Grumpy Old Dan Smith

Daylight Savings Time No one really believes you can save daylight and if you could what are saving daylight for? Bug hunting? That’s why a guy from New Zealand proposed a two-hour time shift back in 1895. He wanted more time after work to pursue his passion after work. Did the bugs notice the time change. I sort of doubt it. Twice a year my world gets upset when we mess with our clocks. I’m not alone. Daylight saving time has been linked to heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, and […]

Streaming This is WLHA’s self-appointed editorial director Grumpy Old Dan Smith and here’s what makes me grumpy: Streaming. Streaming technology started when some smart people discovered a way to send stuff between two places without wires. It became what we call radio, then television, then streaming text and today streaming delivers tv shows, movies, music, games and, yes, radio like WLHA the Big 64. People cut their cables, took down their satellite dishes and today subscribe to places like YouTube, Netflix, Pandora, Hulu, Spotify anything else that’s been invented in […]

How that planet still has kings and queens and princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses, sultans and emperors in the 21st century is lost on this plebian. There are 44 countries that still claim royalty but only a handful that have any real ruling power. None the less, we just seem to love our royals. We seem to love them more the more they misbehave. I know this because I watch the Crown. Here in America, we call our royalty celebrities. We don’t need a king. We have The Weekend. […]

I’m self-appointed WLHA editorial director Grumpy Old Dan Smith and here’s what makes me grumpy: To do Lists. To do lists may work for others but they just make me depressed. Maybe I should call mine Things I-probably-should-have-done-but didn’t list. I just found an old to do list and as I look at it, I’m depressed that I didn’t do one thing on the list: I didn’t lose weight. I didn’t go to the gym. And I didn’t read War and Peace. I didn’t even go to the bookstore to […]

I’m self-appointed WLHA editorial director Grumpy Old Dan Smith and here’s what makes me grumpy: Happiness. What if I told you that being grumpy help you make more money, have a healthy marriage and live longer? Believe me. A lot of people way smarter than I am study this stuff: the stuff about happy versus grumpy people. I feel pressure to be happy from everyone from my mother to my radio. While happy may seem like a good thing many studies indicate that you’re better off being grumpy. Some studies […]

Unfortunately, the snow thrower started and so I had to be a good neighbor and throw the snow on the sidewalk onto the lawn. With more snow in the forecast maybe I’ll figure out which way to point this beast.

Holiday Specials This season Hallmark will present at least twenty Christmas movies with titles ranging from Christmas She Wrote to Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Sweater—let’s face it, it’s tough coming up with original Christmas movie titles. And how about the rejected titles: Christmas in Solitary Confinement;  Rudolph the Red Nosed Uncle; Bells are Ringing in my Head.  Sure, these titles were rejected but at the pace of twenty movies per Christmas, we figure Hallmark will get around to most of them sooner than Santa can hitch up […]

I’m self-appointed WLHA editorial director Grumpy Old Dan Smith and here’s what make me grumpy: cheerful people. That’s right, cheerful people. If you’re one of these cheerful people I want to thank you for offering a bit of light in dark times. But what about those of us who like dark times? Can’t we wallow in the mud of negativity? Can’t we shoot whatever good idea you may have with our arrows of doom? If cheerful people had their way there would be no news media, no sad songs or […]

TV weather people. This comes from fellow Grump Doug Moe. As Doug put it: When did weather people decide they needed to be life coaches. We couldn’t agree more. Time was when weather people on TV just told you what the weather was, what it is and what’s it going to be. Enter media consultants and today, we not only get the temperature, humidity and forecast, we get a checklist: Bring your sunglasses, grab that raincoat, plenty of sunscreen, lots of water, don’t stare at the sun, check that survival […]

I’m WLHA self-appointed editorial director Grumpy Old Dan Smith and here’s what makes me grumpy: Fake fans. Fake fan noise today is what canned laughter was to sitcoms a few years ago. Oh, I get it. You knew it was fake then and you know it’s fake now. All I can figure is that the television producers think we’re complete idiots. Why stop with fake fans? How about fake announcers? Fake refs and dare I say fake computer-generated players? Oh wait, we have that. They’re called video games. Sports offers […]