Yes, the Smoots have added a new family member. Its name is "Droid." No, it's not a new child, or a dog... it's my new phone. And it's not just any phone. No, it's the coolest new toy I have had in a long, long time, and I am including my extendable fork in that statement.
This phone does everything. It has a built-in GPS with voice navigation. It has a decent web browser. If I'm on a trip I can hook it up to my laptop and use it to connect to the Internet. It has a surprisingly decent camera. There are a bajillion "apps" that I can download, like one that will identify a song you're hearing, and where you can buy it.
If it's raining outside, a little animated windshield wiper will flash across the screen. I can play Tetris on it. You can point it at the night sky, and it will identify what stars/planets you're seeing. I can talk to it, and it will translate my sentences into a myriad of other languages.
With the new "Fartalyzer" app, I can record the sound of myself farting, and not only will it tell me what musical key the fart was in, but it will also let me know, based on the characteristics of the recording, whether I should immediately change underwear. It's that good.
So anyway, if I continue to have giant gaps in between blog entries, you can be sure that the phone is to blame. I'm probably spending all day playing with it instead of blogging. Of course if I find an app that allows me to post blog entries by merely thinking of stuff, there will be a LOT more new posts here.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Honked Off
It's not a good idea to go up against me when it comes to acting immature. You'll lose.
Little Smoot's softball season is in full swing, and her team played a rather obnoxious opponent a couple weeks ago. The team members themselves weren't terribly obnoxious, but the parents certainly were.
We played at their park, and many of the parents parked their cars on a hillside overlooking the field. And other parents had various forms of mobile horns with them. Any time any of their girls did anything, and I mean anything, positive -- like not falling over -- the parents would start honking like a flock of defective geese. Unfortunately, the best we could do in retribution was to yell "HONK!" when our girls did something right.
So last night this team played on our turf, and we were prepared. One of our parents went out and bought a whole bunch of those annoying, plastic hand clapping things that light up, so each of us had one of those. I'm not sure it mattered, but they were pink.
I figured I would take things to a new, higher level of obnoxiousness, so I brought Little Smoot's trumpet along. It turned out to be an awesome tool against the folks from Monaca.
I suggested to our gang that we let the other parents make the first move. For one thing, we didn't want to look like we were the ones starting this little war. And for another thing, we were a little concerned about whether their town may have had two teams of girls, and we would end up just looking like rude morons honking at the wrong team.
Thankfully, it was the right team, and a couple of their horn honkers were there for the festivities. During the first half inning we let them do their honking, which, while annoying, was absolutely nothing in comparison to the noise I was able to generate with the trumpet. I also made note of the fact that the main honker for the other team was an 80+ year-old guy, and if I annoyed him with the trumpet, I didn't have to worry too much about him beating the crap out of me after the game.
I haven't really touched the trumpet since high school, except for a one-time gig at church. (Oddly enough, they never asked me to play again.) So I wasn't necessarily playing things well. But I was playing things loudly. Quite loudly. I suspect that I interrupted the play of games at adjoining fields. If only I could have captured the expression on that guy's face the first time I whipped out the trumpet. It was a Kodak moment, to say the least.
Our league has a rule that says that if a game is more than an hour and 40 minutes long, a new inning cannot begin and the game is over. A coach from the other team, knowing that we were closing in on that mark and that our team was gaining some momentum, went up to her pitcher and began a lengthy conversation to kill some time so we wouldn't have an opportunity to catch up. After watching this charade for a bit, I played the theme from Jeopardy!, which got a rousing reaction from our girls and parents.
Her ploy did work, however, and the game ended a few moments later. There were two winners in that game: the other team won the game, and I easily won the contest as Most Obnoxious Parent. Woo hoo! The other team's primary honker actually came over and delivered a concession speech. Thankfully he thought it was hilarious that I brought the trumpet, and we all had a good laugh.
Tonight I'm going to try to figure out how to get an operational fog horn into the game.
Little Smoot's softball season is in full swing, and her team played a rather obnoxious opponent a couple weeks ago. The team members themselves weren't terribly obnoxious, but the parents certainly were.
We played at their park, and many of the parents parked their cars on a hillside overlooking the field. And other parents had various forms of mobile horns with them. Any time any of their girls did anything, and I mean anything, positive -- like not falling over -- the parents would start honking like a flock of defective geese. Unfortunately, the best we could do in retribution was to yell "HONK!" when our girls did something right.
So last night this team played on our turf, and we were prepared. One of our parents went out and bought a whole bunch of those annoying, plastic hand clapping things that light up, so each of us had one of those. I'm not sure it mattered, but they were pink.
I figured I would take things to a new, higher level of obnoxiousness, so I brought Little Smoot's trumpet along. It turned out to be an awesome tool against the folks from Monaca.
I suggested to our gang that we let the other parents make the first move. For one thing, we didn't want to look like we were the ones starting this little war. And for another thing, we were a little concerned about whether their town may have had two teams of girls, and we would end up just looking like rude morons honking at the wrong team.
Thankfully, it was the right team, and a couple of their horn honkers were there for the festivities. During the first half inning we let them do their honking, which, while annoying, was absolutely nothing in comparison to the noise I was able to generate with the trumpet. I also made note of the fact that the main honker for the other team was an 80+ year-old guy, and if I annoyed him with the trumpet, I didn't have to worry too much about him beating the crap out of me after the game.
I haven't really touched the trumpet since high school, except for a one-time gig at church. (Oddly enough, they never asked me to play again.) So I wasn't necessarily playing things well. But I was playing things loudly. Quite loudly. I suspect that I interrupted the play of games at adjoining fields. If only I could have captured the expression on that guy's face the first time I whipped out the trumpet. It was a Kodak moment, to say the least.
Our league has a rule that says that if a game is more than an hour and 40 minutes long, a new inning cannot begin and the game is over. A coach from the other team, knowing that we were closing in on that mark and that our team was gaining some momentum, went up to her pitcher and began a lengthy conversation to kill some time so we wouldn't have an opportunity to catch up. After watching this charade for a bit, I played the theme from Jeopardy!, which got a rousing reaction from our girls and parents.
Her ploy did work, however, and the game ended a few moments later. There were two winners in that game: the other team won the game, and I easily won the contest as Most Obnoxious Parent. Woo hoo! The other team's primary honker actually came over and delivered a concession speech. Thankfully he thought it was hilarious that I brought the trumpet, and we all had a good laugh.
Tonight I'm going to try to figure out how to get an operational fog horn into the game.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Lost
I think I am nearly recovered from Sunday night's 18-hour Lost finale on ABC. And I'm pretty sure that the name of the series relates more to the people who are trying to follow the show than it describes the actors who are stranded on the island.
For those of you who haven't been watching Lost, here's a basic recap of all six seasons. A bunch of people crash in a jet that was en route from Australia to Los Angeles. They crash landeded on a mysterious beach (which we actually visited on our Hawaii trip, pictured on the right!) which features a smoke monster and a lot of magnetism or something.
Jack is one of the plane survivors, and he is a doctor. But it turns out he is now dead. The end.
A whole bunch of other weird stuff happened in between, but we have a long way to go before we figure it all out. Mrs. Smoot and I didn't watch the show from the beginning. We started buying the season DVDs a few months back, and we're only up to Season 3. So watching the finale was even more confusing to us than it was for the people who had seen the whole thing.
This has become a ritual for us at night. For the last few years we have picked a TV series, bought all of the DVDs, and watched them all on a nightly basis. Prior to Lost, we watched every episode of every season of House, and then Fringe. And at the risk of losing a bunch of "Cool Points" I will not even mention the series we watched from start to finish before that (Dawson's Creek...).
I'm not sure what we'll do when we run out of episodes of Lost, frankly. Is Three's Company out on DVD...?
Jack is one of the plane survivors, and he is a doctor. But it turns out he is now dead. The end.
A whole bunch of other weird stuff happened in between, but we have a long way to go before we figure it all out. Mrs. Smoot and I didn't watch the show from the beginning. We started buying the season DVDs a few months back, and we're only up to Season 3. So watching the finale was even more confusing to us than it was for the people who had seen the whole thing.
This has become a ritual for us at night. For the last few years we have picked a TV series, bought all of the DVDs, and watched them all on a nightly basis. Prior to Lost, we watched every episode of every season of House, and then Fringe. And at the risk of losing a bunch of "Cool Points" I will not even mention the series we watched from start to finish before that (Dawson's Creek...).
I'm not sure what we'll do when we run out of episodes of Lost, frankly. Is Three's Company out on DVD...?
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Shifting the Time Space Continuum
I have always considered myself to be a pretty adaptable person. In particular, I have never had much trouble with time changes. In fact, I often find it amusing when the TV news people give suggestions about how to cope with the big 1-hour time shift in the Spring and Fall. Are people that regimented that they can't deal with Daylight Savings Time? I dunno.
But here I am, almost a week after getting back from Hawaii, and I don't seem to be adjusted to the time change yet. Hawaii is six hours behind us, which is a pretty big difference. There were times on the trip when I was tempted to call someone back home as a prank at 9:00 p.m., which would have been 3:00 a.m. for them. But I figured whoever I'd call would surely get revenge by calling me at 9:00 a.m. their time. Or maybe it's the other way around. Whatever.
Our last week of the cruise involved crossing the Pacific Ocean on our way to Vancouver (where Olympics-related memorabilia is half off, by the way!). Every other day we would set our clocks back an hour as we crossed a few time zones, so by the time we got to Canada, we were only three hours different than our home time zone.
And I remain three hours off as we speak. It seems that every night at midnight I'm still wide awake because my brain thinks it's only 9:00. And mornings really stink. I've been waking up to get Little Smoot off to school, and I'll sit down to have breakfast only to wake up several hours later wondering why I have oatmeal all through my hair.
There have been a couple days where I have simply gone right back to bed after getting Little Smoot to school, and I'll wake up at noon or some such thing. Today I'm forcing myself to stay awake in hopes that I'll be able to fall asleep at a normal hour tonight.
Of course this might cause problems later tonight because I am the emcee for a banquet at our church. Hopefully they weren't expecting me to stay awake and alert for the whole thing.
But here I am, almost a week after getting back from Hawaii, and I don't seem to be adjusted to the time change yet. Hawaii is six hours behind us, which is a pretty big difference. There were times on the trip when I was tempted to call someone back home as a prank at 9:00 p.m., which would have been 3:00 a.m. for them. But I figured whoever I'd call would surely get revenge by calling me at 9:00 a.m. their time. Or maybe it's the other way around. Whatever.
Our last week of the cruise involved crossing the Pacific Ocean on our way to Vancouver (where Olympics-related memorabilia is half off, by the way!). Every other day we would set our clocks back an hour as we crossed a few time zones, so by the time we got to Canada, we were only three hours different than our home time zone.
And I remain three hours off as we speak. It seems that every night at midnight I'm still wide awake because my brain thinks it's only 9:00. And mornings really stink. I've been waking up to get Little Smoot off to school, and I'll sit down to have breakfast only to wake up several hours later wondering why I have oatmeal all through my hair.
There have been a couple days where I have simply gone right back to bed after getting Little Smoot to school, and I'll wake up at noon or some such thing. Today I'm forcing myself to stay awake in hopes that I'll be able to fall asleep at a normal hour tonight.
Of course this might cause problems later tonight because I am the emcee for a banquet at our church. Hopefully they weren't expecting me to stay awake and alert for the whole thing.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Honest, I'm Not Ben's Keeper
People on cruises ask this question first for a couple reasons. The main reason is that it's an obvious ice-breaker. It would probably be weird to come right out and ask them what the deal is with a giant mole coming out of their neck, or something, right out of the gate. Emily Post suggests that one should wait at least a few minutes before making that inquiry.
It is genuinely interesting to find out where people are from. I often make my own mental game of trying to guess a person's home state/country before asking. I can usually come pretty close based on a person's accent and personal hygiene practices, or lack thereof ("Hi! Judging from the smell, I'm betting you're from Indonesia!").
I found it interesting on this trip that every time I introduced myself as being from Pittsburgh, every single person had the same reaction. They'd pause for just a moment, let out a small sigh, and then say, "So. What are you going to do about Ben Roethlisberger?"
Since when am I personally in charge of Ben Roethlisberger, and why do I have to do something about him? I'm quite sure that I have very little to do with his fate. Maybe this picture of me and Ben was circulated around the web much more than I would have ever anticipated, and people assume that because we occasionally dress up in nice clothes together, I obviously have a say in his punishment for being an idiot.Anyway, let it be known that I really don't have a hotline number that I can use to call the Rooney family and demand specific punishments for our quarterback. Maybe that could be my next life goal, however, now that I have completed the peeing-in-all-50-states thing.
As a side note, the photo at the top of this page was taken on the Big Island of Hawaii at a business. This place had over a dozen Steelers banners hanging all over the place, making it known that the Steelers Nation definitely extended well into the Pacific! It was amazing how few Cleveland Browns banners we saw along the way...
Friday, May 7, 2010
Where Does One Go From Here?
I have finally accomplished my life goal, which brings me to the obvious question: What now?
It is disturbing to think that I have achieved the one thing that I have always wanted to do -- peeing in every state -- and here I am at age 42 with no specific goal or direction ahead of me.
I have written about my urination goal before, and of course I was able to get it crossed off the list while we were visiting Hawaii. The actual location of this milestone is depicted in the picture on the right, with my apologies to those who think that peeing outdoors is disgusting. I can't help but ask those people where they think their pee eventually ends up, or if they really believe that it's always going to be carefully stored right there below the toilet.
Anyway, I wish I could have somehow managed to go a few extra days without peeing on our trip, because it would have been the most awesomeist thing ever if I could have polished off my 50th state by peeing in the "World's Most Scenic Urinal." Seriously.
Feel free to Google it if you don't believe me, but the World's Most Scenic Urinal is located on the Big Island of Hawaii, in the community of Kealakekua, and it lives up to its reputation! It's located in the Kona Hotel, which is a pretty run-down place. I'm guessing that they established this urinal as a way of encouraging people to stop peeing randomly in the lobby or parking lot, because those places are certainly gross enough that you wouldn't necessarily feel bad about peeing there.
For me, this pit stop was like visiting Mecca. I approached it slowly, as though it was a religious shrine, and I savored every moment of the view as I took care of business. I was able to see the Kona coastline and community, and even a great view of our ship in the distance.
In addition to the men's urinal, there was a toilet for women with an equally scenic view out the window. But unless you had an unusually flexible neck, you wouldn't be able to enjoy the view while takin' care of business since it was aimed toward the door.
So anyhow, I'm wondering what I should possibly do next as a new life goal. Several people have suggested that I take care of peeing in all US territories, which I suppose is something worth trying for. There was some talk about the possibility of Puerto Rico becoming a US state, which would make it a mandatory pee visit for me, but I don't know if that's going to happen.
I guess I'm open to suggestions, which I would kinda prefer didn't relate to peeing in various places. Feel free to sound off with your ideas. Mrs. Smoot would certainly agree that I need some new direction in life!
It is disturbing to think that I have achieved the one thing that I have always wanted to do -- peeing in every state -- and here I am at age 42 with no specific goal or direction ahead of me.I have written about my urination goal before, and of course I was able to get it crossed off the list while we were visiting Hawaii. The actual location of this milestone is depicted in the picture on the right, with my apologies to those who think that peeing outdoors is disgusting. I can't help but ask those people where they think their pee eventually ends up, or if they really believe that it's always going to be carefully stored right there below the toilet.
Anyway, I wish I could have somehow managed to go a few extra days without peeing on our trip, because it would have been the most awesomeist thing ever if I could have polished off my 50th state by peeing in the "World's Most Scenic Urinal." Seriously.
Feel free to Google it if you don't believe me, but the World's Most Scenic Urinal is located on the Big Island of Hawaii, in the community of Kealakekua, and it lives up to its reputation! It's located in the Kona Hotel, which is a pretty run-down place. I'm guessing that they established this urinal as a way of encouraging people to stop peeing randomly in the lobby or parking lot, because those places are certainly gross enough that you wouldn't necessarily feel bad about peeing there.For me, this pit stop was like visiting Mecca. I approached it slowly, as though it was a religious shrine, and I savored every moment of the view as I took care of business. I was able to see the Kona coastline and community, and even a great view of our ship in the distance.
In addition to the men's urinal, there was a toilet for women with an equally scenic view out the window. But unless you had an unusually flexible neck, you wouldn't be able to enjoy the view while takin' care of business since it was aimed toward the door.
So anyhow, I'm wondering what I should possibly do next as a new life goal. Several people have suggested that I take care of peeing in all US territories, which I suppose is something worth trying for. There was some talk about the possibility of Puerto Rico becoming a US state, which would make it a mandatory pee visit for me, but I don't know if that's going to happen.
I guess I'm open to suggestions, which I would kinda prefer didn't relate to peeing in various places. Feel free to sound off with your ideas. Mrs. Smoot would certainly agree that I need some new direction in life!
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Cruising Epidemic
We're baaaaack! We had a super, fantastic time on our Hawaii cruise these past couple weeks, and we arrived back in Smootville a little after midnight last night.
There are all sorts of things I hope to blog about regarding our trip since we saw many spectacular things along the way. I am compelled, however, to start by discussing a terribly disturbing trend we noticed on the cruise.
First off, I must point out that we were easily the youngest people on the ship, by a long shot. The next closest person to us in age was, I'm guessing, somewhere in their 90s. So there were definitely some generational differences between us and the Hoveround crowd.
But imagine this scenario: You get up in the morning, and you and your spouse get dressed in separate rooms of the house. You meet at the door as you're about to leave to go somewhere together, and you realize -- EEEEP! -- we are wearing identical matching outfits!
Clearly, normal human beings would look at each other for a split second, share a hearty laugh, and then SPRINT back to their rooms to change into something that didn't match, right? But this is not what happened on our ship.
No, it seemed that a startling number of people actually planned this sort of thing, with extreme flare at that, and they were parading themselves around the ship in a way that seemed to strongly suggest that they were doing this with no sense of irony or humor at all. The first time I noticed this phenomenon I said to Mrs. Smoot, "Do you see that? You know what that is? It's a blog entry waiting to happen!"
These are people who obviously woke up in the morning and one of them said to the other, "Honey, how about we go with the obnoxious flower outfit today," or, "Dear, I think we should both dress up as cafe awnings." Or, "Sweetheart, give me 10 minutes and I'll fashion these drapes into outfits." And for some vastly inexplicable reason, they both thought it was the right thing to do.
I apologize for the terribly out-of-focus cell phone picture I posted, but I knew that you wouldn't believe it unless you saw it for yourselves. I have several other pictures of other similar couples, but I thought it was priceless that I was able to get two of these couples to POSE in this manner. Don't even ask what I used as an excuse for taking their picture. Suffice it to say that it's probably blurry because I was giggling while taking it.
Anyway, I would strongly suggest that we watch this disturbing trend (at a distance, preferably), and report future instances to Homeland Security if necessary.
First off, I must point out that we were easily the youngest people on the ship, by a long shot. The next closest person to us in age was, I'm guessing, somewhere in their 90s. So there were definitely some generational differences between us and the Hoveround crowd.
But imagine this scenario: You get up in the morning, and you and your spouse get dressed in separate rooms of the house. You meet at the door as you're about to leave to go somewhere together, and you realize -- EEEEP! -- we are wearing identical matching outfits!
Clearly, normal human beings would look at each other for a split second, share a hearty laugh, and then SPRINT back to their rooms to change into something that didn't match, right? But this is not what happened on our ship.
No, it seemed that a startling number of people actually planned this sort of thing, with extreme flare at that, and they were parading themselves around the ship in a way that seemed to strongly suggest that they were doing this with no sense of irony or humor at all. The first time I noticed this phenomenon I said to Mrs. Smoot, "Do you see that? You know what that is? It's a blog entry waiting to happen!"
These are people who obviously woke up in the morning and one of them said to the other, "Honey, how about we go with the obnoxious flower outfit today," or, "Dear, I think we should both dress up as cafe awnings." Or, "Sweetheart, give me 10 minutes and I'll fashion these drapes into outfits." And for some vastly inexplicable reason, they both thought it was the right thing to do.
I apologize for the terribly out-of-focus cell phone picture I posted, but I knew that you wouldn't believe it unless you saw it for yourselves. I have several other pictures of other similar couples, but I thought it was priceless that I was able to get two of these couples to POSE in this manner. Don't even ask what I used as an excuse for taking their picture. Suffice it to say that it's probably blurry because I was giggling while taking it.
Anyway, I would strongly suggest that we watch this disturbing trend (at a distance, preferably), and report future instances to Homeland Security if necessary.
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