Josh's blog

Monday, February 28, 2005

Relativity

There are a lot of Smiths in the world and you would think that people would be smart enough to realize that we're not all related. The other day, I had a guy ask me if I was related to the Josh Smith that plays in the Cleveland Orchestra. What is this? Is the likelihood of me being related to another Smith increased by the fact that they have the same first name also? No. But I still find myself being asked by people, "Hey are you related to so-and-so Smith, or Whats-her-face Smith?" My answer is generally - No. But in some rare cases, the answer is yes. This entry sets out to answer some of those burning questions you might have as to who I am, and am not related to.

"Errm - Josh? None of us care who you're related too. Besides you're probably just going to make stuff up anyway."
So what?
"We'll we just don't want you getting any delusions of grandeur that we care all that much. Besides - you're doing that talking to yourself thing again."
Oh, sorry.
"It's alright, we've actually kind of missed you."
I've missed you too, voices-in-my-head-who-I-pretend-are-my-blog-readers. So here it is - Famous/Infamous Smiths that I may or may not be related to! Category: Dead Smiths! The Famous Captain John Smith of Pocahontas fame, most recently seen as a Disney character. John was a writer, his stories were - for the most part - fabrications. John... Telling stories, claiming things happened to you that really didn't - for shame. That reminds me, maybe sometime in the near future I'll write about the time I drove a Porsche 911 at 200 mph on Route 8, while blindfolded, eating soup... Dodie, another writer! She wrote the book 101 Dalmations. She actually owned a dalmation named Pongo and her family owned eight other dalmations. Other than that I found Dodie to be quite boring. Ever find yourself laying on the couch on a Sunday afternoon, there's nothing interesting on and you end up watching Xena: Warrior Princess or Hercules? If so, you might have seen Kevin in all his crappy fake goatee glory! He played the Greek god Ares. Sadly Kevin died at a young age, so much for that immortality thing.. Good luck finding any info on how he died though. The only site that said anything about it was in Italian and - non parlo italiano molto buon. Category: Smiths with the same name as my family! Well, I wasn't having any luck finding any living Smiths that I was related to so I decided to look for some with the same names as my family. First I looked for my mom's name and boy did I hit the jackpot... Yes - you read that web address right - that's not chef it's "The Pampered Prisoner" dotcom. Candy Smith - also know as prisoner number W052124 in the Marysville Ohio Reformatory for Women. Incarcerated until 4/2007 for drug trafficking. Candy's just like any other convicted felon, "Looking to meet an older, financially stable, intelligent man." Sorry Candy, I've never run across any personal ads reading: "Financially stable, intelligent man seeks the companionship of incarcerated drug trafficking white female to share hopes, dreams and life with." But then again, I don't read many personal ads - good luck Candy. Look Ma! It's your namesake and she's in "Jayull!" Dad lucks out with this guy a genuine CCM artist. CCM stands for contemporary Christian music, I just found that out. I listened to some of his music samples, He's actually quite good. And with the bald head thing he should go pretty far, heck it seems to be working for Charlie Hall, Phil Collins, James Taylor, and that guy from The Newsboys. There are a ton of Ben Smith's on the web, but this guy isn't one of them. Ben of Buford, GA works for Kubota and drives an antique John Deere in tractor pulls. I don't want to say anything mean or remotely rude about this guy - given the fact that he probably knows some of "the boys" from Buford and you really don't want them coming after you. Another musician, this time a drummer. I listened to his music samples and I hear drums in the background. They're definitely keeping rhythm but, everybody else is playing a different song. Maybe it's "scat" or "jazz" or "some kind of music that people play random notes that don't sound well together." Whatever it is, Nate's back there banging away on the drums hoping that the guys in his band have finally learned to read music. Category: Other Interesting Smiths ! I'd have to say that Margo, is by far my favorite of all the Smith's I've run across on the web. She's a yodeler. Listen to a clip of He Taught Me to Yodel, it's awesome. How do people do that! The best part is from her bio on cmt.com, it states:
In 1979, Smith had two major hits and decided to affect a sexier image, appearing in only a satin robe on the cover of her album Just Margo. In the early '80s, Smith reverted to her previous wholesome image.
I guess Satin robes and Country/Gospel music don't mix. Visit her site and you can also visit her home. She'll be on tour this summer and will be doing three shows daily at Dollywood. You'll hear other big hits like God's Bigger than Wall Street, An Old Memory Got in My Eye and much, much more! I just had to keep looking on this site for more Smiths, this one has quite a story. On ThePamperedPrisoner she lists herself as Toria, when in fact her name is actually, Tonia. She describes herself as a "Tall, Nubian Queen, down-to-earth, educated, high moral values, sweet & sexy." Wait a second, did you just read "high moral values"? Maybe, as long as you don't count killing people as something that goes against your morals. Well, maybe she's reformed if not she might be by the time she gets out in January of 2023. There's a familiar face! Dave is the head youth pastor at The Chapel. He's actually been pretty sick lately. Hope you feel better Dave! You might want to ask the doctors if you're supposed to have that pink glow radiating from your body. Whatever Dave had is spreading, the book has it now too! Actually this is a different Dave who offers practical advice for staying at the top of the food chain. One thing that cracked me up - the heading on the back cover - "Avoid Unpleasant Encounters." Really? Being eaten would be unpleasant?!? Speaking of being eaten, Kir and I ate at Texas Roadhouse a few weekends ago and I had the ribs & sirloin platter. I told Kirsten that if I'm ever eaten, I hope I have "fall off the bone" ribs. Mmmh. Well that's pretty much it, I could go on and on with all the Smiths on the net. William Kennedy Smith, Susan Smith - the one that drowned her kids, Patti Smith - the hairy armpit singer... We keep going and going, I'd probably never find one that I'm related to though. Oh well. Except for TheCoffeeSmith, that's Dad - look him up if you want a really good cup of coffee. If you think I've left any real important ones out, let me know. On behalf of all the other Smith's out there, stop asking us - the answer is no. None of us are actually related to anyone you know. Oh, I am related to Will Smith though. Yeah, he's my cousin - on my mom's side.

Monday, February 21, 2005

Josh Smith is a busy man

I've been working on a few different projects lately. Revising navigation on a couple of sites, getting some behind the scenes things for Gitgan moving. But mostly - I've been playing a lot of basketball. I was picked up by the Atlanta Hawks and I've been known to bring down the hammer on occasion. This weekend I won the Slam Dunk Competition - LeBron was talking about me and said I'm pretty much assured victory. Check it out here. Yeah, I'm a busy guy alright. Check out my player profile at "espn.com" - Be sure to mouse over the different stats and check out the little messages that pop up.

Saturday, February 05, 2005

Monday...

Carl Monday I don't know if every "big city" news channel has one of these guys but, in Cleveland ours is Monday, Carl Monday - and don't you forget it buster! Actually, Carl won't let you forget it. Last night, after bible study, Kirsten and I were watching the news and a Carl Monday Special Report!! came on. My impression of this guy is that he spends more time irritating than investigating. Anyway, last night's report is about little girls who grow their hair out and then donate it to an organization called Locks of Love, who then make wigs for people who have lost their hair from radiation or chemotherapy treatments. A great organization and a good way for parents to teach kids about helping others. Monday received a tip that a local beauty salon that was supposed to be sending the cut off coiffures to Locks of Love didn't follow through. The company was putting the hair into ziplock bags and keeping them in a box - to send as soon as the box was full. However, some of the hair in the box was 9+ months old. Good thing we've got... Carl Monday to sort stuff like this out. I mean - if I were the one who found out that the salon hadn't sent the hair out in a while I would have just volunteered to pay for the shipping. It's not like it was a big box of hair either so it probably would have cost five bucks to have UPS take it. Kind of makes you wonder though - what would a big box of hair weigh? But Monday really came through on this one, investing probably thousands of dollars of WKYC's money into a non-story. And if you think seeing this Carl Monday graphic over and over in my blog is annoying you should see the video. If you're reading this close to the publish date you still can. You see the graphic SEVEN times in a six minute segment.

  1. As the anchorwoman is speaking
  2. As the segment begins
  3. at 2min. 15sec. into the segment
  4. again at 2min. 40sec. into the segment
  5. once again at 3min. 18sec.
  6. one more time at 4min. 20sec.
  7. one last time as Monday wraps up live in the newsroom
This is why I get my news from the radio. p.s. - I've never owned a cat but, in that video @ 3min. 47sec., is that normal?
Attack Cat!!

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

My playlist

First off I want to say thank you to my wife for getting me an iPod for Christmas. I was honestly speechless when I opened it. I've been a U2 fan for a long time and this is definitely the most useful of all the U2 memorabilia I own. Thanks again babe! That being said and since it's a "trippy internet community-ish exercise" I thought I'd post my own iPod shuffle list. (Links only work if you have iTunes installed)

  1. The New Pollution - Beck - Odelay
  2. Even Better Than The Real Thing - U2 - Achtung Baby
  3. Salt Bag Spill - Citizen King - Mobile Estates
  4. Virtual Insanity - Jamiroquai - Travelling Without Moving
  5. Drowning Man - U2 - War
  6. Burn For You - TobyMac - Welcome to Diversity
  7. Flagpole Sitta - Harvey Danger - Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone
  8. Instrumental 3 - Chris Rice - Smell the Color 9
  9. Famous One - Chris Tomlin - Not To Us
  10. Tornado - Sara Groves - All Right Here
I'm glad the boys from Dublin showed up a couple of times. I think it's a pretty good representation of my musical choices. I've also added a couple of non-musical tracks to the pod. This guys on quite a roll - so far a four week sermon series uploaded plus the beginnings of at least a two week series on "Extreme Makeovers". Go on and add ole' Gunderwood to your playlist! You might learn something - I did.