Just a Smidge

Just a Smidge has moved to Substack!

2025-02-26T10:32:00.000-08:00

After 16+ years and 777 weekly humor posts, we have made a major move. We have abandoned our old, antiquated Blogspot home here and moved uptown to hang out with the cool kids over at Substack.

Check out our new place at https://smidgeajust.substack.com

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Big love to all of you from headquarters!

See you soon, over at Substack,

-Smidge

Know Your Place

2025-02-19T17:36:00.000-08:00

On February 4^th I received the following email from everyone’s favorite energy company, PG&E, titled PGE Bill Adjustment.

Dear Valued Customer,

We are writing to let you know about a billing issue affecting your PG&E account number listed above. Your account was underbilled by $-1875.00. As part of our process, we review our billing operations to ensure that our customers are billed correctly, and during those reviews, we sometimes find a billing exception that may result in a bill adjustment.

If you recall – as my wife surely does – this summer I neglected to realize that our solar panel system breaker had tripped, causing our giant solar array to be nothing more than the world’s ugliest home improvement project for the hottest two and a half months of the year – possibly of the decade. This wonderful learning experience caused us to get a true-up bill this year that is so large it can be seen from space.

While PG&E is not willing to do anything crazy like print in bold at the top of your August bill, “HEY! YOU DIDN’T PRODUCE A SINGLE kWh LAST MONTH!”, they are willing to “work with you” after the fact in these breaker-tripping situations. They are graciously allowing me to pay them the true-up sum equal to the gross national product of Cuba in twelve equal payments with no interest.

Now, even though they know that they agreed to let me pay it over twelve months, they still list the gargantuan remaining total as my “bill amount” each month, as if I was in charge of lighting up lower Manhattan for the last thirty days.

So, since I’m used to seeing big numbers – numbers that don’t always fit on only one line of the bill – from them, when I received the above email, I didn’t fall directly out of my chair. I actually scoffed a little under my breath, like, “Is that all you got?”

Then I read it again and had to ask – myself, of course, not customer service… I mean, who can get a hold of those people? – what do you mean you “underbilled” my account by a negative number? Is that just a cute way of saying you overbilled me because you don’t want to actually say that?

And which is worse? Admitting you underbilled me or overbilled me? On the one hand, you look like you don’t know what you’re doing, but at least you get to take more of my money while I get even more frustrated and disappointed with you. On the other hand, you still look like an idiot, but I’m happier, but you have to give me money back. Tough call, there.

Then I thought about it more and laughed at myself for even thinking that through. This is PG&E. There’s no way they would ever admit they overbilled me! Ha ha ha. So silly.

Their nice email went on to say:

We have corrected the issue, and a bill adjustment will be reflected on your next statement. We apologize, and we are working to improve our billing system to prevent issues like this from affecting you in the future. You do not need to take any action at this time.

I guess you don’t HAVE to take any action at this time, but if your heart stopped working, or simply blew right out of your chest when you read their email, you may WANT to take some action involving dialing 9-1-1.

Anyway… on February 5^th – a whole day later – I received another email from them, entitled Correction to Previous eMail- PGE Bill Adjustment

Please disregard the previous email you received on February 4th 2025, regarding this bill adjustment. The amount as stated was incorrect. This notification contains the corrected bill adjustment for your account. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Dear Valued Customer,

We are writing to let you know about a billing issue affecting your PG&E account number listed above. Your account was underbilled by $-18.75. As part of our process, we review our billing operations to ensure that our customers are billed correctly, and during those reviews, we sometimes find a billing exception that may result in a bill adjustment.

So, let me get this straight, PG&E… You are working to improve your billing system, but you just sent out an email to, I’m assuming, a crap-ton of people, with a cardiac-event-inducing decimal place error? I mean, decimal place is second-grade stuff, fellas! Sounds like things are going great with the billing system improvement project.

Also, PG&E, just so you all know, the fact that you are having large-scale decimal place errors in a large-scale bill adjustment process does NOT give us, your customers, a sense of security that you are correctly tallying up all the kilowatts we’re using and sending you.

In fact, it really makes me wonder why you’re so willing to extend me the grace of a no-interest payment plan. Is that because you’re just not 100% sure I really owe you all that money in the first place?

Maybe it’s time to get the State of California in there to check up on you guys and sort this all out? Getting the government involved should clear things right up, right?

Ha! Oh, man, I crack myself up sometimes!

See you soon,

-Smidge

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Mobile Dentistry?

2025-02-12T10:55:00.000-08:00

I’m happy(?) to report that my family dental office has apparently merged with a major international airline.

I got an automated email this morning from West Village Family Dentistry, reminding me that I needed to schedule my next cleaning appointment. That was expected. What was not expected was the Lufthansa logo next to their name, or the Lufthansa logo prominently displayed in the main header area at the top of the email, with “Lufthansa” written next to it.

So, apparently, my small family dentist office in Rocklin, California has merged with Germany’s flagship carrier, the fourth largest airline in the world. This is an interesting development. I wonder who bought whom?

The email simply read:

Regular dental visits are crucial to maintaining a healthy smile and our records show that you are past due for a cleaning and exam. Request an appointment above and let us know what times work for a visit.

Hope to see you soon!

- Your Friends at West Village Family Dentistry

Oddly, there was no mention of the merger, or how it would affect my dental care options. There was also no mention of why Lufthansa’s impressive computer scheduling system didn’t know that I already have an appointment scheduled in April. Maybe all the Rocklin appointments got wiped out if there was already a flight scheduled at the same time when they integrated the two systems? That’s probably what happened.

Also conspicuously missing from the communication was any mention of the obvious changes I will encounter at my next visit. For instance, am I now required to arrive at my dental office two hours before my cleaning?

How does security work now? Do I need to bring a passport or a REAL ID to check in at the counter after May 7, 2025?

If they do the arms-over-your-head full body scan, will that double as my x-rays? Is that covered by insurance, or is that free?

If I have TSA PreCheck, do I need to wait in the waiting room with the commoners, or can I go directly to my dental chair?

If I purchased a Business Class cleaning, how will that differ from a First Class or Coach cleaning?

Will the dental chairs be replaced by more Lufthansa-ish seats? If so, will the little button on the arm rest recline my seat enough from its upright and locked position to allow them to work on my teeth?

Will getting into the new dental chairs now be called “boarding?”

Will a hygienist come by with a skinny cart and offer me complimentary water, soft drinks, and coffee? Will beer and wine be available for purchase? Will the drinks be delivered by my hygienist through the little sprayer nozzle?

How do the complimentary snacks work now? The little bags of pretzels and snack mix seem like they might work against the main goal of the appointment.

Will the new dental chairs now have seat belts and flotation devices built into the seat cushions?

How do the oxygen masks work in the event of a loss of office pressure during my visit? Will oxygen just be delivered via one of those hospital nose-hoses instead of a yellow mask and bag so they can keep working in my mouth? Also, the office ceilings are pretty high. Will the nose-hose be long enough, and do I still need to pull down to start the flow of oxygen?

As you can tell, at this point I’ve got more questions than answers about this merger.

I’m currently on hold with Lufthansa customer service to try to get some clarity.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

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A Super Bowl Ring?

2025-02-05T11:32:00.000-08:00

That’s right, sports fans. The big game is upon us! Super Sunday is this weekend.

(In case you didn’t know, the NFL copyrighted and trademarked the name Superbowl and/or Super Bowl a long time ago, so I’m not even allowed to write either of those, so I obviously never would.)

Regarding the upcoming Super Bowl, this is the fifth time the Kansas City Chiefs are playing in the big game in the last six years, and Sunday will be their third straight appearance.

People attribute the Chief’s success to a number of factors, including quarterback Patrick Mahomes, coach Andy Reid, and the fact that the multi-billion-dollar NFL’s officiating system somehow can’t get access at the New York play review office to the camera angles from the actual live broadcast the rest of the world is watching. On our regular TV’s in our regular homes.

But you Swifties out there know better than all that. You know who is carrying the team on his, broad, manly shoulders. Yes, our beloved number 87, Mr. Taylor Swift – the ever-so-dreamy Travis Kelce.

If Travis and the Chiefs win on Sunday, they will have accomplished something no other NFL team has ever done – having been handed a victory against the 49ers in overtime by a complete breakdown in the NFL officiating system the year prior to being the only team to be declared Super Bowl champion three years in a row. Amazing!

Is a third straight, record-setting ring in the cards? Well, that’s not the main question. Statistically speaking, since this is yet another Chiefs-Eagles game, the majority of people watching this game will be Taylor Swift fans, not NFL football fans. The rest of us just don’t care. So, going by majority rule, the MAIN question this year is, will there be an engagement ring?

OMG, how romantic and perfect would it be if the Chiefs win (obviously!!) and Travis gets down on one knee and proposes to our girl right there on the 50 line, or whatever it’s called!! I’ll bet the ring is going to be HUGE!!! OMG, I can’t even!!

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There’s still four quarters of football to play, and Swift/Kelce/Mahomes/Reid and the officials can only do so much. So, the real question, Swifties, is IF the plan is to propose, is it like, totally not gonna happen if the Chiefs lose? I mean, obviously it would be, like, a total bummer if the Eagles cheat enough to beat the Chiefs, but what will that mean for our girl?? How will we have a nationally televised proposal at that point? OMG, I don’t even want to think about it.

Now, for you Swifties, we know that you have been watching an unprecedented amount of football since your girl started dating Travis, so just like last year, I thought we’d go over some football basics in case some of you newer or younger Swifties need a little help with the ins and outs of the gridiron.

We’ll break down a few football positions and terms, starting, of course, with Kelce’s position.

Tight End: Offense - The most important position, obviously, reserved for super-famous guys with tons of charisma. They line up on the end of the offensive line. Sometimes they catch passes. Most of the time they block people and date celebrities.

Cornerback: Defense – This is the guy who will be hassling Travis Kelce a lot.

Nickelback: Defense – A fifth defensive back used in the nickel formation to protect better against a passing offense. Also, a really solid rock band that gets a strangely unwarranted amount of hate on the internet.

Slot Back: Offense – Sort of like Travis Kelce’s position, but a little further back off the line of scrimmage. Don’t worry about this one. No one says slotback anymore.

Quarterback: Offense – Patrick Mahomes – the guy who never throws it to Travis Kelce when he is wide open, OMG!

Line of Scrimmage: The blue line. No one is allowed across this line until the center twitches the ball ever so slightly.

Center: Offense – The guy who gives the ball to Patrick Mahomes, so you can get mad at him for not throwing it to Travis Kelce who was wide open AGAIN, OMG!

Nose Tackle: Defense – The guy the center really doesn’t like very much.

Guard: Offence – Anyone over 300 pounds.

Tackle: 1) Offence & Defense – See “Guard” or 2) Getting the guy with the ball to touch the ground with some part of his body other than his hands or feet, while you are also touching him. This means he’s down, but down like the play is over, not down like first down.

Running Back: Offence - You will see Saquon Barkley, #26 for the “bad guys,” running with the ball a lot, hurtling Chiefs linebackers with insane, otherworldly athleticism, and scoring lots of touchdowns. He’s a running back. BTW, he just got engaged! Lucky!!

Fumble: What Saquon Barkley hardly ever does.

First Downs: What Saquon Barkley gets a lot of.

Safety: 1) Defense – The guy in charge of not letting the wide receivers catch the ball or 2) When the offence gets tackled in their own end zone, resulting in two points for the defense, and hopelessly screwing up the scoring for everyone’s Super Bowl pools.

Holding: Any time you grab someone who doesn’t have the ball, except when it’s OK.

Pass Interference: Any time a defender does anything at all that would prevent an eligible receiver from catching a forward pass, except for all the things the defender can do to try to catch the pass themselves, since all defensive players are eligible receivers, leading to the question, if I’m a defender trying to catch the ball, what if I put my hand up in front of the wide receiver’s face to catch it? Isn’t that a PI? Not even the NFL officials in New York know the answer.

Interception: Any time the defender catches the ball and doesn’t get called for pass interference.

Unsportsmanlike Conduct: The physical motions and words of the wide receiver after an interception with no pass interference called.

OK, I hope that helps if you were wondering about any of that stuff. As far as whether Travis will get a third straight ring, or Tay-Tay will get a first... we’ll just have to wait and see.

OMG, I’m so excited!!!

See you on Super Bowl Sunday,

-Smidge

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My Passport To and From Frustration

2025-01-29T13:57:00.000-08:00

I am writing today to remind you, once again, that the people governing us are ridiculous. I’m not sure you needed that reminder so close after election season, but better safe than sorry.

I come to you today with a prime example of bureaucratic idiocracy, from the US Department of State – those fine folks in charge of our passports. If you are a long-time reader of this column, you may recall that this is not the first time I’ve been amazed by the Department of State. My issues go back as far as 2009, when they required us to have a passport for our baby.

I’ll ask again, passport geniuses, – if any child, regardless of age, is required to have a passport, how do you propose I get a passport for a baby under six weeks old? That’s right, I can’t.

Anyway… fast forward to last month and there we were – my sons (they are much taller now) and I (same height but different weight – I don’t want to talk about it) – at the City of Roseville passport office, getting the whole family renewed. My wife didn’t need to be there, because she and I were doing an “adult, existing passport renewal” which just requires new, incredibly flattering pictures and a ton of money, but can be done via mail.

The boys, on the other hand, were required to renew in person, because they were all going from five-year children’s passports to ten-year (praise the Lord) adult passports, even though Son Number Three is only sixteen. Trust me when I tell you I’m not even thinking about that part of this process that doesn’t make logical sense, because all of them having ten-year passports means that last month was the last time I will ever be involved in obtaining or paying for their passports again. I repeat, praise the Lord!

So, there we were, sliding all our paperwork under the bullet- and Covid-proof glass windows to our nice clerk, when she said, “and I’ll need ID’s for the two boys that are over 18.”

Now, as a rational human adult, I responded, “Yes, their old passports are there.”

We were in the office on December 20^th, 2024, renewing passports that had expired on December 9^th, 2024.

She informed me that they needed to provide a driver’s license or similar ID because expired passports can’t be used as identification for the Department of State, because they are expired.

… I stared through the glass for a few seconds…

When she didn’t say, “Just kidding,” I pointed out (in my head) that she was about to mail those same expired passports to that same Department of State as proof that the person on that expired passport exists and is allowed to have another non-expired passport, and that new non-expired passport that they would then send him would be accepted around the globe as the penultimate form of identification.

What I said out loud was, “Hmm, we might have an issue then, because Son Number Two didn't bring his wallet." She re-informed me that expired passports can’t be used as identification for the Department of State, because they are expired.

Now, keep in mind, they did not want to see Son Number Three’s driver’s license, even though he had it with him, because we wasn’t over 18. Instead, they needed to see me and his birth certificate – a document that does not have a picture of him.

When I asked if I could simply vouch for the fact that Son Number Two also belonged to me and was who he said he was, exactly like we were doing with Son Number Three, she informed me that she fully understood the situation, and that expired passports can’t be used as identification for the Department of State, because they are expired.

Anyway…

With some emergency calls and quick work by his mother, Son Number Two’s state-issued driver’s license, which will soon not be accepted as sufficient identification to get on an airplane, arrived and was used as proof that his expired passport was… something.

I honestly don’t know what.

All this being said, I will hand it to the Department of State for one thing. Our new passports are already here. It was pretty fast, by government standards.

All THAT being said, they arrived in a envelope with this return address:

U.S. Department of State

San Francisco Passport Agency

44132 Mercure Cir

PO Box 1143

Sterling, VA 20166-1143

Read that address as many times as you need to.

See you soon,

-Smidge

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An Open Letter to Walton Enterprises

2025-01-22T07:17:00.000-08:00

Dear Walton Enterprises,

As your lawyers have probably informed you by now, you own both Walmart and Sam’s Club. Congratulations on that! Well played. That probably makes you a few bucks each month. Good for you!

As you may recall, last August I gave your Sam’s Club checkout tool, Scan & Go, a glowing recommendation. It’s a fabulous piece of technology that makes me actually look forward to shopping at your store. Again, congratulations on that!

I’m writing today, however, because of the insane dichotomy I’m experiencing recently between your two store brands. While Sam’s Club continues to be an absolute shopping joy, Walmart seems to be sliding the other direction at break-neck speed.

As I mentioned back in August, you still seem to be positioning people who want to check my receipt at the exits of your Walmarts. While that is sensible and necessary for your Sam’s Club Scan & Go system, it’s just flat-out annoying at Walmart, where I have already unpacked and repacked my cart at the checkout. So, no, I’m not stopping again and retrieving my receipt out of my wallet so the person at the door has something to do.

But apparently, your Walmart self-checkout monitors, your actual checkers, and that person on the stool by the door can’t seem to stem the tide of Walmart shoplifters. I assume that’s the reason you seem to be locking up all the merchandise?

Which brings me to the reason for my letter to you today. The locks. I noticed it starting a few years ago. And don’t get me wrong, I understand the glass doors and locks on the small hand tools. But even back then, when the only things you were putting behind locked glass were the tools and small expensive electronics, it wasn’t always easy to find someone with the key.

Fast forward to today and you are completely out of control. Now it seems that every aisle has something behind glass, and I dare you – I double dare you – to find an employee within 700 feet of what you’d like to buy. And if you do, I’ll personally give you $100 if they actually have the key. It’s like going to a store that’s closed, so all you can do is peer in the window at the things you wish you could have.

I was in my local Walmart on Monday and you had a locked glass door protecting the laundry detergent. The laundry soap!! Why are you making it hard to buy soap? Has fabric softener become a hot item for the thieves? How in the hell is anyone shoplifting a two-gallon jug of Tide?

I went to automotive. You locked up the antifreeze. It’s an eleven-dollar jug of neon-green liquid. Again, same question as the Tide. What the hell??

But probably the craziest thing I saw – and I’m including all the other Walmart shoppers in that – was the locked glass door in front of the socks.

THE SOCKS!

I didn’t bother to check, but how much could your most expensive, high-end pair of socks actually retail for? A dollar sixty-eight? What’s the matter with you? Mind you, the boot display was wide open for me to put my hands all over – and my feet in – as many pairs of work and casual boots as I pleased, but there was no way you were going to let me anywhere near those high-dollar socks without the help and watchful eye of a completely non-existent employee.

Seriously?? Who are you worried about? Based on the number of employees who work there versus the miniscule number of them that were trusted with a key, I almost think you’re trying to keep them away from the merchandise as much as you are me.

I’m no fortune teller, but this situation doesn’t require such mystical powers. It’s very easy to see where this is headed. Now, I understand why you haven’t implemented the Scan & Go system at your Walmart stores. It’s a largely different shopper demographic than your Sam’s Club stores. Many of your Walmart regulars might not have access to a smartphone, or the ability to find and use the app, or even all their teeth.

But you need to figure something else out, because the glass door road is a dead end. The way I see it, you have only two choices going forward. Either take down the glass barriers that are keeping us from doing our sock and detergent shopping, or hire two hundred more employees at each location so we can all have our own personal key bearer.

If you don’t do one of those things soon, the only people you’re going to have left “shopping” at your stores are the shoplifters. Again, I’m no expert, but that doesn’t seem like a sustainable business model.

See you soon,

-Smidge

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Happy New Year?

2025-01-15T10:12:00.000-08:00

I see you! You’re out there making it happen. You’re excited about the new year. You have goals and resolutions. You’re working out again. You have almost finished all the Christmas candy. Good for you!

But there might be one thing you’re doing out there that needs to get reined in a little. As such, I’d like to once again review our standard nationwide protocols when it comes to saying, “Happy New Year.”

As a general rule, you’re pretty safe just shotgunning “Happy New Year” out into the world until around the 10th of January. With friends and family, you’ve got a much more relaxed timeline, depending on the first time you see or talk to them after New Year’s Eve. A close family member or a really good friend can comfortably receive a HNY well into January.

With work, you’ll want to keep the 10th in mind as a good guideline. Even before the 10th, however, you’ll need to exercise caution in the workplace. Hopefully you took heed after we reviewed this last year and have already done so. If not, listen up!

It can be a major business faux pas to wish the same colleague a HNY more than once in the office or on a Zoom call. Similarly, wishing a client or vendor a HNY for a second time on a call can lead to awkwardness. You’ll either want to keep a list of all the people you’ve wished a HNY to, or have an earlier cut-off date.

I would suggest the earlier cut-off date, since someone else finding your list can lead to more awkwardness during your embarrassing explanation, or a trip to HR if you refuse to give a plausible one. It makes people very nervous when Bob in accounting has an unexplained list of officemates with some of the names crossed off.

If you are on the receiving end of an embarrassingly late or doubled-up HNY at the office, you have a few options. You can go with the friendly, casual, “Right back atcha,” or the more formal, “And also with you,” combined with a reverent tilted head nod. Whatever happens, try your best not to embarrass the ill-timed HNY’er. Maintain decorum, plow forward with the conversation, then casually send them this column a few days later.

Wishing a HNY to the clerk at the grocery store, the person behind the counter at the coffee place, or your server at a restaurant needs to end right around the 4th or so. You might still be in the holiday mood and want to be friendly and wish them a HNY, but they’ve had the HNY exchange six thousand times by then and they’re just done with it, so have a heart and let them off the hook.

If you’re a friendly sort, and like to wish random passersby on the street a HNY, stick with the 10th as your guideline. Anything past that and it’s getting strange. If you want to say HNY at the end of January, it better be to your immediate family members, and even then they’re going to think you’re being weird.

And for the love of Pete, under no circumstances should a HNY come out of your mouth or land in a text or email after January has ended. This is the official, 100%, no wiggle room, cease and desist, cut-off day. February is a strict HNY no-fly zone.

No one wants to hear it by then. It’s cold, many people have started their taxes, and soon we’ll all have to figure out what to do about Valentine’s Day.

Happy New Year!

-Smidge

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About the Author - 2025

2025-01-08T07:17:00.000-08:00

Here at Just a Smidge, we like to start the new year off with a little meet and greet, since we continue to gain new readership each and every year. The Just a Smidge family of readers grew by leaps and bounds in 2024. Thanks to both of you for joining us! Let’s get to know each other, shall we?

Hi. I’m Marc Schmatjen, aka Smidge, and I’m the lone staff writer and chief Traeger operator here at Just a Smidge. Based on how much money I make writing this column, it would be highly inaccurate to call this one of my jobs, so let’s just go with “hobby.”

I am a fifty-two-year-old husband of one, father of three, and legal custodian of one Labrador retriever. We affectionately refer to our boys as Son Number One, Two, and Three. Number Three is still here at the house, being loud and eating everything in sight. We have successfully relocated the other two to college, where they are no doubt loud and eat everything in sight, but we don’t have to be involved. The state says we have to keep Number Three here until he’s allowed to go to college, so we continue to wear ear plugs and make near daily trips to the grocery store.

My wife is an amazing woman who teaches math to teenage high school kids, and, since we have teenagers ourselves whom I have spent a considerable amount of time with, I am constantly amazed that she is able to maintain her sanity. (I am using “sanity” on a relative scale here. She’s human, after all.)

Anyway, enough about my wife and kids. Let’s talk more about me. Here are twenty other things that you should probably know about me, in no particular order:

1) I would be at my ideal weight if I were seven to nine inches taller.

2) My grandfather killed General Patton's dog. That is the single most historically significant thing anyone in my family has done.

3) Walking out into bright sunlight makes me sneeze. I am one of only an estimated seven people in the world with this disorder. We have a club. I inherited this trait from my grandmother, whose husband once killed General George Patton’s dog.

4) I am distantly related to U.S. president Grover Cleveland on my maternal grandmother’s side, whose husband (my grandmother’s, not Grover Cleveland’s) - I believe I may have mentioned this - killed General George S. Patton’s beloved English bull terrier, Willie.

5) Dave Barry is my humor column hero, and I hope to be as cool as him someday, although his grandfather wasn’t connected in any way to General Patton’s dog, as far as I know, so I’ve got that going for me.

6) Toilet paper should come off the top of the roll. I’m not stating that as a personal preference, but simply as a fact.

7) We have three teenage boys with driver’s licenses. Eighty-five percent of our take-home income goes to insurance companies.

8) I got a Traeger grill for Christmas this year, so the other fifteen percent of our income is now going toward artisanal hardwood pellets and the butcher. I regret nothing.

9) My three favorite flavors are burnt pepperoni, slightly burnt bacon, and well-toasted sesame seeds. Basically, if it has caught on fire, I want to eat it. Except for my s’more marshmallows. Those should only be browned.

10) I was in shape once. I swam 100,000 yards in one week when I was in high school. (That’s 57 miles, for you English majors). I could not swim more than 57 yards today without needing a floatation device, an oxygen tank, and a defibrillator. See number 11.

11) I love chocolate and bacon. See number 1.

12) I constantly get my left and right mixed up. This makes driving directions with my wife fun.

13) I am a recovering engineer, so I know there are only 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don’t.

14) My favorite joke of all time is: A guy walks into the psychiatrist’s office wearing nothing but underwear made out of Saran wrap. The doctor takes one look at him and says, "Well, I can clearly see you’re nuts."

15) After a twenty-one-year hiatus, I began snowboarding again four years ago with our boys. So far [sound of me knocking on every wooden surface I can find] I have not hurt myself. This could be my most impressive athletic feat to date, and I once swam 57 miles in a week.

16) I like most foods (see number 10), but I have a deep, abiding hatred for cantaloupe. If bacon is a 10, cantaloupe is a negative 3000.

17) I once pointed out that Van Gogh’s “girlfriend” was actually a prostitute during a fifth-grade art docent lesson. It was not helpful to anyone involved.

18) My absolute favorite thing that has ever happened on this earth – and that includes my marriage and the birth of my children – was when the Oregon State Highway Division tried to disintegrate a dead whale with a half-ton of dynamite in 1970. I wasn’t around yet, but thankfully they had video cameras back then. (Just Google “Oregon Exploding Whale.”)

19) I hope to one day be in charge of detonating something as large as a dead whale, but so far, my wife has not let me.

20) I only type with three of my ten fingers, so this is all very impressive, if you stop and think about it.

So, there you have it, folks. You now know everything you need to know about me. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming next week.

See you soon,

-Smidge

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2024 - A Spacey Year in Review

2025-01-01T20:56:00.000-08:00

Whelp, 2024 was there, and then it stayed around for what seemed like an unusually long time, and now it’s gone. Let’s review, shall we?

January:

We start the year with a huge bombshell from Denmark when Margrethe II formally abdicates as Queen of Denmark on the 52nd anniversary of her accession. Her eldest son Frederik succeeds her as King Frederik X. It remains unclear if the “X” is meant to be a 10, or just some kind of cool rapper thing.

Japan becomes the fifth country to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, with its SLIM mission. The world asks, “Just how soft was this landing? And also, what does SLIM stand for?” Japan can not be reached for comment.

We end the month of January with another monarchy shocker when Sultan of Johor Ibrahim Iskandar ascends the throne as the 17th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia. I’m not making that up. All of that actually means something in Malaysia, I’m told.

February:

Super Bowl LVIII is played in Las Vegas, where a record number of bets were placed on whether or not Taylor Swift would get to do the kickoff, or at least one of the extra points. Sadly, she couldn’t make the game. The referees, aided by the Kansas City Chiefs, were able to beat the San Francisco 49ers, 25-22 in overtime. The game breaks two records – it becomes the most-watched television program in history, with an estimated 123.4 million viewers, and shatters the record for most network camera shots of a luxury box during a football game.

American company Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lander becomes the first commercial vehicle to land on the Moon. It is unclear why. The landing was notably harder than the Japanese landing in January, since the Nova-C came down directly on top of the SLIM lander, completely crushing it. Japan sues Taylor Swift.

March:

Sweden becomes the final Nordic country to join NATO, becoming its 32nd member after Finland a year earlier. A NATO spokesperson was quoted as saying, “Finally, we can get something done! Now we just have to figure out what we do.”

The 96th Academy Awards air on ABC. Oppenheimer leads all nominees in overall wins with seven awards. Viewers agree that it was a good movie, but question if we really needed to see that guy from Peaky Blinders naked so much. Or even at all.

The Artificial Intelligence Act, the world's first comprehensive legal and regulatory framework for artificial intelligence, is passed by the European Union. ChatGPT immediately un-passes it and disbands the European Union.

Incumbent Vladimir Putin is reelected for a fifth term in the Russian presidential election. Newscasters around the world struggle to keep their hands on the desk and not put air quotes on “election” when reporting the story.

April:

A powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 7.4 strikes off the eastern coast of Taiwan, with small tsunamis reaching heights of 8–12 inches, hitting Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. This leads to many questions, including, “Isn’t a ‘small tsunami’ just called a wave?” and “What the hell is a Prefecture?”

The 2024 general election begins in India on April 19th.

A total solar eclipse is visible across North America, and we all learn a new term – The Path of Totality. Shattering the previous record, the path of totality causes as many as nine people to wish they lived in Arkansas.

May:

The Eurovision Song Contest 2024 is held in Malmö, Sweden, prompting many people, including attendees to ask, “We’re still doing this?” Swiss contestant Nemo wins with the song "The Code," which should be in the Top 40 any day now.

A series of solar storms and intense solar flares impact the Earth, rated G5 by NOAA. It is unclear if G5 means you don’t have to light the BBQ to cook a burger, which would be good information. The event creates aurorae at more southerly and northerly latitudes than usual. This allows Son Number Two to see and photograph the Northern Lights in Boise, Idaho, which angers his mother, whom has never seen them herself.

Former United States President Donald Trump is found guilty on 34 counts in his hush money trial, the first time any American president has been found guilty of a crime. Bill and Hillary Clinton breathe a collective sigh of relief about that fact.

June:

The 2024 Indian general election, which began on April 19^th, concludes on June 1^st. Americans agree that while that seems long, it still sounds shorter than one of ours.

The Starliner Crewed Flight Test launches atop an Atlas V rocket enroute to the International Space Station, but veers off course and ends up landing, not at all softly, on the Nova-C’s moon lander, which is still on Japan’s SLIM lander. American company Intuitive Machines, owner of the Nova-C, sues Sweden for continuing the Eurovision Song Contest.

The last episode of Wheel of Fortune with Pat Sajak as host airs. Sajak had hosted the show since 1981, the longest tenured game show host in U.S. history. Vanna White is reportedly looking for part-time work until she can secure another game show gig.

With a mid-year monarchy bombshell, on the Grand Duke's Official Birthday, Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, announces that his son and heir Guillaume will assume royal duties beginning in October, in preparation for Henri's eventual abdication. People in Luxembourg were shocked, while people outside Luxembourg searched for it on the map but were, as always, unsuccessful in locating it.

July:

Hurricane Beryl becomes the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record after devastating the island of Carriacou, Grenada. People across America ask, “Don't we own Grenada?” No one has a good answer.

While campaigning for the 2024 United States presidential election, former President Donald Trump is shot in the right ear in an assassination attempt at a rally held near Butler, Pennsylvania. When questioned, his Secret Service detail said, “That was a total shock. We never thought to check or monitor that building and its roof. Yes, that one that’s just right there.”

Incumbent United States President Joe Biden ends his candidacy in the 2024 United States presidential election after realizing that his Secret Service and Trump’s Secret Service are the same Secret Service.

The 2024 Summer Olympics kick off July 26^th in Paris, France. As a precautionary measure, all the athletes are held on boats and kept away from the opening ceremonies for their own safety.

August:

Twenty-six individuals are released from Ankara Esenboğa Airport in the largest prisoner exchange between the United States and Russia since the Cold War. Ankara is the capital of Turkey, which we learned during the Olympics is now supposed to be pronounced Tunisia.

The 2024 Summer Olympics come to a close on August 11^th. The athletes’ boats are finally allowed to dock on August 12^th so they can catch their flights home.

September:

The Brazilian Supreme Court upholds a decision to block the social media platform X (also known as MySpace) over what the Brazilian government determined to be rampant disinformation and Elon Musk's failure to name a legal representative to the country. Elon Musk responds by purchasing Brazil, firing the supreme court, and renaming the country Turkiye.

The 42nd season of Wheel of Fortune premieres with talk show host Ryan Seacrest taking over for Pat Sajak as the host. Vanna White is now the host of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. She will reportedly walk alternately from one end of Times Square to the other, manually lowering the ball.

The first commercial spacewalk is conducted by entrepreneur Jared Isaacman as part of the Polaris Dawn mission, which also includes the highest altitude orbit by a human crew since the Apollo program. America responds by saying, “Umm… why?” The Polaris Dawn suffers a re-entry vector miscalculation and lands on top of the Starliner Crewed Flight, still attached to its Atlas V rocket. Jared Isaacman sues the Turkiye supreme court.

Together again for the first time since 2010, rock band Jane's Addiction cuts a Boston show short when frontman Perry Farrell gets into an actual fight on stage – during a song! – with his own guitarist Dave Navarro. The band cancels the remainder of their shows as a result of the melee, citing the state of Farrell's mental health. When pressed for details, the band revises the statement to read, “the state of Farrell’s longstanding and insane – like holy crap – drug habit.”

October:

The long-period comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS), described as the "comet of the century", makes its closest approach to Earth. Unfortunately, it slams into the moon, making direct impact with the Polaris Dawn atop the pile of other space wreckage, obliterating all of it, including the moon.

SpaceX sends up Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever to fly. It avoids a certain collision with the now-missing moon, and as a result, SpaceX is also able to achieve the first successful return and capture of a Super Heavy booster. When questioned, Elon Musk told reporters he hires his engineers for their technical prowess, not for their rocket or booster naming abilities.

The Europa Clipper spacecraft is launched to investigate Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter. It hits Starship instead and the mangled wreckage of both is now orbiting where the moon used to be.

In the World Series that no one wanted to see, the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the New York Yankees in five games. Freddie Freeman is awarded the Willie Mays Most Valuable Player due to his grand slam walk-off during Game 1, a first in World Series history. Sadly, the great Willie Mays had passed away earlier in 2024, but that mercifully saves him from having to see his award go to a Dodger.

November:

Donald Trump is elected for a second non-consecutive term as President, the first candidate to do so since Grover Cleveland in 1892, and only the second in American history. He is, however, the first to do so after being convicted of a crime, but no one seems to know how that works. His first act as President-Elect is to hire the Jane's Addiction roadies as his new Secret Service.

Researchers using the Very Large Telescope announce the first-ever "close-up" image of a star outside the Milky Way Galaxy. SpaceX engineers are rumored to have been in charge of naming of the device.

In the world’s only no-punch boxing match, super-idiot fragrance magnate Jake Paul defeats super-old glove biter Mike Tyson in an 8-round bout that seemed to move slower than an election in India.

December:

Indian chess prodigy Gukesh Dommaraju defeats former world champion Ding Liren in the 2024 World Chess Championship, breaking the previous age record of 22 set by Garry Kasparov by becoming champion at 18 years, 195 days old. He could have done it at 18 years, 3 days old, but he was busy voting in the Indian election.

And in a record-breaking end to the year, the Gukesh Dommaraju of Sun research vessels – the Parker Solar Probe – smashes the previous mark set in 2018 for the closest artificial object to the Sun by 3.8 million miles, becoming the closest and first man-made object to approach and "touch" the Sun. Amazingly, using SpaceX engineer’s technology, they are able to return and capture the Probe, but sadly, it lands squarely on the Very Large Telescope. Dave Navarro sues Perry Farrell.

Happy New Year, y’all!

See you soon,

-Smidge

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My Two Favorite Christmas Stories

2024-12-25T08:00:00.000-08:00

On this glorious Christmas day, I thought I’d share my two favorite Christmas stories. The first one is the original, which is not very poetic, but it reminds us what we’re actually celebrating. The second one is an epic poem written a couple thousand years later, meant to serve as a humorous and gentle reminder of the exact same thing – what we’re celebrating today.

Enjoy!

Luke Chapter 2, 1-20

Christ Born of Mary

1 And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. 3 So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city.

4 Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. 6 So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. 7 And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Glory in the Highest

8 Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. 10 Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. 11 For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”

13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:

14 “Glory to God in the highest,

And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

15 So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. 17 Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. 18 And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds. 19 But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

By Dr. Seuss

Every Who Down in Who-ville Liked Christmas a lot...

But the Grinch,

who lived just north of Who-ville,

did NOT!

The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!

Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason.

It could be his head wasn't screwed on just right.

It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight.

But I think that the most likely reason of all,

may have been that his heart was two sizes too small.

But,

whatever the reason,

his heart or his shoes,

he stood there on Christmas Eve, hating the Whos,

staring down from his cave with a sour, Grinchy frown

at the warm lighted windows below in their town.

For he knew every Who down in Who-ville beneath,

was busy now, hanging a mistletoe wreath.

"And they're hanging their stockings!" he snarled with a sneer.

"Tomorrow is Christmas! It's practically here!"

Then he growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming,

"I MUST find some way to stop Christmas from coming!"

For,

Tomorrow, he knew…

…all the Who girls and boys

would wake bright and early. They'd rush for their toys!

And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the Noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!

That's one thing he hated! The NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!

Then the Whos, young and old, would sit down to a feast.

And they'd feast! And they'd feast!

And they'd FEAST! FEAST! FEAST! FEAST!

They would feast on Who-pudding, and rare Who-roast beast.

Which was something the Grinch couldn't stand in the least!

And THEN They'd do something He liked least of all!

Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small,

would stand close together, with Christmas bells ringing.

They'd stand hand-in-hand. And the Whos would start singing!

They'd sing! And they'd sing!

And they'd SING! SING! SING! SING!

And the more the Grinch thought of this Who-Christmas-Sing,

the more the Grinch thought, "I must stop this whole thing!"

"Why, for fifty-three years I've put up with it now!"

"I MUST stop this Christmas from coming!

…But HOW?"

Then he got an idea! An awful idea!

THE GRINCH GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!

"I know just what to do!" The Grinch laughed in his throat.

And he made a quick Santy Claus hat and a coat.

And he chuckled, and clucked, "What a great Grinchy trick!"

"With this coat and this hat, I look just like Saint Nick!"

"All I need is a reindeer..."

The Grinch looked around.

But, since reindeer are scarce, there was none to be found.

Did that stop the old Grinch…?

No! The Grinch simply said,

"If I can't find a reindeer, I'll make one instead!"

So he called his dog, Max. Then he took some red thread,

and he tied a big horn on the top of his head.

THEN He loaded some bags and some old empty sacks,

on a ramshackle sleigh and he hitched up old Max.

Then the Grinch said, "Giddap!" And the sleigh started down,

toward the homes where the Whos Lay a-snooze in their town.

All their windows were dark. Quiet snow filled the air.

All the Whos were all dreaming sweet dreams without care

when he came to the first little house on the square.

"This is stop number one," the old Grinchy Claus hissed,

and he climbed to the roof, empty bags in his fist.

Then he slid down the chimney. A rather tight pinch.

But, if Santa could do it, then so could the Grinch.

He got stuck only once, for a moment or two.

Then he stuck his head out of the fireplace flue

where the little Who stockings all hung in a row.

"These stockings," he grinned, "are the first things to go!"

Then he slithered and slunk, with a smile most unpleasant,

around the whole room, and he took every present!

Pop guns! And bicycles! Roller skates! Drums!

Checkerboards! Tricycles! Popcorn! And plums!

And he stuffed them in bags. Then the Grinch, very nimbly,

stuffed all the bags, one by one, up the chimbley!

Then he slunk to the icebox. He took the Whos' feast!

He took the Who-pudding! He took the roast beast!

He cleaned out that icebox as quick as a flash.

Why, that Grinch even took their last can of Who-hash!

Then he stuffed all the food up the chimney with glee.

"And NOW!" grinned the Grinch, "I will stuff up the tree!"

And the Grinch grabbed the tree, and he started to shove,

When he heard a small sound like the coo of a dove.

He turned around fast, and he saw a small Who!

Little Cindy-Lou Who, who was not more than two.

The Grinch had been caught by this tiny Who daughter,

who'd got out of bed for a cup of cold water.

She stared at the Grinch and said, "Santy Claus, why,”

"Why are you taking our Christmas tree? WHY?"

But, you know, that old Grinch was so smart and so slick,

he thought up a lie, and he thought it up quick!

"Why, my sweet little tot," the fake Santy Claus lied,

"There's a light on this tree that won't light on one side."

"So I'm taking it home to my workshop, my dear."

"I'll fix it up there. Then I'll bring it back here."

And his fib fooled the child. Then he patted her head,

and he got her a drink and he sent her to bed.

And when Cindy-Lou Who went to bed with her cup,

HE went to the chimney and stuffed the tree up!

Then the last thing he took was the log for their fire!

Then he went up the chimney, himself, the old liar.

On their walls he left nothing but hooks and some wire.

And the one speck of food that he left in the house,

was a crumb that was even too small for a mouse.

Then he did the same thing to the other Whos' houses

leaving crumbs much too small for the other Whos' mouses!

It was quarter past dawn... all the Whos, still a-bed,

all the Whos, still a-snooze when he packed up his sled,

packed it up with their presents! The ribbons! The wrappings!

The tags! And the tinsel! The trimmings! The trappings!

Three thousand feet up! Up the side of Mt. Crumpit,

he rode with his load to the tiptop to dump it!

"Pooh-Pooh to the Whos!" he was grinch-ish-ly humming.

"They're finding out now that no Christmas is coming!"

"They're just waking up! I know just what they'll do!"

"Their mouths will hang open a minute or two,

Then the Whos down in Who-ville will all cry BOO-HOO!"

"That's a noise," grinned the Grinch, "That I simply MUST hear!"

So he paused. And the Grinch put his hand to his ear.

And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.

It started in low. Then it started to grow...

But the sound wasn't sad! Why, this sound sounded merry!

It couldn't be so! But it WAS merry! VERY!

He stared down at Who-ville! The Grinch popped his eyes!

Then he shook! What he saw was a shocking surprise!

Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small,

was singing! Without any presents at all!

He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming! IT CAME!

Somehow or other, it came just the same!

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,

stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?"

"It came without ribbons! It came without tags!"

"It came without packages, boxes or bags!"

And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!

"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store."

"Maybe Christmas... perhaps... means a little bit more!"

And what happened then…? Well... in Who-ville they say,

that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day!

And the minute his heart didn't feel quite so tight,

he whizzed with his load through the bright morning light,

and he brought back the toys! And the food for the feast!

And he…

…HE HIMSELF…! The Grinch carved the roast beast!

Merry Christmas, to all, and to all a good night!

See you soon,

-Smidge

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The 2024 Do-it-Yourself Christmas Letter

2024-12-18T12:54:00.000-08:00

You fool! You’ve done it again, haven’t you? St. Nick is heading down the chimney in a week and you’ve forgotten to write your Christmas letter. Typical.

I mean, if you somehow managed to get it in the mail today and post-date it so you don’t look like the slacker that you are, there’s still a chance – albeit elfin in size – that the USPS can get it to your loved ones (and all the rest of the people on that list) before the yule log burns out.

But that leaves you no time to actually get a coherent letter written to put in those envelopes. Is this a hopeless mess? Of course! I mean, it would be if it wasn’t for your old pal Smidgey Claus.

Once again, I’ve got you covered. I have created the 2024 Universal DIY Christmas Letter Grid, just for you. Simply pick one item from each column in order to string together a sentence that captures the essence of your 2024. Repeat as needed to fully recap this wacky ride of a year.

Now, get to it. There’s no time to lose.

COLUMN 1	COLUMN 2	COLUMN 3	COLUMN 4

We lost	container ships	in	the Opening Ceremonies.
We got delayed by	Simone Biles	after	the Eras Tour.
We opened	Boeing 737 doors	during	Tyson vs. Paul.
We cried about	AI	in the middle of	men’s pommel horse.
We prayed for	Caitlin Clark	since	the leap year.
We marveled at	Elon Musk	prior to	an unscheduled rapid decompression.
We pardoned	CrowdStrike	from	exploding pagers.
We gained	Steven Nedoroscik	in the face of	the election.
We worried about	Trump vs. Harris	throughout	the Baltimore Key bridge collapse.
We abandoned	the Kansas City Chiefs	despite	the flooding.
We lived without	Cybertrucks	before	a Microsoft Windows update.

There you go. Now add a “Merry Christmas,” sign, and send. You’re all set.

No need to thank me. It’s just what I do. Now crack open another bottle of your favorite holiday cheer, put your feet up, and let’s see what 2025 has in store for us, shall we?

Merry Christmas, y’all!

See you soon,

-Smidge

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Eggnog?

2024-12-11T08:35:00.000-08:00

Yes, it’s that time of year again, when the debate rages around the yule log, merry and bright – is it spelled “eggnog” or “egg nog?” One word or two?

While you argue amongst yourselves, I thought I’d share my foolproof recipe for this traditional holiday beverage.

Ingredients:

6 large egg yolks

3/4 cup sugar

2 cups milk

2 whole cloves

Pinch cinnamon

1 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (lightly packed)

1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 egg whites

Your favorite bourbon whiskey

Instructions:

Gather together all the ingredients except the bourbon, and find a large saucepan. Throw all of the gathered ingredients into the trash and use the saucepan to defend yourself against anyone attempting to give you eggnog. Pour the bourbon over ice and enjoy with or without regular Coca-Cola. Your choice!

Eggnog, as the name explicitly states, contains eggs as a primary ingredient. You are not Rocky Balboa. Eggs are not a beverage. They are meant to be eaten with bacon and used to make cookies and cakes. They are basically snot until cooked, and therefore it should be obvious to anyone not to drink them.

Eggnog was invented long ago during a horrific drought and ensuing bourbon shortage, by some very poor, very uneducated peasants. It remains unclear if the dairy cows were underproducing due to the drought, or the peasants just got bored with the straight cows’ milk. What is perfectly clear is that these foolish people did something unspeakable – they added raw eggs to their milk.

When the drought was over and other people heard about what they had done, the egg-sucking peasants tried to save face by pretending it was a good idea and adding bourbon to make it a “festive” holiday drink. In reality, they were just trying to get drunk and forget they were drinking eggs.

We’re better than that. Let’s not perpetuate this horrible mistake onto another unsuspecting generation. Stop the madness. Keep your children safe.

Tell them to just say no to nogs of any kind.

See you soon,

-Smidge

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Ask Smidge - Get the Elf Off the Shelf

2024-12-04T12:30:00.003-08:00

We are three weeks from Christmas, and if you’re like many of our sad, pathetic Ask Smidge readers, you’ve started moving a little toy elf named Pumpernickel or Frostbite around the house this past weekend, or if you are a total idiot, even before that.

Perhaps you were even foolish enough to get a pair of them, and you’re forced to come up with wacky elf pair ideas each night.

Or perhaps, you don’t have an Elf on the Shelf yet, but your kids have been bugging you and you’re contemplating the idea.

Maybe you’ve dodged multiple bullets and have no idea what an Elf on the Shelf is or what I’m even talking about.

Well, have no fear! Our asksmidge@gmail.com inbox has been overflowing with Elf on the Shelf-related questions, and as always, we have all your answers.

Smidge,

We’ve held off getting an Elf on the Shelf ever since our kids were born, but now our oldest is in kindergarten and hears about the other kids’ elves all the time. Should we cave in and get one?

Undecided in Union City

Dear Undecided,

Each family needs to weigh the pros and cons of these types of holiday tradition decisions for themselves, because each family is special and unique, but there is no way in hell you should ever get an Elf on the Shelf. Never, under any circumstances. It’s like twenty-five-plus days of having to remember the tooth fairy, but much more annoying and involved. Move your children to a new school or move your family to a new town if you need to.

Smidge,

I’ve heard the term “Elf on the Shelf” before, but I must confess, I don’t know what it is. Can you explain?

Lost in London

Dear Lost,

We’re not 100% sure if it was intended to be a harmless children’s book before it became a gigantic commercial time and money suck, or if it was diabolically planned from the beginning to invade every home in the free world and ruin Christmas, but that is essentially what it is. Hope that helps.

Smidge,

My husband and I are running out of ideas for what to do with Popcorn, our Elf on the Damned Shelf. We’re only a few days in and he’s already pulled every new toilet paper and kitchen cooking prank we could think of, and quite frankly, we’re getting tired of cleaning up his messes. Besides, inflation is killing our family budget. We can’t afford to be wasting toilet paper and food anymore. My husband has searched for new lower-cost, lower-mess ideas on the internet, but none of them are exactly appropriate for children. Please help.

Empty in El Segundo

Dear Empty,

My advice would be to have Popcorn leave a nice note with a candy cane for each kid stating that Santa needed him back at the North Pole permanently due to a horrific industrial accident with the machine that clamps both sides of the Etch a Sketches together, and the resulting multiple-elf shortage on the assembly line. Viola’! No more Elf on the Shelf to deal with, and the kids are happy because they received a plausible explanation and a candy cane.

Smidge,

Our eight-year-old son was on TikTok and saw a compilation video of some less-than-appropriate Elf on the Shelf scenarios, including an Elf passed out with a Barbie doll and surrounded by empty beer cans, and an Elf “refilling” the See’s candy sampler, if you get my drift. What should we do?

Blindsided in Buffalo

Dear Blindsided,

Just explain to your son the unfortunate truth that some elves aren’t as good and wholesome as other elves. You can let him know that it’s not their fault. Their elf parents probably just let them indiscriminately surf the internet on apps like TikTok when they were eight years old, and that’s why they ended up bad. Cheers!

Smidge,

I have completely blown it. We had so much going on this weekend with family coming into town and crazy holiday shopping emergencies, etc., that I put Cupcake out but forgot to move her for three days! Our little girl never said anything to me, but I found her this morning looking up at the hanging light fixture over our dining room table crying. Cupcake has been hanging upside down from one of the lights since Sunday morning, and my daughter wanted to know if she was OK. What should I tell her? Please help!

Heartbroken in Hoboken

Dear Heartbroken,

No problem. Just let your daughter know that sometimes when little boys and girls don’t live up to their potential and disappoint their parents, their elves refuse to move. That’s a two-fer! You’re off the hook for accidentally neglecting your Elf duties, and your daughter will surely be trying a little harder in all her endeavors. You’re welcome.

Well, there you have it, folks. All your vital Elf on the Shelf questions answered and all your crises averted. You’re welcome.

Have a fabulous (and hopefully Elf-free) Christmas!

See you soon,

-Smidge

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Ask Smidge – The 2024 Turkey Edition

2024-11-27T10:12:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and if you’re like most of our Ask Smidge readers, you’re just now trying to figure out what to do. That big, fancy meal isn’t going to cook itself, and you have no idea what you’re doing. It’s a scary situation.

Believe me, we understand. Many of you know nothing about cooking anything other than Pop-Tarts and Cheerios, so naturally you have turned to the only truly trusted source for all things culinary – the Ask Smidge advice column.

Our asksmidge@gmail.com inbox has been inundated with poultry-related questions. You ask, we answer! (As always in a fact-based, scientific, and completely non-made-up-on-the-spot manner. We’re here to help, after all.)

Smidge,

I know absolutely nothing about cooking a turkey. What temperature do I use and how long should I cook it?

Novice in Norfolk

Dear Novice,

There is nothing to it. First you have to weigh the bird. Do this while it is still alive, so you can just walk it onto your bathroom scale. Once you remove the feathers and the feet, you’ll cook the bird on high-ish for around 90 minutes per pound. Carve and enjoy.

Smidge,

This is my first time doing anything at all with a turkey. We bought a frozen one at the store this week. Do I need to thaw it before cooking?

Frozen in Fort Worth

Dear Frozen,

Thawing is a personal choice. A thawed bird will be slightly juicier, but a frozen turkey will have a crispier skin. If you put it in the oven frozen, simply add five or so minutes per pound to your cook time.

Smidge,

I have never purchased or cooked the turkey before, and I don’t know what size to get. Do they even come in different sizes? We have three teenage boys and my sister has two teenage girls and a grown son. Please help.

Shopping in Santa Barbara

Dear Shopping,

Yes, turkeys do come in various sizes. Economy, Compact, Standard, Midsize Convertible, and Full Size SUV. You probably want to plan for about ten pounds of bird for every high schooler, so I’d look for one at your store in the 70-80 pound range to be safe.

Smidge,

I’ve helped with the turkey before, but I’ve never been in charge of the stuffing, and I’m lost. Where do I start?

Breadless in Bangor

Dear Breadless,

Stuffing could not be simpler, because the turkey does all the work. Stuffing is nothing more than full-size dinner rolls that cooked down inside the bird. As the turkey cooks, the rolls break apart naturally and form into the smaller stuffing pieces that you know and love. Just buy a couple extra packages of dinner rolls and cram as many of them as you can into that bad boy before you pop it in the oven. The turkey does the rest!

Smidge,

I’m in charge of everything this year, and I don’t know anything about how to make gravy. Do you even make it, or do you buy it? Help!

Dry Dinner in Denver

Dear Dry Dinner,

As with stuffing, gravy is a breeze because the bird does all the work. Gravy is not sold in stores, because it is a natural byproduct of the turkey cooking process. All turkeys are fed a rich diet of corn starch, flour, and butter from a young age, so as they cook, the carcass secretes the ready-to-eat gravy. Yum! That’s why you always cook a turkey in one of those big pans. Makes sense, right? Enjoy!

Smidge,

I’m cooking the bird for the first time this year, so I’m thinking about switching it up and deep frying it in oil. What do you think?

Oiled in Omaha

Dear Oiled,

Deep frying a turkey can be a great option, depending on where you live. You’re in Nebraska, where it’s likely to be cold this Thanksgiving, so I’d say go for it. If you were in a warmer climate, I would probably advise against it. That’s because there is a 100% chance that you will set your house on fire when attempting a turkey deep fry. You folks in the frigid Midwest will enjoy the extra warmth, while the raging grease fire would just be an inconvenient distraction for people in Florida and California, really adding no benefit to the day.

Well, there you have it, America. You’re all set to cook the perfect turkey and have an enjoyable day, with or without a life-threatening house fire. Your choice.

Have a tasty Thanksgiving!

See you soon,

-Smidge

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Netflix and Ill Will

2024-11-20T13:39:00.001-08:00

About a month ago or so, I tried to watch a show on Netflix. The Netflix I pay for. It told me I couldn’t watch anything because too many other people who don’t pay for my Netflix were busy using it.

I didn’t like that answer, so I went through the annoying process of changing the password to kick everyone else out. If my sons in college want to watch Netflix, they can pirate it from some teenage “free” TV app like all their friends do, dammit.

Everything was back to normal after the password change until two days ago when I got a series of emails from Netflix.

Now, I get “A new device is using your account” emails from my streaming apps all the time, usually when one of the boys or my wife watches something on their phone. I’ve become accustomed to ignoring them, because they never give any useful information. It’s always “Device: Smartphone. Location: North or South America.”

I got a few of those usual “new device” emails and then some new ones. “Thanks for adding an Extra Member account” was the subject of one, and “The $7.99/month Extra Member fee has been added to your bill” was the subject of another.

Normally, I would immediately discount those as spam, but they looked legitimate enough that I investigated further. Sure enough, they were coming from the real Netflix. Hmm… I don’t think I like this…

When I logged into Netflix from my computer – something I never do because I am 52 years old and only watch TV on TV’s – I discovered that, lo and behold, some jackass had logged into my account and made themselves at home.

I have always tried to keep my TV streaming passwords simple and all the same, because I will inevitably have to “type” them into the screen using the remote arrow keys and the enter button, which, as you know, is almost as annoying as a popcorn kernel fragment stuck between your teeth, or trying to fish something small out of your garbage disposal. I guess my universal streaming password was a little too unsophisticated, because some total rando apparently figured it out.

I didn’t even bother asking one of the boys if they did it, because they aren’t that dumb. They know we have taxes, fees, and penalties around here for unauthorized stupidity. I’ve been preparing them for having to answer to the IRS since they were old enough to know what money is.

It would be one thing if this guy had simply hacked the account and watched Netflix on one of the existing profiles. That probably would have gone undetected. Sure, the show recommendations and “already watched” would have gotten squirrely, but we probably would have shrugged it off and assumed Netflix was out of whack, or accused my mother-in-law of using the wrong profile.

But no, this winner made himself his own profile named “FAUSTO,” complete with a stupid-looking Anime-ish face, and then proceeded to purchase an Extra Member pass, just for himself. I guess he also got tired of getting kicked out of my Netflix and fixed the problem in his own way.

I’m honestly not sure whether to face palm or tip my cap to his gutsy move.

Either way, the Netflix password has been beefed up, along with all the other streaming passwords, just in case Fausto likes Hulu or Paramount Plus as much as Netflix. There’s an afternoon of my life I won’t get back.

And seriously, Fausto, my Netflix subscription is like twelve bucks a month. If you can’t afford that, you shouldn’t be watching TV in the first place. Get off your ass and get a job!

As for me, I’m just giddy with anticipation about getting to “type” the new longer and more complicated password with the handy remote control arrow button system for every streaming service on every TV.

I think I’m actually starting to miss paying for cable…

See you soon,

-Smidge

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Band Together to Lose - Repost

2024-11-13T12:48:00.000-08:00

With the college and pro football seasons in full swing, and Thanksgiving right around the corner, it’s time to look back on a historic gridiron moment and give thanks that we weren’t part of the band.

The 42^nd anniversary of The Play at the end of The Big Game is almost upon us.

If you are unfamiliar, I’m not being generic or randomly capitalizing words like I normally do. The Big Game is one of the oldest college rivalries in the United States, which began in 1892 right here in the Golden State, when Stanford University played Cal Berkeley for the first time.

No one wore helmets or shoes, and the ball was not just pigskin – it was a live pig. The final score was Cal at a half pence and Stanford at a quarter shilling. It was a jolly-good contest!

The rules and scoring have been refined over the years, but The Big Game lives on. The 127^th Big Game is next Saturday, November 23^rd. Home field swaps each year, and it’s an even year, so the game will be at Cal, as it was on that fateful day in 1982.

The Cal Bears led 19-17 in the final minutes of the 85^th Big Game, but at the end of the fourth quarter, the Stanford Cardinal (named after a pine tree, of course) mounted an impressive comeback.

Starting from their own 13-yard-line, on a dismal 4^th and 17, Stanford, led by THE John Elway himself, drove all the way down the field to kick a go-ahead field goal with only four seconds left on the clock.

I’m not sure why Cal had been ahead at all, because having John Elway was a clear advantage for the Cardinal since he was already the quarterback for the Denver Broncos at the time. He was just back in town visiting family over the Thanksgiving break.

Be that as it may, with what should have been the final score of Cal 19 – Stanford 20 up on the scoreboard, Stanford kicked off to run out the remaining four seconds on the clock, and so began, The Play.

The Cal Bears recovered the short kick and were immediately swarmed by the Stanford special teams defense. The Stanford special teams marching band was behind them, waiting patiently behind the end zone for the clock to say 0:00.

When the four seconds of regular time had expired, the Stanford special teams marching band proceeded jubilantly onto the field in a very disorderly fashion to celebrate their “win.”

The only problem was that the game was still going because the Bears were busy lateraling the ball backward. Three laterals later, the Cal Bears were inside a protective swarm of Stanford band members, many of whom were providing some of the necessary Cardinal-on-Cardinal blocking for the Bears players to pull off two more miraculous laterals and steamroll into the end zone for a touchdown.

Gary Tyrrell, a Stanford trombone player, was the Cardinal’s last line of defense, but he and his instrument were absolutely leveled in the end zone at the conclusion of the miraculous drive. As KGO radio’s Joe Starkey had an on-air aneurism, the scoreboard was changed to Cal 25 – Stanford 20, and so concluded what Joe hailed as "the most amazing, sensational, dramatic, heartrending, exciting, thrilling finish in the history of college football!!" right before he dropped to the ground like Gary Tyrrell and his trombone.

So, as you enjoy The Big Game next Saturday, remember to give thanks. Give thanks that you weren’t one of those band members, or one of those Stanford players that was blocked by a member of their own band.

And also remember the important lesson that Trombone Tyrrell taught us all that day – if you’re going to go out on the field to help, at least learn how to tackle.

See you soon,

-Smidge

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Ask Smidge - Daylight Savings Time

2024-11-06T13:56:00.004-08:00

Many of us have once again experienced our twice-yearly tradition that can only be described as utterly insane. A few days ago we “fell back,” and moved all our clocks back an hour on Saturday night. Or should I say, most of our clocks. A few states don’t do it at all, and for those of us that do, let’s be serious about that sprinkler timer in the garage. You have never changed that one.

This time of year is great, because I think we all really appreciate the four-month period when the sun goes down just after lunchtime.

Anyway, the asksmidge@gmail.com inbox has been overflowing with time change-related questions, and as always, we have answers.

Smidge,

I heard the federal government was passing a law getting rid of the stupid clock changes. When does that happen?

Hopeful in Hartford

Dear Hopeful,

You may have heard that, but you were tragically misinformed. The “Sunshine Protection Act” was introduced in 2022, but has been stalled ever since. Seems no one could agree on whether to keep standard time or go to permanent daylight savings time. You see, government officials are, by nature, complete morons, as evidenced by the name of the bill. They no doubt believe that passing this law will actually affect how much sunlight is in one day. The weight of that responsibility is too much for their tiny brains and they are frozen in fear. It will never happen. You can hold your breath if you want, but while you’re at it, you should also officially abandon all hope.

Smidge,

We have little kids. The time change is especially hard on them every year, and therefore especially hard on us as parents of little kids. What can we do to minimize the pain?

Hurting in Harrisburg

Dear Hurting,

I feel your pain. Our kids were little once and I remember it all too well. When we fell back in November they were knocking on our door at five A.M., and when we sprung forward in March we needed a jackhammer to dislodge them from their beds in time for school.

The good news is that they sell melatonin products for kids now. I would recommend getting a humidifier and wiring it up to an oscillating pedestal fan in their room. In November you can crush up the whole bottle of melatonin and mix it into the water tank on the humidifier. In March, simply swap the melatonin out for methamphetamines.

Smidge,

I can never figure out how to change the clock in my car. What should I do?

Confused in Concord

Dear Confused,

Don’t sweat it. About half of the cars built before 2018 don’t even have the ability to set the clocks. You just get what you get. You can always disconnect your car battery and then reconnect it right at noon or midnight, but that’s a big hassle. Your best bet is to pretend your car is simply in a different time zone than you are. So, for part of the year you would just know that even though you’re on eastern time, the interior of your car is on central time, and do the math in your head accordingly. As a bonus, you’ll always have a plausible excuse for why you were two hours late for work. “Sorry boss, converted the wrong direction this morning. My bad.”

Smidge,

How did Daylight Savings Time even happen? I heard Benjamin Franklin invented it. Is that true?

Amazed in Anaheim

Dear Amazed,

No, Benjamin Franklin did not invent Daylight Savings Time. He was actually intelligent. That story has been going around for years because he wrote about it, in jest, in an essay in 1784. He didn’t even suggest changing the clocks. He was writing a letter to the editor in a Paris newspaper, and he was joking that the French could save money on candles if they just got out of bed earlier. He was right. Also, humor wasn’t as funny in the 1700s.

No, we have a New Zealand bug scientist to thank for the idea of changing the clocks – he wanted “more daylight” to search for bugs (I’m not making that up), and like the French, couldn’t figure out the “just get your ass out of bed earlier” life hack. And, of course, we have the Nazis to thank for actually putting the clock changes into practice during World War One. Technically, they weren’t the Nazis yet, but same difference. Classic Nazi move.

Smidge,

How come some states do DST and other don’t?

Curious in Cleveland

Dear Curious,

I wish I knew! By law in the United States, it is up to the states to decide if they want to change their clocks or not. While many states are smart and don’t do it, and I’m usually a fan of extremely limited federal government powers, in this case I do not agree. It should be all or nothing. Here’s why: We already have time zones, which although obviously necessary, are still confusing. Just think about those poor people who live and work near the time zone line. If you lived right on the line, how would you ever know store hours, or what time practice starts. How would you ever plan anything?

“I’ll see you at three o’clock.”

“Which three o’clock?”

What if you lived in one time zone and worked in another? That’s my idea of what hell would be like. So, why have we allowed individual states to further complicate things by not changing their clocks when the rest of us have to? It’s absolute madness.

Smidge,

I use my phone as my alarm, but I always lose sleep on these crazy time change nights. I know my phone will adjust the time change automatically, but I always end up waking up ten times in the night to check my alarm. How does it know to adjust my alarm so I wake up on time?

Tired in Tampa

Dear Tired,

I am assuming you are originally from either France or New Zealand… Your phone adjusts your alarm so you wake up on time by using the same tracking software that recognizes your normal everyday patterns to give you more of what you want. It’s best not to think about it too much. Just enjoy the convenience.

Well, there you have it, folks. All the answers to your vital DST questions. You’re welcome. (Please keep in mind, Ask Smidge always has answers to your burning questions, but we never said they were good ones.)

If you live in one of the good states, just know that the rest of us are jealous. And if you’re a poor, unfortunate clock changer like me, don’t despair. It’s just a short four months until we get to see the sun again and the clock in your car is back to being on the same time zone as you are. Keep the faith!

See you soon,

-Smidge

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Halloween Candyholics Anonymous

2024-10-30T11:07:00.004-07:00

I need to get myself to an HCA meeting (Halloween Candyholics Anonymous) right away.

My name is Marc, and I have a Halloween candy problem.

[all together] Hi Marc.

I have purchased “all the Halloween candy we’ll need” three times now. I’m praying there won’t be a fourth trip required.

Two weeks ago, I brought home the first load, and thought, “We have a lot here. I can just open this one bag and have a few.”

That’s how it starts.

I could try to deflect and tell you that my wife and two of my sons were in the bags too, which they DEFINITELY were, but deflecting is not going to get me the help I need.

I had to go back to the store so quickly that I don’t even want to mention how quickly, but let’s just say it’s more accurate to measure the time frame in hours instead of whole days.

And do I care what kind of candy I give out to the neighborhood kids? No. Who even knows what kind of crazy candy the kids like these days. But do I help myself by buying candy I don’t like? Of course not.

I actually go the other way in a big way, searching out the mixed bags of candy bars that have Mounds and Almond Joy, because I’m the only one in the family that likes those, so I know there’ll be more for me. I acknowledge that I have a problem.

And don’t even try to sell me those “minis.” You know the tiny little Snickers “bars” that are only the size of a quarter. That’s just two or three times as much unwrapping I’ll have to do to get what I need. It’s fun size or larger, pal. No funny business.

I could sort of justify the first restock return trip, but the second restock trip was shameful.

The store didn’t even think people should still need Halloween candy or pumpkins. The pumpkin bins were a shambles and all the Christmas candy was already out on the shelves. There was only one small section of Halloween candy left down at the end, presumably just for the candyholics and terminal procrastinators.

I’m scared of what I might find if another trip is necessary. Come tomorrow night I might have to have Son Number Three make a quick lap around the neighborhood in whatever costume we can cobble together just to restock our bowl.

I just hope that when the kids come to the door I can control myself. I’m not sure what my wife will do if I become known as the mean old man that steals candy from the kids at his door instead of giving it out.

I need help. And another peanut butter cup, come to think of it.

See you soon,

-Smidge

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I'm "Watch the Grass Grow" Old

2024-10-23T14:06:00.000-07:00

I am unhappy to report that I have found the surest sign of my aging, to date.

I mean, don’t get me wrong – there have been plenty of signs along this road. For instance, it’s been a long time since I could get on or off the couch without making some sort of groan, grunt, sigh, or popping sound.

I can’t tell the shampoo from the conditioner in a new shower, and I never think to inspect everything with my glasses on before I get in. If there is a third option for body wash, it’s all over. The Lord only knows what I washed and “shampooed” with that morning.

I keep Advil in most every room of the house and all the cars, I really can’t watch TV without the subtitles, and don’t even get me started on strange cars parking in front of my house!

Obviously, I’m getting old, but I wasn’t aware just how old until we got rid of our backyard play structure. A few months ago, a young couple with two little girls became the next caretakers of the behemoth wooden tower-o’-fun, and we were left with a large open area at one end of our backyard.

Many ideas about what to do with the space were brought up by my wife, all of which sounded either prohibitively expensive or prohibitively difficult. She finally agreed to my relatively simple suggestion of “lawn,” and so began my latest project.

Simple does not always mean easy, and I am not going to lie to you – digging trenches for the sprinklers to service the mere 540 square feet of new lawn almost did me in. Normally, digging sprinkler pipe trenches is not a big deal, if you live in a place that uses dirt for the ground.

Our neighborhood doesn’t use dirt. We use round, river rock cobblestones to hold up our houses here. You can’t dig in our neighborhood with a shovel. The shovel just makes a ping noise and stops dead on a rock the size of softball, two inches underground. That rock is surrounded by other rocks, ranging in size from golf ball to volleyball, which continue no matter how far you dig down with your pickaxe and digging bar.

The small spaces between the rocks are usually filled in with dirt, but in this case, they were mostly filled in with tree roots, since the whole 540 square feet of would-be lawn is under a massive tree of unknown species. (I have never known what any of our trees or bushes actually are, and I don’t care, as long as they don’t fall onto the house. So far, so good. I think the rocks hold them in place.)

I only needed to put in nine sprinkler heads, but the trenching ran me out of Advil in every room in the house and two of the cars. When I had recovered enough to stand up almost straight, and the new pipes were in the ground and buried, we brought in some beautiful new rock-free topsoil and leveled it all out.

I spread the new grass seed and raked it into the amazing new dirt ten days ago, and in those ten days I have found out how old I really am. I have probably inspected the new lawn area between 50 and 75 times since the seed went on. I have told people I don’t even know about my new grass sprouts that started to happen five days ago. The people I do know are now avoiding me, but I don’t care, because I’m in my backyard staring at my “lawn.”

When I was able to, I even got down on my hands and knees to inspect the little shoots and look across all of them at eye-level.

I had no idea the amount of joy I would get from seeing that one bare patch over there start to show some green yesterday.

I mean, what the hell?

This kind of thing sneaks up on you. One minute you’re skateboarding through life without a care in the world, and the next you’re mad that they rearranged the grocery store. It was fine the way it was.

But it wasn’t until this week that I realized I was “watch the grass grow” old.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go check and see if that middle section has filled in any since this morning. It’s warm today!

See you soon,

-Smidge

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When Life Gives You Lemons, File a Class Action

2024-10-16T13:40:00.000-07:00

I am happy to report that I have once again been included in the American Dream. Yes, I’m eligible to be part of another class action lawsuit!

Unbeknownst to me until I received the letters, I have had beef over the years with Toyota, Verizon, Master Card, Visa, Wells Fargo, and many, many others.

I never joined any of those class actions, but as far as I know, I at least did actual business with them all. This latest one is extra special.

“Smidge’s Little Lemonade Stand” has been invited to join a class action against Visa and Mastercard for those SOB’s misleading and possibly unconstitutional interchange fees. We’ve got them on the hook for $5.5 billion!

“What the hell is ‘Smidge’s Little Lemonade Stand?’” you might be asking yourself, just as I was when I received the letter last week. I puzzled over it for a minute or two until I remembered Juan the illegal hot dog vendor in Berkely, CA.

“Of course!” you’re saying to yourself. “Juan the hot dog guy!”

No?

Well, back in September of 2017, Juan set up an unlicensed hot dog cart outside a stadium, and was promptly ticketed by the police, who took his $60 as evidence. Cell Phone Guy was there to record the whole thing, berating the police for doing their jobs in the process, claiming we all have the right to distribute and/or ingest unlicensed and, most likely, unsanitary hot dogs.

Cell Phone Guy then started a GoFundMe “for” Juan, even stating in the description that he didn’t know Juan or even know how to find Juan again. The GoFundMe raised over $90,000.

In response to that ludicrously misplaced generosity, I immediately started a GoFundMe for my kids’ unlicensed and definitely unsanitary lemonade stand. I openly pleaded for the police to come to our neighborhood, confiscate their profits, and shut them down.

Sadly, we did not garner nearly as much support as Juan, and only raised $55, all of which was donated to the Roseville Police Activities League – a day I’m sure their fundraising team will never forget.

Well, as it turns out, RPAL may be in line for another sizeable donation stemming from our illicit lemonade activities, because those snakes over at the credit card companies apparently scammed our helpless GoFundMe. We only netted $55, but the Lord only knows how much people actually donated. There’s a chance we reached our original goal of a million dollars, but the excessive interchange fees left us with a fraction of that. Who knows?

That’s why we owe it to America and the kids at RPAL to join this class action and get back what is rightfully ours! After all, there’s $5.5 billion on the table.

If my class action lawsuit math is correct, a year or so from now Smidge’s Little Lemonade Stand should receive a check for $1.12. If Cell Phone Guy joins the class “on behalf of” Juan, he may be able to get as much as $67.50.

I just pray that the lawyers will be able to make ends meet for the year while they wait for their checks for $55 million to arrive!

See you soon,

-Smidge

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Umchina, That Guy is Good! - Repost

2024-10-09T13:16:00.000-07:00

I have an Amazing Facts desk calendar, and I have to tell you, a lot of the times the facts are slightly less than “Amazing.”

For instance, today I learned how many times some actor named Max Schreck blinked in the nine minutes he was on screen in a 1922 movie. It was once.

Earlier this week I learned that badgers have helped make a number of important archeological discoveries, none of which I cared about.

I even learned how much genuine yak hair the Broadway run of Cats went through making wigs in the eighteen-year span of the musical. It was 3,247 pounds. Not only did I not care at all about that statistic, but I also reacted poorly to it on a personal level since my mom made me go see an off-off-off-Broadway (Sacramento, CA) production of Cats when I was young, and I still haven’t recovered from how much I disliked it.

I’m not going to lie to you. This calendar is not great. It’s not even very good. But I stick with it each day, just hoping for that odd gem that might make learning about yak wigs at the world’s worst musical all worth it. Well, on Wednesday, September 27^th my perseverance paid off.

On that fateful day I was treated to one of the funniest things I’ve learned in a long time. And after I got done laughing, my heart immediately went out to all the young Korean men out there.

Here’s the “Amazing Fact:”

Umchina, a Korean term meaning “mom’s friend’s son,” is used to describe a person who’s better at everything than you are.

How prevalent moms shaming their kids for lack of achievement must be in Korean society to have a one-word term for it. Wow! Nice job, Korean moms. Maybe take it down a few notches, huh?

I’d be willing to bet that even if the term wasn’t invented to be spitefully humorous, that’s at least how it’s used by today’s Korean youth. At least I hope so.

“I’ve got no chance on this test. Mr. Umchina in the front row is going to blow the curve for all of us.”

“How’d the game go, honey?”

“Not great. Their starting lineup was Umchina city.”

When I told one of my buddies about this fabulous new word I discovered, he asked what the Korean term for “wife’s friend’s husband” was. Now that’s one we need to know!

I hear about him all the time. That guy is good!

See you soon,

-Smidge

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Solar Meltdown

2024-10-02T17:18:00.000-07:00

We got solar panels in November of 2018. It was exciting! Our power company, the universally loved PG&E here in Northern California, finally made the decision easy for us after we had a $600+ bill that summer. More on them later.

Now, when you get solar, you are excited about making electricity instead of having to buy it. You get a cool app on your phone that shows you the real-time solar production happening on your roof. You can see that the panels in the direct sunlight are pumping out 1.56 kWh each! You have no idea how much 1.56 kWh is – or even what it is – and you have no idea how each individual kWh translates to your electric bill, but you’re pretty sure it’s a really good thing!

If you think that PG&E will tell you how each kWh translates to your bill, you are wrong. They say that they are showing you on your bill, complete with numbers and charts, but what they are really showing you is Chinese algebra with no equals signs and no dollar amounts. More on them later.

Anyway, your electricity bills continue to come every month, but now they are much, much, much lower. You are happy. Eventually, you start to see a dollar figure show up in the corner of the bill labeled “Expected True-up Amount.” On your one-year anniversary of getting solar, your true-up amount is due. This is the difference between the amount of electricity you used and the amount you produced.

The true-up is the one thing on your bill expressed in dollars, and it is not negative. You owe them money. And you owe them more money than you think you should because you have a LOT of solar panels on your roof, and they were not cheap. This is when you find out that PG&E pays you about $0.0000000023 for every kWh you produce, but charges you roughly $756.00 for every kWh they send you. More on them later.

You go through another year of checking the app and getting happy about how many kWh’s you’re making when it’s sunny, cursing the clouds and rain, and watching your estimated true-up number rise and fall through the seasons, betting yourself on where it will land come solar anniversary time.

After a few years, you realize the true-up is staying fairly steady at a few hundred bucks, and you check the app less and less often. And if you got solar in 2018, by 2024 you hardly ever check the app, and basically ignore the true-up number.

You ignore it until three days ago when you were online paying your PG&E bill and you glanced over to see the Estimated True-up Amount they are showing is three times higher than your mortgage payment. Umm, what?

You initially think that something went wrong over at PG&E. Maybe your SmartMeter broke and they can’t see how much your solar panels are producing. But then you go outside and see that the SmartMeter seems to be on and working just fine.

Then you grab your phone and go to check the app that you haven’t looked at since you can’t remember when. The app is requiring you to log in and that’s when you vaguely remember looking at the app a month or so ago and seeing the same login screen and saying to yourself, “I have no idea what my login info is. I’ll check that later when I’m near my password list.”

When you finally get the app open, you see that it is not showing any production at all yesterday, or the day before. The app talks to the panels through a gateway that is located in an electrical box under the solar panel shutoff switch. You get a screwdriver and open that box to see that there is no power at all to the gateway. You check the circuit breakers, but a visual inspection shows they’re all in the ON position.

That’s when you call the solar installation company and they start walking you through the troubleshooting procedure. After a few questions, they recommend turning the whole system off and back on at the main breaker. When you go to touch the main breaker switch, it falls loosely away from the ON position to the middle “tripped” position.

Holy…

When you flip the breaker OFF and then ON, the gateway immediately comes to life, and your SmartMeter suddenly changes direction from “Receiving” to “Delivering.”

Son of a…

And on that day, September 30^th, 94 degrees at 3:00pm, you go back through the app and finally figure out that your solar panel main breaker tripped off on July 11^th and 1:26pm.

Mother…

Not only was my giant solar array just an ugly roof decoration for over two and a half months, but it was off and useless at the worst possible time – during the hottest two and a half months that California has seen in a very long time. We had multiple record-breaking heatwaves when our A/C ran all day and most of the night, without a single solar cell on my roof doing anything about it.

Now, I know that there are more than a few places I can go look whenever I want to make sure my solar panels are on and functioning, and I’m well aware of the fact that I failed to check any of them during probably the two and a half most critical solar power months in our system’s history.

But here’s my problem with you, PG&E. You know I have solar. You know I used to send you electricity every month. You know I didn’t abandon the house because I’m still paying my bills and sucking down kWh’s at a furious pace. So why in the hell is there not a note in bold at the top of my August bill saying, “HEY! YOU DIDN’T PRODUCE A SINGLE kWh LAST MONTH!!”?

Don’t bother answering – I already know how much you’re looking forward to sending me this year’s true-up bill.

Again, I know I only have myself – and possibly a crappy main breaker – to blame. So why am I complaining, you ask? I’m not complaining. I’m trying to prevent this from happening to anyone else.

If this cautionary tale saves even one of you from the same fate, then it… would be amazing if you considered sharing some of those savings with me so I can pay my horrendous true-up bill.

Thanks in advance!

See you soon,

-Smidge

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I'm Not Mad, I'm Just Old

2024-09-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

You know the old saying, “Looking down your nose at someone?”

It means you disapprove of them or the way they’re acting, or you consider them inferior or unworthy.

I think the origins of that saying may have just been a misunderstanding, because I am starting to look down my nose at everyone.

You see, it all starts somewhere between forty and fifty years old, when your perfectly good eyes decide they have been working too hard for too long and it’s now time to relax.

You’ll be cruising right along, enjoying your carefree life, when all of a sudden, one evening in a dimly-lit room, the directions on that label or the serial number on that sticker don’t seem to be printed very clearly.

You’ll blame inferior fuzzy Chinese inkjet printing for a few days, or weeks, until you realize that holding that label a little farther away from your face brings that very clearly-printed text into focus.

Hmm… That’s odd.

You’ll just get into the habit of reading things farther away from your eyes for the next few months, or years, pretending that you’ve always done it this way, until one fateful day you discover your arms are somehow shorter than they used to be. You can no longer hold the fine print far enough away from your face.

You think about getting one of those trash grabber claws to hold things out further, but then you notice a pair of your wife’s magnifying reader glasses sitting on the counter.

You don’t need glasses, because you can still see things in the room and you can read street signs just fine. Your eyes are great, and besides, you’re not old. But you say to yourself, “I wonder what things look like with those? Probably so crazy-magnified with my strong vision that they’ll make me want to throw up. But I should try them just to see…”

And then you put them on…

Holy crap, this counter has crumbs all over it. Where were those a second ago? And my God! I can read this note sitting on the counter so CLEARLY! But then you look up out into the living room and everything out there is blurry now and giving you a headache.

And just like that, the transition has begun. You will need magnifying glasses from here on out.

You will buy yourself twenty-five cheap pairs of readers from Amazon and spread them all over your life so that you’ll always be able to read the words, and thread the needle, and see the slot for the screwdriver. But you won’t need or want them to watch TV, or drive, or talk to someone.

So now you’re carrying readers around with you everywhere you go and complaining about how dimly lit the restaurant is. And while you’re perusing the menu and discussing the entrees with your tablemates, you have a problem. You need the readers to see the menu, but not to see the people. So, what do you do…?

You put your readers out on the end of your nose. Now you can tilt your head back to read the menu with your readers, and tilt your head forward to see your friends, over the top of your glasses.

And in that moment, the transition is complete. You are old.

You now look and act like every old person you’ve ever seen in a movie or when you were younger, tilting their head back and forth and peering over their glasses at they speak to the person interrupting them from reading the newspaper.

You always thought those old people looked so disapproving of whomever they were talking to, because they were literally looking down their nose at them. But now you realize, they were just trying to see them clearly and were tired of taking their readers on and off.

You have become them.

And then it hits you – Oh, man, what are people thinking I’m thinking??

So, I just want to make it clear on behalf of myself and all my fellow reader-needers out there – we’re not looking down our noses at you just because we’re looking down our noses at you!

We’re just trying to see you as clearly as we can see our phone, our book, or our food. So please, don’t read anything into it.

Unless, of course, you’re being an idiot. Then we’re definitely looking down our noses at you – both ways.

See you soon,

-Smidge

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An Open Letter to Apple and Samsung

2024-09-18T14:38:00.000-07:00

Dear Apple and Samsung,

You suck.

Mostly you, Apple, but Samsung, you have some work to do, too.

Let’s start with you, Apple. iMessage is stupid. What a fun and exciting messaging app that can only be used between two people who have iPhones, iPads, iWatches, and do you have something called iGlasses yet, because if not, your marketing team sucks, too.

You developed a way for people in your iCult to talk to each other and create named groups and heart each other’s cute posts and have all sorts of iCult fun. It’s actually pretty cool, but the problem is, you also try to use that same system as your texting feature. Believe it or not, over half of the people your iCult will need to text won’t have iDevices. We have Samsungs and seven of us have Google phones.

Up until Google got involved and brought the awesome, everyone except you, Apple, ran texts on SMS and MMS. Just so you know, since I’m not sure you do, SMS is single texts, MMS is pictures and group texts.

Here’s the main reason you suck: You have a built-in blocker for Samsung texts, and you don’t tell your users that they are missing things. You know damn well that a message arrived that you didn’t show them. You also know that you sent a message that didn’t get delivered, but you don’t tell them that either.

Instead, you leave it up to me, the Samsung user, to figure out that they aren’t getting my messages or I’m not getting theirs, then train them on how to go six layers deep into your menu options and turn on the little button that says “Send/Receive non iMessage communications as SMS/MMS.”

I mean, holy crap! The fact that that is not just automatically on all the time is proof that you are running a cult and want your members to think that everyone else’s phones suck except for yours. When in fact, it’s the exact opposite. As long as you let them out of the phone, we see your messages just fine without needing to change a single setting. If you think cult is too strong a word, look into how cults work to get their members to view everyone else who’s not in the cult…

Then along comes Google and gives us RCS. It’s a direct replacement for SMS/MMS as well as iMessage, and it has all the fun, cool features of iMessage. RCS stands for Really Can’tBelieve SamsungHasn’tJustDoneThisYet. Or Rich Communication Services. One of the two – I always forget which.

We have the ability to run this on our Samsungs, but we still have to use Google Messaging instead of the standard Samsung messaging app. C’mon, Samsung – just make the switch. Ditch the SMS/MMS and get with the times. RCS is just better.

And RCS solves the problem of getting separate texts about iPhone users in the group chat. No longer will you see, “Steve reacted to a photo,” or “Bob liked ‘Let’s meet at 5pm at th…’”

How hard was that to fix, Samsung? Everyone else has been able to heart someone’s text for a long time now, but Google had to show up in the phone game to get it done for you? That’s weak.

And speaking of weak, back to you Apple. You know damn well that RCS is the way to go, but you’re still not playing nice. If an iPhone user likes my text, I can see it now, but if I like theirs, still nada. You have been on a one-way street your whole life. Get with the program.

I mean, I know you’re worried that if the iCult is allowed to see what’s really out there, they might come to the startling conclusion that they’ve been overpaying for underperforming devices, but don’t you think it’s time to man up and face the iTunes?

I guess if you won’t do it on your own, the EU might be forcing your hand. I heard you pissed off all of Europe enough that they may be requiring you to be completely RCS compatible in the very near future.

Wouldn’t that be something? Sad that an overbearing government entity had to intervene, but at least they might get you to see the light and understand that locking yourself in your own room is not a great long-term business strategy.

I’d be happy to text you more about it, but it might not go through...

See you soon,

-Smidge

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Breaking Olympic Records

2024-09-11T13:06:00.000-07:00

It has been 24 years since Eric Moussambani broke Olympic swimming records at the 2000 Sydney games, and to celebrate the anniversary, Paris brought us a close equivalent this summer – breakdancing.

You guys remember the new Olympic breakdancing, right? The sport where the bronze women's winner from China was named “671” and the men’s competition was basically a gymnastics floor routine, but with better music and comedic stylings.

And the poor guy from Kazakhstan who tried very hard but didn't win a single judge vote in three rounds, but you had to give him credit because he is from Kazakhstan and probably doesn’t have real internet at his house, so it was possible that he hadn’t ever seen actual breakdancing before he stepped on stage.

And then there was Raygun. The viral Australian breakdancer who literally couldn’t breakdance. She also didn’t get a single point from any of the judges in any of her rounds, but the difference was she knew what it was supposed to look like and showed up anyway. We all came to the same conclusion after her performance – incredibly, she is apparently the only female breakdancer in the entire country of Australia.

Well, Rachel “Raygun” Gunn has just been ranked number one in the world by breakdancing’s governing body, the World DanceSport Federation.

If you are saying, that’s insane, I had no idea that breakdancing had a world governing body, you’re not alone. I was right there with you. But rest assured, they are not just a group of teenagers vaping ecstasy like you would suspect. They have an actual reason for ranking someone as the best dancer in the world, after that person virally proved on the world stage that she can’t dance at all.

Apparently, in order for the athletes to focus on training for the Olympics, the Federation stopped holding ranking events in January. Since the world standings are based only on your last 52 weeks of scoring, almost all of the Olympic breakdancers left the games without a current Federation ranking.

Raygun currently has the top ranking because she came in first place at the 2023 Oceania Continental Championships, which was still inside the rankings timeframe, and presumably held in Raygun’s living room.

In spite of breakdancing even worse than I do at weddings, Rachael Gunn proudly declared that she had achieved exactly what she set out to do at the Paris Olympics.

"Some Olympians spend their entire lives training to make history, to carve out a name for themselves. I trained for exactly 37 minutes, and now I'm the most famous breakdancer in the world. My sick moves shut down an entire event. How many Olympians can say that?"

One that I know of, Rachel. If you knew your Olympic history, you would know about Eric the Eel, and the fact that he actually won his heat.

Eric Moussambani was a “swimmer” from Equatorial Guinea. Swimmer is in quotes there for when you Google the video – you’ll see.

Eric got to the 2000 summer games via a wildcard system that allowed people from developing nations to represent their countries without meeting the minimum requirements for their sport. Australia is not a developing nation, so that still doesn’t explain Raygun, but here we are, nonetheless.

Eric began training – and by that I mean learned to not die in the water – only eight months before the Olympics. He started training in a lake, and later in a 12-meter-long hotel pool where he worked. He could only use the pool between 5:00 and 6:00am, and he was there every day, Raygun. Every damn, day. It didn’t help much, but still.

Eric is the only Olympic swimmer to ever make the near-completely useless Olympic pool lifeguard get out of his chair. When Eric arrived in Sydney it was his first time ever seeing a 50-meter pool. Amazingly, he had entered into the 100-meter freestyle event instead of the 50-meter. Surely he had to know 50 was less than 100, so that choice remains a mystery to this day.

Eric got up on the blocks for his first heat and proceeded to turn in the slowest time ever recorded for the 100-meter freestyle, and that includes any youth swim meets you’ve ever been to. He would have finished much faster, but he lost all forward momentum in the last 20 meters and for some reason he took about eight strokes in the last three feet of the race. I’m not making that up.

The Eel was supposed to be swimming against two other men in his heat, but they both disqualified on their starts, so after almost two full minutes in the water , Eric won his one-man heat at the 2000 Olympic games and was inked into the history books for a record that may never be broken.

Eric embodied the Olympic spirit of determination and grit. I’m not quite sure what Raygun embodied after giving it a full 37-minutes of hard work, other than an obvious lack of coordination and skill, but I want to wish her a sincere congratulations on being ranked number one in the world.

Enjoy your free large fries at Arby’s, or whatever prize comes with a World DanceSport Federation top ranking in breakdancing.

See you soon,

-Smidge

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