my pink toes » Rants

Leave My Lone!*

lsmith — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 15:46:07 +0000

Ugh. We had a lovely Thanksgiving, and it’s been great for the kids to have a break from school, with half-days all last week, and these 2 days off. But I’m done with people. I need a break My patience is wearing very thin and I’m snapping at the boys when they don’t really deserve it. Mommy needs a time out.
*Our friend’s son used to say this when he was 2 and wanted to be left alone. We found it so charming, we’ve added it to our collective vocabulary.

It’s Called Voice MAIL, People!

lsmith — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 20:42:05 +0000

I cannot stand it when people leave a message that just says, “Hey. Give me a call”.
It’s called voice MAIL for a reason. Would you send a letter that said, “Hey, send me a letter – I’ve got something to tell you?”. Aaaargh! In this era of busyness and technology, can we not use some of this technology to make our lives BETTER? If you keep leaving me messages that say “Hey” and then I leave a message that says “Hey” back, we have gotten NOWHERE and taken up TWO WHOLE DAYS. I have no time limit on my voice mail. Talk as long as you want. The more details the better.
Some of the worst offenders are some of the most tech-savvy people I know.

A Tip for the Hats

lsmith — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 08:59:19 +0000

I can’t stand it when grown men wear hats in professional situations. Like, in interviews (yes, I’m looking at you, Ron Howard….Steven Spielberg).
I looked inside a library window the other day, and there was a man giving a lecture in a REI-style cowboy hat.
How can anyone take you seriously when you’re wearing a hat? We’re too distracted, thinking “he must be making a statement…what could that statement be?”
It does not make you look quirky, youthful, or adventurous.
It makes you look ridiculous.

Why I Hate Janet Jackson

lsmith — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 11:13:00 +0000

My father always had sports on TV when I was growing up. This was before ESPN, people (yes, there was a “before”), so by “always”, I mean “all day on the weekends and on Monday nights for football”. You couldn’t go anywhere in the house on the weekend without hearing some play-by-play or color commentary.

One day, I walked by the TV and the sound seemed really funny. Dad had his old, paint-splattered radio on top of the set. It was sputtering out the broadcast in that wavy, AM way. I asked him if the sound on the TV was out. It wasn’t – he had just turned it all the way down (again, this was before mute buttons. Heck – it was before remotes!) Dad then told me a lesson about bias in sports and about the value of your own home broadcasters. Turns out his beloved WSU Cougars were on National TV, but he didn’t want their commentary. He wanted to hear the voices he was used to – the home team broadcasters. I was too young to really understand, but filed the information away.

Fast forward 20 years, and I now am a big Seattle Mariners fan. The how and why of that is a different post, but suffice it to say I fell in love with the team in 1996 and have been smitten since. Once in a while, my beloved M’s will be picked up on FOX (again, a channel not around in my dad’s day), especially if they play the Yankees on a Saturday. I used to be able to drag my old radio out to the family room and tune into the wavy AM broadcast of my familiar voices: Ron Fairly, Rick Rizz, and Dave Niehaus. The voices matched the picture, pitch for pitch, out for out, and I could pick up where the broadcasters had left off the night before with their analysis and story-telling about the year as a whole and baseball in general.

Until Janet Jackson and her planned “wardrobe malfunction”. Now the networks use a tape-delay of about 7 seconds. The radio is now always ahead of the television. This does not work – the radio announcer is screaming about the runner digging in for second base when I’m still seeing the pitch go to the plate. I end up just choosing to listen do the game on the radio and run in to the family room for the delayed play if it was a must-see.

For this reason, I hate Janet Jackson.

Why We Need More Female Legislators

lsmith — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 22:05:57 +0000

Daylight savings time 1 day before Halloween = sleep-deprived, cranky, candy-jacked kids. If they could just wait to mess with the clocks until the first week in November, my life would be a whole lot more managable.
Any woman who has had to deal with this week would make this her first legislative priority. Hey – first woman, or even first man – heck, even first ape, to make this their #1 campaign issue has my vote!!