace that we'd continue playing one song while others of us would be playing the next song in the program.

Since we have all of this technology at our fingertips, I thought I'd share a clip of the concert that I expertly took with my cell phone. It honestly did sound better in person. If nothing else, this will prove that I was actually there to view it:

Economy Gone Bust

Well, of course it would seem that the economy has hit everyone pretty hard lately. And now Disney has announced that it is cutting one of the most prized job positions I've ever heard of. They have decided to eliminate "Breast Screeners" from their theme parks.

If you've ever been to Disney, or any number of other amusement parks, you have probably seen rides where they'll take your picture as you're enjoying the ride, and after the ride is over you can see yourself on a video screen. And then you can also pay a heavily inflated price to purchase a photo of yourself buzzing down the hill of a roller coaster, or whatever.

I have always enjoyed the opportunity to make a funny face on rides like that, purely so I could amuse myself and my fellow passengers at the end of the ride (see photo above, shot yesterday at Kennywood Park). But apparently some people have made a hobby out of flashing their breasts at the cameras, giving people an entirely different kind of experience at the viewing screens.

To combat this terrible, immoral, disgusting practice (yes, I'm obviously pretending to act like I think this is a bad thing, purely because I know that sooner or later Mrs. Smoot will get around to reading this), Disney has employed people who spend their entire days watching the video screens to be sure that the risque images don't make it to the public.

Several questions pop into my mind as I ponder this job. My first question, naturally, is: How does a person obtain such a job? I mean, what kind of things would they look for on your resume as you're applying?

INTERVIEWER: "What qualifications do you possess that will help you succeed in this position?"

INTERVIEWEE: "Well, I've been a pervert for my entire life, I have a vast collection of porn that I've downloaded off the Internet over the years, and from memory I can tell you at exactly what point to freeze frame several dozen movies with nude scenes."

INTERVIEWER: "Welcome aboard!"

Also, what kind of training is involved? Perhaps Disney sent these folks to European beaches to see if they could correctly identify topless sunbathers or something.

In any event, I would have to bet that the people who held these jobs were probably among the most punctual, dedicated employees who have ever been employed anywhere, in any position. I picture them showing up dramatically early for work every day, never bothering to take vacations or even lunch breaks.

I'm not sure what could be next for the folks who have been performing these duties all these years. Maybe they can go on to work at airports where they have those new see-through X-Ray machines.

Beans, Beans...

Admit it. Before you even started reading these words, you looked at the title of this posting and finished the rest of the words, right? When a person of any age hears the words "beans, beans," we all instinctively finish the rest of the line, usually out loud for everyone to hear: "...the musical fruit! The more you eat, the more you toot."

Somehow my daughter and one of her friends were not aware of the rest of this classic song, so another adult (and a valued member of the Hank Smoot Files readership) felt it was necessary to educate them by teaching them the rest of the lyrics: "The more you toot, the better you feel. Let's have beans for every meal!"

Well, the girls seemed to think that was just the most incredible song they had ever learned, and they spent a pretty large percentage of their Memorial Day singing it and improvising the words to somehow make it even more obnoxious.

They enjoyed singing it very loudly while I took them for an excursion in the car. By the end of the day, they were even sort of harmonizing it. At least it took their minds off of their other annoying song they had made up a few years ago. They used to sing "Row, row, row your boat, gently down your throat!" And then they'd giggle for 15 minutes at a time about it.

If the weather cooperates, I'll be taking Little Smoot to Kennywood later today, where she'll undoubtedly meet up with friends who will make me wish that "Beans, Beans" was the most annoying thing I'd be experiencing.

For the Birds

I'm starting to get concerned about the bird situation.

Under normal circumstances I can easily go months at a time without birds decorating my car with excrement. But these last few days, it seems that I can't even go a couple hours without finding big honkin' blotches of bird treats all over my windshield. What's up with that?

The other day I found a blob that was so large that I'd almost be afraid to see what sort of bird was responsible for such a thing. I'm guessing, judging on the size and texture, that it had to be the work of at least a pterodactyl.

I was bothered by it enough that I decided to give the car a nice, thorough washing, which was a stupid thing to do. First of all, even though it was perfectly sunny while I was washing it, an enormous storm cloud moved in literally half an hour after I finished washing the car, and it hailed all over the place. Only I could cause balls of ice to fall from the sky on an 80-degree day. The next time we are in a drought, I'll just wash my car and guarantee it'll rain.

Anyway, not more than an hour later, I found yet another large blob of bird crap on my windshield.

I have come to the conclusion that birds are obviously doing this intentionally. They know darned well I had just washed the car. And they always manage to let 'er rip right on my side of the windshield where I can't possibly just ignore it. It would not surprise me to learn that there are birds that have altered their regular migratory patterns just so they could detour here and crap on my car.

I got to thinking about this last night as yet another blob splattered on my windshield as I was driving. Why are birds honked off at me? Then I realized that Mrs. Smoot had just told me about the fact that she had accidentally run over a bird while driving just a few days ago. She said she felt really sad about the whole thing, but I don't believe she went so far as to go back and try to give the bird mouth-to-beak resuscitation or anything.

So my new theory is that the birds have obviously gotten our address, but they're taking out their revenge on my car instead of her's. I'm going to put a big sign out in our driveway to let the birds know that it was Mrs. Smoot, not me, who ran over one of their pals. I'll include a big arrow that will point to her car. We'll see how that works out.

Woooo... My Pants are Vibrating!

I'm obviously running out of ideas for things to blog about, so today I thought I'd ponder an age-old question: How, exactly, do they make our cell phones vibrate?

I have a couple theories on this oft-debated subject. I like to think that there's simply a tiny little man inside my phone, and he is hooked up to a couple electrical wires that are connected to the battery. Every time the phone rings, an electrical charge is sent into this man, and he freaks out and causes the phone to vibrate. Poor little guy. That would help explain why my batteries run out so quickly.

Or instead of a little man, maybe there's a teeny little yappy dog. When the phone detects an incoming call, the dog is doused with water, and the dog instinctively shakes it off, thereby causing the vibrating effect.

I got desperate and actually Googled the answer, and I have learned that in reality the phone has a little motor in it with an off-center weight. When activated, the motor spins and the spinning of the weight causes the vibration.

In nearly every Google result on this subject, they compare the mechanism of the phone to a similar, larger one that is implanted into the ever popular and annoying Tickle-Me-Elmo dolls.

This, naturally, begs the question: What if Tickle-Me-Elmo had a cell phone, and it was set to vibrate? The ramifications of such a thing would probably cause a disruption in the time-space continuum.

As you can probably tell, I am obviously ready for a nice, long weekend. The Smoots don't have a whole lot of stuff planned for the holiday weekend, but let us hope that I use this time to come up with something better to blog about by Tuesday.

Lost Without the Boobs on the Tube

(NOTE: I've been looking for a reason to use the word "boobs" in the title of a blog entry. Now I can check that off my list.)

Anyhow... what am I supposed to do now? Nearly every day for the last several months has been defined by whatever show is on television that night. For example, Monday has not been known as "Monday" here at Smoot Central; it has been known as "House Night."

Tuesday has been Fringe Night, and Tuesdays and Wednesdays have both been American Idol Nights.

Sunday has otherwise been known as The Amazing Race and The Simpsons Night. And now all of these shows have had their season finales. Now I'm lost without all of my favorite shows.

Last night we saw Kris Allen being crowned as the new American Idol. That was weird for a couple reasons. First, it was shocking that he was able to beat the hugely popular Adam Lambert. But it was also weird for me because I used to be Kris Allen. Really.

Back in my radio days, I worked as a DJ at a station that wouldn't allow me to use my real name. Apparently "Hank Smoot" doesn't have a great ring to it. So back around 1990, I spent a couple years on the radio using the name Kris Allen. So hearing people chanting "We Love Kris Allen" was a little weird since it brought back a lot of imaginary memories of people chanting those same words about me a couple decades ago.

Anyway, maybe this gives me an idea about how I can spend the summer since all of my favorite shows are done for the year. Perhaps I'll go on tour...

Kung Foo Fighting

So Little Smoot has yet another new interest that she'd like to take up. It's not like she doesn't have any other current activities. She is presently involved with Girl Scouts, softball, trumpet, piano lessons, our church's adult hand bell choir, various other church activities, and a neighbor of ours has been teaching her to knit.

One would think all of that (and whatever other activities I forgot in that list) would be enough to keep a 10-year-old plenty occupied, on top of her regular school work.

I came home the other night and learned that now she wants to take Karate lessons. Actually, I guess it's "Tang Soo Do," which may or may not be a form of Karate. I really have no idea. I don't think it has much of anything to do with drinking Tang, but I could be wrong about that, too.

In any case, I never in a million years would have guessed that she'd want to learn martial arts. I would have been less surprised if she had declared that she was interested in wrestling sharks, or learning to play the nose harp.

Our pastor's family takes lessons at this place in town, and Little Smoot thought it was cool when she saw them demonstrating it during the Food on a Stick Festival this past weekend. She tried her hand at it, and seemed to pick it up pretty naturally. Or at least that's what we were told by the people who want to charge us a monthly fee for her membership.

So it looks like we're giving this a try. I took her down the other night for a free introductory lesson, and another lesson last night, and she seemed to do well with it. She even spent the rest of the night studying the materials they supplied her.

At first I was thinking about the downfalls of having a 10-year-old who will soon be able to Kung Foo chop the crap out of me, but then again with her newfound quasi-interest in boys, a few defensive moves might not be a bad idea.

Heaven Help Me

Little Smoot's school had an "art exhibit" the other evening, so I took her and one of her friends so they could show me the stuff they had contributed. I half expected to see all of the works of art magnetized to the side of a giant refrigerator, since that's where most grade school art ultimately winds up.

We browsed through the various tables of art, ranging from the classic works of the first graders, all the way up through the avant garde works of the sixth graders.

And then he appeared: Noah. Or, as Little Smoot says, "Ahhhh... Noooooooooah" with an eerie, dreamy tone to her voice. Noah is the boy upon whom Little Smoot has some degree of a crush. Noah also just got contact lenses, so I suppose that'll make him that much more desirable. Thankfully he does seem like a very good kid from a nice family.

Nonetheless, I'm not so sure that my heart is ready for Little Smoot to be expressing an interest in members of the opposite gender. I am personally a member of the opposite gender, and I am well aware of what goes on in our twisted little minds.

We went out to dinner a couple weeks ago, and Little Smoot was showing Mrs. Smoot that she has Noah's cell phone number in her phone. So Mrs. Smoot asked to borrow her phone for a minute, and she pretended to send Noah a text message as Little Smoot watched. Mrs. Smoot typed, "Hi Noah. You're hot," and Little Smoot let out a little scream and grabbed the phone in case Mrs. Smoot had any intention of actually sending the message (she wasn't going to send it).

We got a good laugh out of it, and much to our shock, Little Smoot shrugged her shoulders and said, "Eh, why not," and she hit the Send button. She later backpedaled and told Noah that her mom had jokingly sent the note, but still.

Then I was chatting with Nooooooah's mom at the art show, and Little Smoot came up to me and whispered in my ear while we were talking. She said, "You know, that could be my mother-in-law!" I regained conciousness just a few hours later.

Food on a Stick Weekend

Phew! I'm doing my best to recover from our annual Food on a Stick Weekend.

Our community has a "Nationality Days" festival every year, and as a result we spend a few days eating nothing but food that can be served on a stick.

As per usual, we enjoyed a few entrees of chicken on a stick, along with egg rolls on a stick, chocolate-covered strawberries on a stick, pierogies on a stick, apple dumplings on a stick, gyros on a stick, and Pepsi on a stick.

For breakfast, of course, I had oatmeal on a stick.

As of 6:00 last night, the festivities were over, and all I could do was sit on the couch like a greasy lump and reflect upon the weekend.

As I look back upon these last few days, I often wonder where these people come from who attend this festival every year. I have to say there are some exceptionally bizarre people who show up, seemingly out of nowhere, to attend the festival, and I'd swear I never see these people the rest of the year. I'd certainly remember most of them.

We'll see every whacky hair style, and many young girls who are apparently contestants in the annual Dress Like a Prostitute Contest. I just don't see these people in non-festival settings. I just wonder if they are nomadic festival people who just wander from carnival to festival, and back to other carnivals throughout the year.

Mmmm. Ivory-licious.

Earlier this week I was the emcee for a Christian Women Spring Banquet at our church.

Obviously, the organizers were looking for the best emcee they could possibly get. They wanted someone with amazing wit and humor, someone with that amazing ability to relate to women of all ages... someone who would willingly wear a suit and tie (or possibly two ties), and above all else, they needed someone who isn't good at lying about having other plans the night of the dinner.

So I showed up the other night, wearing a suit, and equipped with several witty remarks. I got a couple laughs here and there, so I guess it was a success. But the best laughs of the night were thanks to our pastor.

The women who organized the event had placed these little wrapped favors at each table setting prior to the dinner. My pastor saw it, unwrapped it, and took a really big bite of it. And after a few short moments of evaluating the taste, he came to realize that this was not a big hunk of candy he was eating. No, it was a bar of soap.

So we all got a good laugh out of that one. Our sermon should be very, very clean this weekend.

The Door Dork

So we have lived in this house for 12 years as of the end of April. Once the weather starts getting consistently nice in the spring, I'll go through the fairly elaborate (for me, anyway) task of replacing the glass storm door with the screen door.

Every time I have done this in the spring – and again in the fall when I switch the door back – I have gone through a process where I'll basically tear the whole door apart in order to make the switch. There are a bunch of screws involved, and some metal trim that comes off, and these little plastic corner things. I have unscrewed these things and screwed them back into place so many times that most of the screw holes are stripped, and the plastic corner things are cracked as a result of me over-tightening screws.

This isn't the most work-intensive project a man could possibly do, but it involves enough manual labor that I usually procrastinate doing it until it's really necessary. But last night I finally got motivated enough to get-r-done, so I gathered up my Phillips head screwdriver and a stepstool, and of course a can of Diet Vanilla Pepsi.

I began the fun task of removing all of the screws, and suddenly I had a mini epiphany as I looked closely at the door. It occurred to me that in order to switch the screen and glass back and forth, all I really needed to do was to pull off two rubber strips that hold the frame into place, switch things out, and call it a day. There was absolutely no reason to tear the door apart down to the molecular level, like I've been doing for more than a decade.

A drunken monkey could have figured this out and completely swapped the doors within two minutes. But not me! It has taken me 12 years to realize that this whole process takes about as much time and effort as gargling, instead of the half an hour of semi-intense labor it usually takes me.

What's worse is that there's an extremely good chance that I will forget all of this when it comes time to switch the door back to the glass in the fall. So I'm going to make a point of sticking a Post-It note to the glass. And, being realistic, I'll probably get distracted and forget to leave myself that note. Maybe I'll leave myself a note to leave myself a note…

The Great Guyliner Debate

As you can undoubtedly imagine, lots and lots of people have been contacting me lately, demanding that I take a stand on the issue of “Guyliner.” Am I in favor of eyeliner for men, or am I against it?

I spent a few precious nanoseconds thinking about my personal feelings about this fashion trend, and I have formed the following detailed position on the subject: No.

Perhaps it’s the old fart in me speaking, but I fail to see where there can possibly be any benefit whatsoever for a member of the male species to apply black goo to highlight his eyes. I’m not even sure it’s that great a benefit for women, really.

There are a few famous “guys” out there who have been to blame for popularizing this practice. Soon-to-be-crowned American Idol Adam Lambert is one of them. Pete Wentz from the band Fall Out Boy is another. And I guess it worked out okay for Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

As I did some thorough research for this blog entry, I have learned that this craze is not only becoming more and more popular amongst those in the homosexual community, but it is also gaining ground with people who merely want to be gay, have been gay, or have used Bengay. Not that there’s anything wrong with any of that.

I found a web site that gives detailed directions for men who want to use guyliner. It says you should purchase black eyeliner, and start with a pencil rather than trying to use the liquid. Use a bathroom counter and lean close to the mirror to help keep your hand from shaking. Outline your eyes at the top and bottom in a thick line, and smudge it to make it “less perfect.”

Then stick your head in the toilet while five men beat you to a bloody pulp. I admit that this last step was my own suggestion, because that’s most certainly what would have happened if I had tried pulling a stunt like this when I was younger.

Anyway, I have to start wondering where all of this will end. Think about it… in recent years we have seen “the man bag” (it’s a purse, really). And of course let’s not forget the whole disturbing concept of “moobs” (do a Google image search on that one if you want to have some really bad dreams tonight).

Pimping Our Cat

Normally Little Smoot has a fairly decent degree of common sense. She has a whole lot more sense than I had when I was 10, that's for sure.

My parents often remind me about the day I couldn't seem to squeeze glue out of a bottle of Elmer's, so I took matters into my own hands. Actually, I took matters into my own feet after I spent a significant amount of time squeezing the stupid bottle to no avail. I eventually decided that the best method of getting the glue to come out would obviously be to put the bottle on the floor and stomp on it.

Well, the good news was that this idea worked perfectly in the sense of getting glue to flow. It wasn't such a great idea, however, in terms of creating a big line of glue that extended from one end of my room to the other. For many years there was this mysteriously hard portion of carpet in that room, right up until the day my folks finally got new carpeting in there.

Anyway, Little Smoot has not stooped to my prepubescent levels of stupidity so far. She came reasonably close on Sunday night, though.

For some reason she decided that the cat could use some decorating. Apparently she noticed that she had two things in her room: the cat, and those bead necklace things, like the ones people throw to girls who flash their boobs during Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I'm pretty sure that's not how she acquired the beads, by the way.

I guess she looked at these two items and thought, "You know, these two things belong together!" She somehow fastened the beads to the cat in such a way that they didn't fall off, and in a manner that scared the living crap out of the cat.

Remember the scene in the Chevy Chase classic movie Christmas Vacation where the dog runs through the house while chasing a squirrel and destroying everything in sight? That was our cat the other night. Mrs. Smoot and I were in our living room when the cat came bounding down the stairs, tearing through everything along the way in an attempt to shed his new jewelry.

We had several tense moments of watching this blur of fur whiz back and forth at lightning speeds while various pieces of furniture went falling in its wake. It didn't help that the cat has been shedding like crazy lately, either. If we gathered up all of the fur that flew through the air during this incident, we could probably create an entire spare cat.

Mrs. Smoot and I eventually cornered Feline Smoot behind the couch and Mrs. Smoot dismantled the situation just as I was about to call in the SWAT team. After just a few short weeks of intense vacuuming, things should get back to normal.

Mom’s Day, Smoot Style

I hope all of you moms had a lovely Mother's Day yesterday. We had a fine day here at Smoot Central. Little Smoot and I got Mom Smoot a couple little tokens of our appreciation, and we enjoyed a movie together in the evening.

We don't take Mother's Day and Father's Day tremendously seriously, where we get super mooshy and dramatic about the whole thing. For example, although we greatly appreciate Mom Smoot, we don't even think about going out for a nice meal because we know that we'd wind up being so frustrated by standing in long lines with a bajillion other people that we'd just all wind up being honked off for the whole day.

I must say that Little Smoot and I do always put a lot of thought into the cards that we get for Mom Smoot. A couple years ago I got her one that was in Spanish, for a change of pace. This year, Little Smoot made a hand-crafted card with these very thoughtful sentiments on the inside: "Mom, If you were a booger, I'd pick you first!" I have no idea where she comes up with this stuff.

Well, I guess I could probably guess where she picks these things up, now that I think back to my own Mother's Day gifts from my younger years. In fact, my mom apparently enjoyed a couple of them so much that she decided to re-gift them back to me a few years ago.

I snapped a quick photo of two of those items. (Please try to forget about the fact that I do actually make money as a photographer when you view the crappy quality of the photo above. It was hard to look directly at these items, let alone bother to try to take a nice portrait of them.)

Anyway, you can see that I obviously put a tremendous amount of thought into these two particular gifts. If memory serves me correctly, the large item on the lower right was an ashtray. Granted, my mom was never a smoker, but by having me as a son it wasn't out of the question that she could have picked up the habit at any given moment.

I'm having a hard time remembering exactly what the other item was meant to be. It sort of looks like it could have been a ghost, but it also could have possibly been a little Elvis statuette. Keep in mind that I made both of these things back in 1975, in a day when smoking and Elvis were both much more tolerable.

Ready for the Big League

I sure wish I could be on my daughter's softball team. I honestly think I could kick all those girls' butts.

That wasn't my attitude 30 years ago, back when it mattered. In those days I was making a terribly feeble attempt at playing Little League baseball. I was so bad I would often leave the bench colder instead of warmer.

I have very few memories of my baseball days, and unfortunately most of those memories are from really humiliating experiences. I believe it was my very first practice ever when I got bonked on the head by a fly ball. And things went downhill pretty far from there.

My coach's name was Zab. Who the heck names a person "Zab?" On the few occasions Zab would let me play on the actual field, he'd stick me way out in the outfield where I could do the least harm. If the rules had permitted it, he would have positioned me out on the other side of the fence so my sole responsibility would be to retrieve home runs from underneath cars.

I was certainly no better at batting, either. My uncle was a coach for one of the other teams, and I can vividly remember him telling his players to move in closer when I stepped up to bat. Apparently I didn't exactly strike fear into their hearts.

Things are different now, though. I think I'd actually enjoy playing in some sort of league now. I think I'd stack up especially well against a group of 10-year-old girls. Even against the really good 10-year-old girls.

Mrs. Smoot, Little Smoot and I practiced at a park last night, and I had to actually restrain myself from hitting the ball too hard for fear that I would hit one of our cars. I was worried about that, and the fact that I almost drilled a ball straight through Mrs. Smoot's chest the last time we practiced together.

If I ever invent a time machine, I'm keeping my current playing abilities, and I'm going to go back to 1980 to teach Zab a thing or two. I'll aim for his car, for starters.

Pictured below, the fabulous Reds of 1980. Zab is the coach on the left; I'm the second person from the left in the middle row. It's rather surprising I remembered to show up for the picture in uniform.

Go Local Sports Team!

I don’t get hockey. The Penguins are in the playoffs, so I have felt an obligation to be a fair weather fan. I’ve been making a half-hearted attempt to watch a few of the games in hopes that I can pretend to speak intelligently about them if I should happen to encounter other fair weather fans.

I understand the basic gist of the game. From what I can tell, it involves a bunch of large, toothless, white Canadian men who have been supplied with large sticks. The sticks are used to beat the living crap out of the other Canadians, although sometimes they use them to hit a little black puck around. The men skate around at random, looking for weaker men they can slam into the wall and cause puncture wounds.

And of course there’s the blue line. I don’t quite know what the significance of the blue line might be, but it seems to be a hot topic for the commentators from time to time. Oh, and there’s also “icing,” which I assume has something to do with the celebratory cake they eat at the end of the game.

There is apparently such a thing as offensive players and defensive players, but I have no clue who is doing what. To me, it just looks like a bunch of angry guys skating around and bleeding.

The coolest part is when a fight breaks out, which seems to be pretty often. In football, players can be penalized 15 yards just for giving a member of the opposing team a menacing glare. But it seems that anything goes in hockey. You can apparently rip someone’s arm right out of the socket, wave it around in the air, and only get a mild warning from the ref. Maybe that’s what they mean by a “Power Play.”

The Penguins’ star player, Sid Crosby, scored a hat trick the other day. I believe that means that he scored three goals, and for some bizarre reason this causes people to start throwing hats onto the ice. I can only assume that drugs must be part of the game. I couldn’t help wonder what purpose the hats serve; wouldn’t it make a whole lot more sense if they threw bandaids and tourniquets out there?

I dunno. The playoffs should be over in just a few short months, I guess. Did I mention we have a player on our team named “Satan?” That can’t be good.

Thou Shalt Not Weed

So I was outside yesterday, dealing with various weeds that have infested our property, and I got to thinking: "What if, by removing these weeds, I am committing a variety of sins?"

Every year around this time, Mrs. Smoot will start getting after me about various weed issues. We have some shrubs in the front of the house, and weeds are always coming up around them no matter how hard I try to thwart them. And let's not even mention the hillside behind the house, which basically amounts to several hundred square feet of nothing but weeds.

I've tried all sorts of things to get rid of the weeds. I have put down landscaping fabric and covered it with mulch in an attempt to keep sunlight from reaching the weeds. At night, if you listen closely, you can hear the weeds out there with their tiny little scissors, clipping little holes for themselves to grow through.

I've probably used more chemicals on our weeds than Saddam Hussein used against the Kurds.

Anyway, I got to thinking about it yesterday. Who put these weeds here? God, that's who. I sure didn't do it. He obviously wants these weeds to be here, considering how He keeps putting more of them in as I keep removing them.

There's the whole "Thou Shalt Not Kill" clause in the 10 Commandments, right? It doesn't say who or what you're not supposed to kill, specifically. The weeds are obviously His creation, and He is probably sitting up there sighing and rolling His eyes every time He sees me outside spraying, picking, stomping and smothering them. And He's probably not pleased with the language He hears me using toward them, either.

So if you drive by the Smoot house and you see lots of weeds, please keep that in mind. It's not that I'm lazy or looking for easy excuses to get out of this type of yard work. God wants it that way.

Sales Weasels

We recently entertained the thought of trading in the Smootmobile for a new model, since our car is less than two years old and I've already managed to put over 60,000 miles on it (I've driven it through 46 states since buying it on 7/7/07).

I stopped by the dealership one morning to get a sense of whether it would be feasible to trade it in while it was still in very good condition. You'll be surprised to learn that the people at the dealership thought it was a wonderful idea -- of course it was feasible! Much more feasible in their eyes than mine as we ultimately decided, but certainly feasible!

This was one of those experiences that helped me remember how much I just love dealing with sales weasels. These guys will say pretty much anything they can think of that might help close the deal.

I made it extremely clear when I got there that I was just exploring the feasibility of a trade, and the SW (Sales Weasel) was repeatedly trying to jump ahead to the part where I sign a bunch of papers and drive the car off the lot:

ME: I am just interested in seeing the difference in payments if we were to trade my car in for a new model.

SW: What color car are you thinking of?

ME: I'm not thinking of a color; I am thinking about comparing the difference in the payments.

SW: What would I need to do to get you to drive this baby off the lot today?

ME: I'm not considering buying a car today; I am simply trying to find out how much more it would cost to trade to a new one.

SW: How about red? I have a couple red ones in stock!

ME: I'd just like to know whether it's worth looking into a new car, or if we should keep the old one.

SW: Do you want the extended warranty with this one? How about leather seats? This one has bluetooth! Just sign this, this, this and this!

ME: (KABOOOOM! -- That's the sound of my head exploding all over his carpet.)

SW: I'll talk to the manager and see if he can dream up some random numbers.

So needless to say, we have opted to stick with the Smootmobile, possibly until eternity.

It's Officially Spring!

I know what you're thinking: "Dude, it has officially been Spring since March." Well, sure, if you want to be technical, I guess that has been the case. But there are some signs we all wait for before we can really declare that the season is in full bloom.

For example, growing up in the small community of Punxsutawney, we had the groundhog, Phil, who would let us know when Spring was going to arrive. Just outside Punxsutawney, in the even smaller community of Big Run, there's a guy who has become well-known for his ability to predict the coming of the season by listening to his frogs (I'm serious... all of us from that area are completely whacked out of our minds).

There are also the famous Swallows of Capistrano, and for some, the harbinger of spring may be the sight of daffodils, robins, or a rabbit bounding through the yard.

For us, however, the arrival of Spring is marked by the first traditional appearance of The Swearing Neighbors. Yes, our idiot freakin' neighbors have been emerging from their winter slumber to delight us all with their daily antics yet again. Apparently we're at the beginning of Season Seven of this ongoing show, which has shown no signs of being canceled.

I had some serious feelings of optimism over the winter, when another neighbor pointed out a news article in our local newspaper. The male Swearing Neighbor had been arrested for assaulting the female (using the term "female" rather loosely -- she may be some sort of new species) Swearing Neighbor. I had high hopes that maybe he kicked her out of the house, or they got thrown into jail, or if my fantasies came fully true, they had been minced up in a giant blender.

But no, apparently we will have the pleasure of hearing their performances for yet another year. As soon as the weather gets nice, the Swearing Neighbors fling open the doors so we can all enjoy their incessant screaming. It's so much fun.

You may be thinking, "Gee, I wonder if Hank ever gets concerned that the Swearing Neighbors could be reading what he says about them on his blog!" No, I do not have such fears. I am quite confident that neither of these geniuses would have a clue how to operate a computer. If someone gave them a computer as a gift, I promise you the only use they'd have for it would be to bash one another on the head with the hard drive.

Quiz Time!

Sorry to post yet another Facebook-related blog entry, but here goes.

If you are one of the six remaining people on Earth who doesn’t have a Facebook account, you probably don’t know about the various quizzes that appear on the site. You can take one of these tests, and then invite everybody you know to take the same quiz so you can share your tremendously interesting results.

When you take a quiz, your results appear on your own Facebook page, which is all good and well, but then they also appear on everyone else’s pages, too. And that can be somewhat annoying, especially if you have friends who have apparently devoted their entire lives to taking these quizzes. I have several such friends.

I have another Facebook friend who posted a note the other day saying that he has not only begun hiding various quizzes from his page, but he has started hiding/ignoring various friends from his page, too. (You can hide any given quiz or friend so their messages don’t clutter up your own page.)

There are all sorts of quizzes out there. Some recent ones taken by my friends include: “What Barbie doll are you?,” “What ice cream flavor best describes you?” and “Which celebrity should you marry?”

I posted a note on my friend’s page in response to his note. I said, in my usual sarcastic tone, “Well if you hide the quizzes, how are you going to know what brand of dishwasher best suits my personality, then?” Another friend saw this message, and before I knew it, he had created a new quiz with that subject.

I took the quiz since I inspired it (I’m a Whirlpool!).

Well, of course now that I know that anyone can easily set up their own quiz, I want to make a bunch of them. Several ideas came to mind as I was mowing the lawn yesterday: “What kind of paramecium do you most relate to?” “What chicken wing flavor best describes your love live?” and “What brand of soup smells the most like your bathroom?”

I’m sure I can come up with a plethora of these.