Mainlining Christmas

This is a neat little book. It does a good job simultaneously existing as a children's book and a mock-children's book, which isn't an easy feat. We wound up getting this as a Christmas present from my parents, which was a good guess on their part: we'd been wanting to track it down for a while. The story is about a Hanukkah latke who's made, then winds up running around in pain and frustration, in part because of the boiling oil he was initially cooked in, but also because he can't find a place where he belongs in a world built around Christmas. The humor is sharp and dark, but not quite as dark as you might expect. Like Roald Dahl, Snicket has a good sense of what kids find funny and adults find horrific, and he exploits that line proficiently. Depending on the reader's tone of voice, this could easily be read as a silly storybook to a young kid or dark satire to an older crowd. The story works metaphorically for the sense of alienation felt by Jewis

Wow, what a terrible movie. I mean, we knew it was almost certainly terrible going in, but it descended to unanticipated levels of terribleness. It’s a TV movie from ABC Family. Do I need to say more? Okay, here goes. A rising-star publicist by the unlikely name of Sloane faces a ridiculous riff on Christmas Carol when her recently deceased client shows up to fix her love life. It’s… almost cute in places, but the whole package is just horrible. Characters who are supposed to be “awful” are immediately and obviously “awful” in the most stereotypical ways. Oh, and the main character used to date a cute doctor? Guess who she’ll end up with? The whole beginning is ridiculous as they try to establish a ludicrous status-quo. Sloane is dating the boss’ son and has a rivalry with an ex-boyfriend! Sloane sometimes doesn’t have time for everyone in her life because she has a busy job! Wow, sounds… normal. Sloane deals absurdly poorly with the whole haunted-by-the-ghost-of-your-client th

The name on this thing is somewhat ambiguous - the DVD is simply labeled "Saturday Night Live Christmas", but the special includes the word "Past." I'm going with that, because it's a more interesting name. I'm pretty sure I saw this compilation when it aired in 1999 (the selection of shorts was really familiar). It's a mix of old stuff, along with stuff that was new when it aired, but is now just slightly less old. In total, there are 18 skits on this DVD, which comes out to around an hour-fifteen. They didn't bother including any extras, which is a little baffling. The skits aren't all great, but with twenty-four seasons of holiday shows to pick and choose from, they were certainly able to find some entertaining bits. Like most SNL compilations, this makes the show look a hell of a lot better than it's ever actually been. There are a handful of high points, including "The Lost Ending of It's a Wonderful Life," wher

After I had so much fun last year re-painting angels into geek icons , I thought this year I'd create a few monsters.  I bought this little statue (just under 4") at a thrift store. Here's the before pictures: Really all I did to this was clean it and repaint it. The white wash on her skin looks better in person, but the rest of it photographed well.  Back view:

Freakonomics did a 15-minute podcast on Christmas gifts last year . It features an extended interview with Steve Levitt, who offers some surprisingly sweet advice on gift-giving. In addition, you get a handful of clips with other economists on the subject, most of which serve as good reminders that economists are extremely intelligent creatures which shouldn't interact with humans. It's certainly worth a listen, but then Freakonomics usually is.

It turns out I remember Nicktoons better than I thought I did, because I remembered this episode as we watched it. That’s always an odd feeling. It was also odd that it never once came up in this heavily Christmas-themed episode that one of the adults is Jewish, and the main kid is thus half-Jewish. At first I thought: maybe they hadn’t decided that about the characters at this point in the show (The Rugrats Chanukah special didn’t hit ‘til 1996) but a little googling tells me that it was in the first episode. So… that’s weird. I guess they didn’t think the viewing kids could handle more than one religion at a time. And anyway, this one’s all about Santa. For most of the episode, it’s actually quite well done. The episode is just packed with intertwining plots. Angelica’s dad is concerned about her being traumatized by the unmasking of a mall Santa (she’s just pissed that the toys the store gave her for her temper tantrum aren’t the expensive stuff she wants). Chuckie is afraid

In our quest to experience the full breadth of Christmas, this year we purchased a good number of products that were slightly... unexpected.  This is not an exhaustive list by a long shot of things going candy-striped for the holidays, just some of the ones we came across. First we'll take a look at a Limited Edition ice cream. Dreyer's (Edy's east of the Rocky Mountains) has a seasonal flavor: Peppermint Wonderland. This is the low-fat version. The full-fat variation has more explicitly Christmas packaging, with candy canes and all. I really couldn't say why the low-fat is more 'generic winter' looking... In any case, it's peppermint flavored ice cream with slightly gooey peppermint candy bits. I liked it, although it was a bit strong. Erin was less enthusiastic.  With the addition of a little Hershey's syrup, however, even he pronounced it "fine".  And then he ate the rest. Next, let'