Color Me Radd

Here is a post I wrote for the Willamette Week's WWire. It's all about activist coloring books. Check it out.

10 Reasons I've Been Too Busy to Blog

Lately you may have noticed that I have not been keeping up with my blogging as regularly as I used to. I know what you're thinking, "Man what an A-hole!" But I promise you that I have good excuses for my recent dearth. Here are 10 reasons I've been too busy to blog...

1. Role Playing: I finally decided to check out this Second Life game that everyone has been talking about so much. I'm not really into role playing and stuff of that nature, but in this game I get to create a digital version of myself, and I get to have a mustache! If you'd like to find me in Second Life, my name is Smitty Box.

2. Willamette Week: I recently started an internship at Willamette Week, a weekly newspaper in Portland, Oregon. They are a nationally recognized paper and the 2nd biggest paper in Portland. I'm writing for them, and much like my blog, I don't get paid, but at least I don't get to choose what I write about and some guy barks commands at me all day.

3. Light Bulbs: You know that old joke, "How many BLANKS does it take to screw in a light bulb?" Well we've needed to replace some light bulbs around here, and apparently it takes more than one of me.

4. Registering: Remember that post where I showed you that picture of me and my cousin "going down" Splash Mountain? Well, apparently the authorities got a hold of that and now I have to go door to door in my neighborhood introducing myself to all of my neighbors as a sex offender.

5. Wishing: My biological clock is ticking and it is dawning on me that I may never have...a mustache. Lately I've been spending hours staring in the mirror at my upper lip, just day dreaming.

6. Hiding: Nate the Ninja is out there. I really don't have time to blog when I'm trying to find the best possible hiding place.

7. Basketball: I joined a city rec league basketball team with my buddies so I can re-live my glory years of high school. I don't remember getting whooped by guys who were 35 years older than me.

8. Expecting: My wife and I are trying to have a baby, and by that I mean we are walking around the mall looking for cute babies to steal.

9. Autotape: Remember that video of me playing with the black & decker Autotape? Well, that little guy sits right next to my computer and I have sat down to write many a blog and been completely distracted by the wonders that the Autotape beholds. In fact...

10.

Nate is a Reviewer

My editor sent me out to see another bad movie. I'm not really a fan of horror movies, so I wasn't thrilled when I was asked to review The Hitcher. But it was actually better than I expected. Check out the rest of the paper at wweek.com.

The Hitcher

The Hitcher can't be a horror film, because I don't like horror films. But it has all the trappings of a scary movie. Kids going on spring break. Stuff jumping out at the screen. Shower scene. Bad acting. Oh, wait—it doesn't have bad acting. But it has horrible writing. Actually, it doesn't. What? What's going on here? What kind of movie is this? John Ryder (Sean Bean) is like the Jack Bauer of bad guys. By the end I was rooting for him and excited to see how he would off his next victim. But not because I didn't like the heroes Jim (Zachary Knighton) and Grace (Sophia Bush). They aren't your typical idiotic victims. Not once did the crowd yell, "Why the hell did you go in there?" As a guy who thinks horror films are stupid, I found myself enjoying this one. I give The Hitcher one hitchhiking thumb up. R. NATE SMITH.

I Heart Technology

I was surfin' around the net looking for cool gizmos to imagine I can afford. I came across lifesize.com and their video conferencing equipment. Basically, it's video conferencing with a huge wide screen TV and mondo speakers. Awesome. Here's 10 ways I would misuse this technology.







1. Video Poker: Can't get a decent game together because all your friends have children to tend to? No worries!

2. Video Poke Her : Having trouble keeping the spark alive in your long distance relationship? No worries!

3. Tailored Suits from Home: Tired of having to leave your house in order to get sized up for a wedding tuxedo? Now you can do it from home. Warning, the camera adds 5 pounds.

4. Make Me Proud Bobby!: Are you a hard working dad who just can't make it out to your kid's little league games? Have Mom set up a screen next to her in the bleachers and show your son you almost care.

5. Congress: It's only a matter of time before all the seats in Congress are filled with these.

6. The Whole Truth, in High Def: Do you like testifying against the Mafia but hate being shot at?

7. The Whole Girl, in High Def: Do you like going to strip clubs but hate being "shot" at?

8. Stinky Friend: Now I can finally hang out with my friend with the B.O. problem.

9. Snow Day!: Enjoy the great outdoors from greater indoors.

10. Self Esteem Mirror: Girls can set it up where their mirror goes, and hire a much better looking girl to be on the other end. Then they will mimic their every move when they are in front of the mirror so that they can feel good about themselves.

I may already be dead

It's quite possible that as I write these words I am on my way out of this mortal existence. Why? Because Ninja Nate Smith emailed me today!!! My wife said she heard something in the house last night while we were sleeping, but I didn't believe her. I checked my body and as far as I can see there are no puncture wounds. But maybe NNS poisoned me, or touched some pressure point that only Ninjas know about and in 32 hours I'll be dead. Anyway, here is what he said.

"Nate Smith,

This is ninja Nate Smith, and I must inform you that revealing my secret identity to the world is one of the seven deadly sins of the ninja world, so I suggest you learn to sleep with one eye open. I may, however, grant you a reprieve since I did rank higher than you. I will have to kill number one and number two, however, ninjas come third to no one. As for my name, I was put into the ninja protection program as an infant and brought to this country to live with an unsuspecting American family, last name Smith, where I continued to develop my ninja skills in secret. I am currently raising a ninja son, so even your future children won’t be safe from my wrath. As for real estate, the market has just started to pick up again and now is an excellent time to buy or sell, I’d love to send you some information on houses in your area."

Nate Smith

Century 21 Jeffries Lydon

(530)899-5912 direct

(530)321-1558 cell

www.natesellschico.com

(ninja simulation)

You may now poop your pants. Okay, now go change. I'll wait....

Welcome back. Nice pants.

So this has become quite the eventful day. First of all everyone on the Best Nate Smith Ever! World Rankings moves up two notches. And unfortunately, Fire Pirate Nate Smith, and Crooked Hat Nate Smith are dead. I don't have confirmation of this, but a ninja just sent me an email saying he was going to kill them, so it's as good as done.

A few things NNS said confused me. For instance, he suggested that I sleep with one eye open. Why? So that can be the eye that he runs his katana through? I don't think so! How about instead of sleeping with one eye open, I sleep encased in a granite tomb. It'll be much harder for him to get in, and if he does, well, at least I'm already in a tomb.

The other thing I discovered as I read the email over and over looking for secret messages about how the Ninja will dole out my demise, is that the government has a Ninja Protection Program. Now this just ticks me off. This is just another example of the government wasting the tax payer's money. Protecting a ninja is like praying for the Pope. It's completely unnecessary. While we're at it why don't we ask Santa what he wants for Christmas, and then teach a sex education class to Pamela Anderson. The NPP is a sham!

Regardless of my political beliefs on the topic of Ninja protection, I have revised the Best Nate Smith Ever! World Rankings.


The Best Nate Smith Ever! World Rankings

1. Supreme Ruler of all Nate Smiths












2. Distant second


3.










4.

X. Murdered by Ninja


X. Murdered by Ninja (most likely stabbed in his extremely large neck.)

Phoned in Blog

Today's entry can be found at SmartReMarx.com. I posted it there, because they'll pay me $10 for it, which is a lot more than I pay myself. If you haven't checked this site out, you should. It's full of news stories, editorials, and humor pieces from people like me! Check it out!

SmartRemarx.com

Financial Fodder

Christmas is over and all the post holiday sales are long gone. It's the new year and you have resolved to start saving your money. But how? Your first idea was to go out and buy some financial organizational software like Quicken. Then you found out that costs almost 200 bucks. That's kind of the opposite of what you are trying to do. Here are some great ways to save your money this year.

credit cards : The key here is "this" year. Use as many credit cards as you can. Then use other credit cards to pay off your original credit cards. Eventually this is going to be a huge financial mess for you, that could get you in some serious trouble. But if you play your cards right (you bet your ass that pun was intended) then you can hold off that financial fiasco until next year, and you will have achieved your goal of saving money "this" year.

secured loans : Take out a loan from the bank, or maybe the local convenience store, or even your mom's purse. The best way to make sure your loan is "secured" is to take out the loan without them knowing. This way you can be secure in the fact that you won't have to pay them back. To really make sure the loan is secured, shoot all witnesses.

mortgages : Remember Monopoly? Remember when your really annoying friend did that super confusing thing involving mortgages, while you were still just trying to get a hotel on your Baltic Ave, and then he won? Well whatever it was that he was doing, do that.

current accounts : To save money now, avoid using your current accounts. Go to the bank and ask your bank officer if you can open up a future account. Then tell them you'd like to deposit a lot of future money, because you know you are going to be the next American Idol and land a huge recording deal and make millions of dollars. Your potential is as good as gold. So start spending the future now.

home insurance : This one is going to sound counter-intuitive and illegal. But just go with me on this. First buy a lot of home insurance. I know, it's pricey, but remember to use one of your future accounts. Then, burn down your house. Again, I know that sounds like you are wasting a lot of money because you just bought all that wonderful new furniture from Ikea. But remember, you paid for it with your credit cards, so you aren't losing that money this year (next year is a different story). Also, insurance fraud is extremely illegal. So you are going to need to make it look like an accident, and one that wasn't your fault. Your best bet is to pay a mute homeless guy to run through your house while on fire. That way if he survives, he can't tell anybody, and you know he'll totally do it because man, it's cold outside.

Well there you go. There's my advice on how you can save money. And it was free! See, you're saving money already!

Autotape

Autotape

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It's not what it looks like...

Okay, let me explain. Every year my Grandfather treats my family to a trip to Disney World (Have I written that thank you note yet?). One of our favorite rides is Splash Mountain. For those of you who don't know, it is a ride that ends with a huge plummet into a pool of water. On the way down a camera catches unsuspecting riders' reactions to the freaky fall. But the Smith family is anything but unsuspecting. We are in fact extremely suspecting. Each year we decide on a different pose and strike it at the appropriate moment. This year we went with "The Family Road Trip" and recreated a scene from our drive down to Florida all the way from Missouri. The participants were my parents, my wife and I, my sister and her husband, and Karter, my 10 year old cousin. In the front row my father was driving and my mom was pointing. In the second row my wife was holding the map. In the third row my cousin and I were supposed to be sleeping, and in the last row my sister and her husband were making out. Here's the thing...my cousin gets a little scared on these rides and instead of striking his pose, he um...well...he ducked. And it looks...well, here take a look.

I'm going to jail...

(click on picture for a close up)

Nate the Reviewer

So I just recently earned a position writing for Portland, Oregon's 2nd biggest newspaper, the Willamette Week. I am working in their Arts & Culture section writing comedy listings and movie reviews. The first review I was sent out to do was for "Code Name: The Cleaner." I think was my editor's way of hazing me. So go here for my review, WWire.

Where Panda Bears can ride Unicorns...

Hussein In the Membrane

After decades of one of the most epic cat & mouse games in history, America finally caught Saddam Hussein. After batting this sinister mouse around in an international court case, the big cat decided it was tired of playing games and sent Saddam to the noose. After all this time and energy has been spent to bring this man to justice, my question is: A hanging? Really? Kind of anti-climatic, don’t you think? In this day and age, it is not very often that the whole world (mostly) will rally around the use of the death penalty. But Saddam was just the guy to bring us all together. So now we have the chance to participate in a good old-fashioned public killing, and all we can come up with is a hanging? Is that all we got? We live in the age of ridiculous inventions like Gogurt, battery powered tape measures, and toaster ovens made specifically for hotdogs. If we can put our brainpower to use to create these amazing unnecessities (I just coined that term) then I think we can find a more entertaining way to off one of the world’s worst villains since Hitler. I say we’re just not trying hard enough. Here are a few ideas on how I would have killed Saddam Hussein.

If I Killed Saddam: How I Wish They Did It

1. Take him into outer space, and videotape someone shoving him out of the space ship without a space suit on. I’ve always wanted to see what it would look like if somebody imploded.
2. Two Words: Gallagher Show.
3. Hang him by bungee chord over a pool of man-eating Piranhas. If one way doesn’t work, the other will.
4. Russian Roulette…with bazookas.
5. Fox’s new Reality TV show “Who Wants to Assassinate a Dictator?”
6. Show him the true meaning of chemical warfare and send him to a “Bath & Body Works” outlet center.
7. Lock him in a room with Tom Cruise and tell Tom that Saddam uses psychiatry and painkillers.
8. Samuel L Jackson’s next movie-Saddams on a Plane. “I’m tired of these Motherf-ing Dictators, on this Motherf-ing plane!”
9. Send him hunting with Dick Cheney.
10. Put him in a room with a gun, one bullet, and a recording of Simon Cowell criticizing him playing on a loop.

I just want to express my gratitude to Saddam Hussein for all he has done in order to make it possible for me to write this sort of article without any kind of moral dilemma. It’s not often that a comedian can be so callous about this sort of thing without being considered edgy or offensive. But thanks to Saddam and all his unspeakable acts of inhumanity I could write an article about how I think a man should have been killed just days after he was put to death. Thank you Saddam.

Blog Blog

Well, it is the new year. I was kind of hoping Nate would get things started off right by being more consistent with his blog entries. But no, we are 18.5 hours into the new year and he has yet to post anything. It is almost as if he is on vacation or something. It's like he is with his family participating in traditional activities. Or maybe it's like he is busy going through airport security or sitting on airplanes while traveling across the country. Either way, he is boring the heck out of me. I mean, I'm sure he hasn't given up on me. And I'm sure he cares about his readers and doesn't want them to feel like he is abandoning them. But why would he spend so much time with his family when he could be writing inane blog posts about Unicorns and Panda Bears? At the very least he could have left one of his "Away Message" blogs to let me and his readers know he was going to be out of town.

Well, here's to hoping that 2007 won't continue down this dark path of despair. And for all of you faithful readers, don't give up on Nate. He loves you very much.