Ask Smidge – The 2024 Turkey Edition

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

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Netflix and Ill Will

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

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Band Together to Lose - Repost

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

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Ask Smidge - Daylight Savings Time

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

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Halloween Candyholics Anonymous

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

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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I'm "Watch the Grass Grow" Old

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

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

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When Life Gives You Lemons, File a Class Action

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

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Umchina, That Guy is Good! - Repost

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

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

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Solar Meltdown

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

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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I'm Not Mad, I'm Just Old

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

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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An Open Letter to Apple and Samsung

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

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Breaking Olympic Records

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

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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The Digital Tipping Point

A long time ago I realized that I had reached what I called the digital tipping point – when I decided that if I had to choose, I would much rather lose my wallet than my phone. I think a lot of us would agree with that.

I know Son Number Two probably would. He’s off in Idaho at his first year of college and taking advantage of all the exciting activities Boise State has to offer – one of the main ones being floating the Boise River.

The river makes up the entire northern border of the campus, and it’s perfect for floating in an innertube, as long as you don’t mind sitting in freezing cold water while the rest of you fries like an egg in a high-altitude skillet.

He called me after he had finished the Labor Day float this weekend. Of course, I had no idea he was calling me, because it was some random number showing up on my phone.

“Bad news, Dad…”

Life360 is still showing us the exact spot in the middle of the Boise River where his phone finally died. It’s presumably still there on the bottom, because the second he dropped it out of his tube he went straight down after it, but it was never to be seen again.

Now, to be an eighteen-year-old off at college without a phone is one thing, but this was an iPhone, and iPhones have that magnetic ring thing on the back. And there are countless companies that sell accessories that will magnetize to the back of your phone. One of the most popular of those accessories is a wallet that holds things like your credit card and ATM card and driver’s license.

He had one of those.

He also HAD a credit card, an ATM card, and a driver’s license.

I never gave any thought to the dreaded third option of the digital tipping point – losing BOTH your wallet and your phone in one tragic river tubing accident. But then, I don’t have my wallet attached to my phone, and I also don’t take either of them with me when I get into an innertube in a river. But I also have a fully developed frontal lobe that controls risk/reward, so I have an advantage there.

When you ship your kids off to college, you are really hoping they receive an education. One of the many things you hope they’ll learn in 2024 is how to better use email. That’s been a nice side benefit of having a son without a phone. His mom and I have Samsung phones, so he can’t just text us from his iPad, because the folks who brought you the “Genius Bar” still think SMS is just a fad and won’t catch on. So, he’s having to manage this with us through email, which has been instructional for him. He hasn’t really mastered Subjects yet, but baby steps.

He's also needing to problem solve. He found out the DMV won’t send your California driver’s license to another state, so he had to find someone here in the Golden State willing to mail it to him. I might charge him for my labor AND the postage.

And he currently has absolutely no way to purchase any goods or services. Kids these days are not big on having cash, so he’s in a bit of a pickle. (Although, if he had any cash, I guess it would be at the bottom of the Boise River too.)

Sixteen-year-old Son Number Three had it all figured out the other night. “Well, he doesn’t need the actual cards! He can just use ApplePay.”

“That might just work…”

“Yep.”

“…if he had a phone.”

“Oh, right…”

He could ask his roommates to front him some cash and Venmo them. But does Venmo even have a desktop-based version? Can you Venmo from an iPad? No one knows, because everyone else’s phones are not at the bottom of the Boise River.

Well, actually, there probably are a few others down there. My wife found a retired guy who runs a Facebook page for the Boise River Float Lost and Found. Apparently, he’s spending his retired years diving below the rapids and collecting the college kids’ lost treasures and selling them back to the kids/parents for a $100 flat fee.

Not in a million years would I pay him even $1.00 to retrieve my son’s phone and wallet for him. This extracurricular college lesson is far too valuable.

I mean, I could give this guy the Life360 exact location of where my son’s phone gave up the ghost, but I wouldn’t. If he randomly found it and contacted me, I’d be tempted to pay him $100 just to keep his mouth shut.

You can’t buy this kind of education. Your college freshman can, though!

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Beaver Berries

I used to love raspberries. That ended this morning.

This morning, my world was turned upside down by my “OMG Facts” daily desk calendar.

Yesterday’s fact was amusing and inspired an ironic sense of hope for our world.

Tuesday, August 27 - The Bible is the most shoplifted book.

On the one hand, stealing is wrong. It’s right there in the top ten list in the Bible. But if you didn’t have a Bible, how would you know that? After chuckling awhile about that little factoid, I decided as long as the Bibles were going to be read and the shoplifters take the message to heart, I’m sure they will eventually rectify the petty theft.

This morning’s fact didn’t make me chuckle at all. It made me shiver.

Wednesday, August 28 - Castoreum, aka beaver anal juice, is most commonly found as a flavor enhancer in raspberry products.

You can read that again. I had to.

After I was done throwing out any raspberries and raspberry-flavored products we had in the house, I had a few questions.

For starters, WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL!!??

Also, HOW??? How in the wild, wild west did that unholy marriage even get considered in the first place, let alone put into practice??

“Hey, Bob, glad you’re here. We’re having a heck of a time making this raspberry jam taste like raspberries. We need some kind of flavor enhancer.”

“Have you tried using poop?”

“Of course we did. All kinds. We also tried mold, used motor oil, obviously beef intestines, and that black stuff that collects on the Waffle House kitchen floor under the griddle.”

 “Wow, I can’t believe none of that worked. You know, it just so happens I brought my pet beaver into the lab today. Should we see if he likes it?”

“Sure, let him at it… Oh, hey, wait, BOB! Don’t let him do that to the jam… what the… well now, wait a minute. Hmm…”

Unfortunately, that insane scenario is the most sane scenario I can think of as to how this could have happened.

And let’s back up to the part where it says beaver anal juice, is most commonly found as a flavor enhancer… I would really hope that it was most commonly found inside beavers, but apparently we’re using so much of it in our raspberry flavor enhancement activities that we’re now outpacing the giant tree-gnawing rodents.

Would it be worse or better if the labs were making synthetic beaver anal juice to keep up with demand? I mean, we are big fans of all-natural products these days.

Or did they mean that raspberry flavor enhancement was the main use for it? If that’s the case, then that would imply there are other food and/or drink products being enhanced with rodent butt juice.

I’ve never been more afraid to Google something in my life.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Hit SEND Before it’s Too Late - Repost

When we sent Son Number One off to his first year of college last year, we attended a one-day parent orientation. It was an informative day on a number of levels, the most striking of which was just how bad incoming college freshman are at using email.

Apparently, the first year of college doesn’t completely fix the problem, as evidenced by Son Number One’s new sophomore year apartment complex and their insane information spamming program. I’m a co-signer of the lease, so I’m on the mailing list, and between June 1^st and today – roughly 82 days – the Greenleaf Republic apartments sent me 64 emails. I don’t even talk to my wife that much.

One email a week would have been 12, and that still would have been major overkill for the amount of actual information they conveyed to us. Why did they send me 39 of the EXACT SAME EMAILS about move-in schedules and action items? Because their student clientele obviously still sucks at email.

Well, I’m here to tell you, parents of younger kids, it might be too late for my kids, but yours might still have hope, if you act quickly. Last year after the orientation day, I was kind enough to devise a plan to help all you younger parents out there who want their kids to someday be able to hold down a real job. Best of luck!

There’s a funny thing about kids these days. They have embraced digital technology like no other generation before them. It is interwoven into their lives and they probably would not be able to function without it.

Except for email.

For whatever reason, email – once the very pinnacle of sophisticated digital communications – is like a rotary phone to them. They don’t know how to use it.

Way back when the boys were little, I set all three of them up with Gmail accounts. Best dad move ever, I thought at the time. I would have been less enthusiastic had I known how little and how poorly they would use them.

If you email them something, you have to text them to tell them that you emailed them. If you do that, you have increased the chances from 0% to 11% that they will see your email. Unfortunately, even if they do see it, the chances are still 0% that they will actually read it.

I foolishly thought that high school would get them in the habit of using email effectively. I mean, after all, they were given school email addresses in order to communicate with their teachers. Once again, I was wrong. Ask any high school teacher how well the kids use email. They will just laugh and laugh.

Once again, I foolishly thought things would change with my eighteen-year-old when it was time to register for college. And once again, I was wrong.

He is going to University of Nevada, Reno in the fall, and yesterday was his orientation day. About two weeks ago we received an email about Orientation Step One. I saw that he and I had both received it, and I even mentioned it to him at the time.

When I inquired about it Monday night – the night before orientation – he said, and I quote, “Huh?”

When I sat down with him at his computer and had him look for the email, he immediately claimed that he had no idea where it was, and probably never got it. As I stared slack-jawed at his 999 unopened emails in his inbox, I suggested that he might try a search for the word “orientation.”

Miraculously, we found the email, which contained a detailed list of lots of things he needed to take care of about a week ago. He had a busy night.

The next day at UNR, one of the presentations for the parents was from the head of the student advisory department. They are in charge of helping the kids get all the classes they need in order to stay on track. She talked with us for twenty minutes, and about nineteen of those minutes consisted of begging us to somehow make our children check their emails.

Hmm…

So, parents of young children, this is your Immature Societal Email Nonfunction Disorder (I-SEND) Public Service Announcement. It’s obviously too late for our college freshmen, but you might still be able to salvage your children.

You need to get your kids in the habit of checking (and actually reading) their emails on a daily basis. It won’t be easy, but it can be done if you focus on the things they really want and need.

For instance, kids need food. Put a lock on the refrigerator and the pantry and email them the combination. Change the combination each day.

Kids love Wi-Fi. Change the code daily and have them send you an email each day to request their chore list. When they have replied with a list of fully completed chores, they can then send a separate email formally requesting the Wi-Fi code. If their email has no subject line, delete it without reading it.

Kids enjoy getting an allowance. Each month they must email you an allowance request. They can find their money after they complete a series of back-and-forth informational emails as you lead them through a scavenger hunt. Make it complicated. If you have more than one child and they use Reply All incorrectly, no allowance that month.

If you have teenagers that drive, the location of their car keys should be available only by email. Every once in a while, send them an email from you, but with poor grammar and spelling errors, starting with, “Dearist beloved Child.” Include an attachment that is a “pdf of the locality of you keys.”

The pdf should read: “You don’t get to drive today because in the real world you just downloaded a virus. Stay home and learn which emails to flag as spam.”

Good luck out there, parents!

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Universitas Interruptus

This week’s column has been interrupted by college.

I’m currently at the Boise, Idaho International Airport and Ag Equipment Emporium, waiting for my flight back to California. I spent the morning moving Son Number Two’s things into his dorm room at Boise State – home of the Smurf Turf, and now, quite a bit of our money.

I spent a harrowing eleven hours in Number Two’s 1999 Toyota 4Runner yesterday, with its questionable suspension and iffy second gear, mostly praying that Toyota and the good Lord would deliver us all the way to Boise and not just part way. Because any part of the way once you’re between Reno, NV and Boise, ID is the exact center of the middle of nowhere.

By the grace of both Manufacturers, we made it all the way, and happily with 99% of the things we were transporting. We only lost the lid off one of the storage tubs on the roof rack. Mind you, everything was secured down on top with a bungee cargo net, and the cargo net remains perfectly intact. The entire cargo net also remained perfectly in place. All the cargo remained perfectly in place. But somehow, some way, with a mighty gust of wind from a passing eighteen-wheeler on 95-North, a two-foot by three-foot plastic Rubbermaid tub lid escaped the net through one of the five-inch by four inch holes in the webbing.

Everything that was in the tub was still in the tub when we pulled over. I’ve been thinking about it for thirty hours and I still have no idea how or what happened.

Anyway, minor poltergeist, shapeshifting tub lid loss aside, we made it to the dorms. It’s when I saw his dorm that I became so overcome with feelings that I abandoned all hope of being emotionally able to produce today’s regularly scheduled column.

His dorm window is about twenty feet away from one of the entrances to the ExtraMile Arena, where the Boise State Bronco Basketball Team plays their home games. And just on the other side of that, rising majestically above campus, clearly visible from that window and hittable with a well-thrown frisbee is Albertson’s Stadium, home of Bronco Football and the legendary blue turf.

This is so unfair.

What? Did you think I became overwhelmed with sad feelings about our second child leaving the nest?

Hardly! Get out.

I was overcome with jealousy. Jealousy and nostalgia for my own college dorm experience.

But mostly jealousy that my own college dorm wasn’t smack in the middle of two powerhouse sports arenas.

I like this airport. I think I might have to see more of this place and that dorm on game days.

So unfair.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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You'd Better Self-Check Yourself

We have memberships to both Costco and Sam’s Club. When I say “we,” I mean my wife and mother-in-law share a membership to Costco, and I’m not legally allowed to go there by myself.

But I do all the grocery shopping, so my wife recently agreed to let me into Sam’s Club. I’m honestly not sure if she trusts me more now, or if she just got tired of having to make special trips when we needed toilet paper or paper towels.

Sam’s Club has the only self-checkout system I’ve seen to-date that actually works well. It’s called “Scan & Go” and you scan your own stuff into the cart with your phone as you travel around the store loading up your cart.

It’s very user friendly, and even has a running total on the screen so you know when to cry, because you’re only a third of the way down your list. When you’re done shopping and woefully over budget, you just push your cart to the exit. A clerk scans the checkout code on your phone, then beeps a few things in your cart, and you’re out the door. You never unload your cart until you get to the car.

I’m here today to urge all stores in the United States to adopt this wonderful technology, or stop having “self-checkout” at your stores. Your version of self-checkout doesn’t work. It may be “checkout,” but it’s not “self.”

Let’s start with the bagging area. Why is there always an unexpected item there? What exactly were you expecting? I don’t know what you thought was supposed to happen in the bagging area, but I do know what always does happen – the whole checkout process comes to a halt and the screen informs me that “Assistance is Needed.”

No, assistance is not needed. Not ever. I know how to scan something and then put it in a bag. I’m over the age of two, and I drove myself here. Any time assistance is needed, this just stopped being self-checkout, and turned into team-checkout, where both teammates are annoyed.

Expecting an item in the bagging area hasn’t worked from Day One, Minute One of self-checkout. Figure it out!

And no, you haven’t figured it out with your handy “Skip Bagging” button. First of all, it’s an extra button I have to push after each scan, when I shouldn’t have to be pushing any buttons at all. Secondly, it seems to only allow me to skip bagging about two to three times in a row before “Assistance is Needed.”

Again, team-checkout.

There are a few of you stores out there that have it mostly figured out. You have a hand scanner that works and you have successfully abandoned any concerns about my bagging process. But you guys seem to think you’re Costco.

Costco has a person stationed at the door to check your receipt on the way out. They always have. That’s because after checkout, on your way out of Costco, you could grab a 72” TV, a Persian rug, a refrigerator, or any number of other high-value items between the food court and the door.

The rest of you are not Costco. There’s nothing – or at least, nothing of any substantial value – between the checkout and the door, so stop acting like you’re a security guard at a bank.

If I have already unloaded and reloaded my cart when I checked out – either from one of your regular checkers, or under the watchful eye of the self-checkout assistance-giver – I am not interested in going through another line before leaving so you can glance at my receipt and tell me to have a nice day.

If you want to sit there and tell me to have a nice day, go nuts. I’ll wish you a great day right back. But I’m not standing in another line and getting the receipt back out of my wallet.

You want to check my receipt? Get Scan & Go.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Are You People In-Seine?

The Paris Olympics are in full swing, and many of us have mostly gotten over the opening ceremonies by now.

If you missed the torrential regatta, you were one of the lucky ones. Here’s a brief recap:

Paris apparently cut off all communications early with the International Olympic Committee regarding the opening ceremony plans. Then they assembled a planning and project management committee consisting of the Parks and Rec department, the maritime academy, and a homeless guy named Pierre.

“Why have the opening ceremonies where the athletes can all be together and the people of the world can clearly see them, in a comfortable environment such a giant Olympic stadium of some sort?” they asked. “That’s so sensible and traditional. We have a river.”

So, the athletes arrived to nowhere on boats. They just motored on the Seine in what can only be described as a hurricane without as much wind. I know France cannot be blamed for the rain, but somehow, it’s still their fault.

While the athletes got to mingle with no one except whomever was also on their boat, other people along a three-mile (or 67-kilometer) route got to experience live music and dancing, and people up on poles, swinging in the wind. They did not get to see the athletes, however, since the Olympic games are not about them.

Then the big finale began. A floating rock came up the river with a flaming piano and a seasick singer belting out “Imagine” and later, most of her dinner.

Then a silver, caped, Olympic antihero rode up the Seine on a weird chrome mechanical horse on top of a submarine. Her cape was the Olympic flag, and she was charged with bringing it approximately seven miles along the three-mile route.

After an hour of riding on top of a very visible invisible submarine, the rider got on a real horse and rode under the Eiffel Tower. Then she got off that horse and walked, ever so slowly, up a 2000-kilometer stage, shaped like the Eiffel Tower.

The tower shot lasers. The slowest rider/walker on Earth delivered the flag to some people who did not have the Olympic flame. Where was the flame? Was it extinguished by the rain?

No! Hats off to the Olympic torch designers, because that thing apparently can’t be put out by mere monsoons. We catch up with the flame back on a boat! Another damn boat? Yes, and it’s going the wrong way, opposite the athletes, who are still waiting to see Lady Gaga and have no idea any of this is happening.

Everyone who is not on a boat is under the Eiffel Tower wondering who the weird flag lady is and getting hyped for a Celine Dion concert. The athletes are not invited.

Neither is the flame. It goes on a boat to where no one is.

When they finally dock the flame at a city park of some kind, it gets carried approximately two and a half feet each by 600 people before it reaches a 100-year-old French cyclist, now on four wheels, in a wheelchair. He rolls it to two other people, but at this point, no one has the capacity to care who they are or why they are qualified to be there.

The unnamed duo walks the flame across a gangplank to a balloon and together hold the flame up to the cheers of tens of people.

Then they light the Olympic cauldron, and the cauldron lifts off and brings a massive flame high above the city. Any living French person over 85 years old, including our cyclist, has a PSTD-induced heart attack.

Far away from the flame or any of the athletes, whose boats were last seen entering the English Channel, Celine Dion sings in French, as if she had been speaking French her whole life. The crowd of non-athletes and non-flame-bearers goes insane.

Everyone, including the broadcasters, are confused about whether it's over, until an unfortunate gust from the storm breaks the flaming balloon’s tether. It is last seen heading toward the North Sea over Belgium.

Meanwhile, the surfing competition concludes in Tahiti, because they are thirteen days ahead of Paris time.

France publicly apologizes to Lebron James, and finally ends the opening ceremonies by formally surrendering to the athletes from the Trinidad and Tobago ski boat, the only country to make landfall on French soil from the Seine flotilla.

Thankfully, the English Navy was able to rescue a majority of the remaining athletes, and the rest of the games are under way!

Go ‘Merica!

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Whole-House Fan Fan - Repost

Our air conditioner is going strong.

*sound of me knocking on every piece of wood in a six-block radius*

It has been running continuously for four weeks straight – and I mean the 24/7 kind of continuously – minus a four-day period when we were able to turn it off to go out of town. I’m not going to lie – I was a little afraid to hit the off switch. I thought about just leaving it on and eating an insanely unnecessary electric bill for fear of upsetting any delicate balance that may be going on inside the old unit.

By the grace of God it came back on and we remain cool here inside our house that seems to be located on the surface of the sun at the moment. In order to appreciate how blessed we are right now, I decided to re-read what I wrote about almost exactly ten years ago, when we weren’t so fortuitous.

I thought you might want to read it too, so here it is. And if you happen to be currently going through the same thing we were ten years ago, I sincerely hope that you

a) have a whole-house fan, and

b) don’t get murdered by your significant other.

Stay cool, and enjoy.

 

August 6, 2014

Two weeks ago I wrote about how I failed to fix our broken air conditioner, but on the plus side, managed NOT to barbeque myself with giant exposed electrical cables while doing some amateur and ill-advised work in our electrical panel. All good news aside, I am sad to report that our air conditioner is still broken.

I’m not going to lie to you. It has been rough here. Tensions are high. Nerves are frayed. Wits are at their end.

It is hot inside our house.

We have been without A/C for almost three weeks now, and unfortunately for us, those three weeks have been some of the hottest on record here in Northern California. Other places might have been hot as well, but I don’t know, and frankly, I don’t care. I am afraid to turn on the TV for fear that it will either heat up the house even more or explode.

All I can tell you is our family would not do well in an equatorial country. Last Friday it was 109 degrees outside. Through the miracle of sagging and worn R40 insulation, it was only 94 degrees in our bedroom when we went to bed. Actually, I should say when I went to bed. My wife was sleeping downstairs where it was only 89 degrees. On Saturday morning she threatened to leave me and the kids and go stay at a friend’s house. She had a crazy look in her eyes. “You guys can’t come. There’s only room for me.”

I guess information, whether good or bad, is always handy to have. I now know that our cohesive family bond snaps like a dry twig around day four or five above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and we move into an every-man-for-himself scenario. Live and learn.

There are only two things keeping us from going to a full-scale Lord of the Flies situation at this point: Cold showers and our whole-house fan.

The whole-house fan is really the eighth wonder of the modern world. There are two main types of whole-house fans to choose from. The first is the ducted variety. These have a fan or fans mounted inside your attic, with ductwork that draws the air from the interior of the home. They are very quiet. We do not have that kind.

The second kind is the ceiling-mounted variety. These are basically a slightly smaller version of a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter mounted to the ceiling of your hallway. These are incredibly loud. This is the kind we have.

Deafening prop wash noise aside, all whole-house fans work in the same manner. “The fan creates a ‘positive pressure’ in the attic and a ‘negative pressure’ inside the house, consequently drawing the cooler outside air in through open windows.”

I have not been up in the attic to experience what “positive pressure” feels like, but in the case of our home at least, “negative pressure” can be described better as “a howling 40-knot gale.” Our fan has two speed settings, and if you turn it on high, you have to make sure the children are tethered down.

The loudness and ferocity of the unit might be attributable to its size. We have the biggest model available in the free world. We were smart when we bought it a few years ago, shopping for it in the whole-house fan off-season. Because we purchased it in November we saved at least seven dollars, and were able to parlay that savings into an upgrade. The salesman sold us on the big one, presumably to best fit the size of our house, or possibly because the conversation went something like this:

Me: “Ooh, I want the big one!”

Salesman: “OK. Sign here quick.”

The key point in the operational description of the fan is really the term “cooler outside air.” This is critical, and in the case of our current three-week-long survival experiment, “cooler outside air” didn’t usually manifest itself until around midnight. This put us into a strange schedule of going to bed around one A.M. and sleeping until nine o’clock in the morning. By the time we get moving in the sluggish torpor of our deliciously cool 84-degree house, we are eating breakfast around eleven A.M. and having lunch at four o’clock. Basically, we’re now Italian.

Still, we can’t blame the whole-house fan for the lack of cool outside air. It can only do what it can do with the air it’s provided. On the plus side, even if it is not cooling us off as much as we might want, it is still cooling us down. Also, it provides a nice white noise while we sleep. It’s a lot like sleeping up inside the mechanical housing on an industrial wind turbine.

I love our whole-house fan. Not only for its economical cooling during normal summer weather, but for the safety it has provided us recently. I can say without hesitation that we would be dead without it. It is impossible to say whether we would have perished from heat stroke or from the wrath of mom, but one of them was definitely going to happen.

Thankfully, there was a break in the weather the other day and my wife decided begrudgingly to stay at home with us, and refrain from killing anyone. The A/C is scheduled to be actually fixed today, so our fingers are all crossed. It might just be the heat, but after three weeks of disappointment, I remain skeptical.

One thing is for sure, when the A/C actually does get fixed, we are going to have to ease ourselves back into the cooler temperatures. At this point 85 degrees inside the house actually feels comfortable. We went out to dinner the other night and our teeth were chattering inside the restaurant. I took the boys to the grocery store yesterday and they almost went hypothermic in the refrigerated aisle.

Still, having A/C back is going to be safer for everyone. My wife informs me that there is another heat wave coming, and she looks ready to snap any minute.

If you don’t hear from me next week, send someone to check on us.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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