Christmas is tough.

Being Jewish, and having grown up in a household where Christmas passed each year with varying degrees of indifference and hostility, I never really had to do anything to mark the occasion. But thanks to Courtney’s influence, I’ve become more into the holiday over the years; more so now that Eli is able to get something out of the fun. Hell, I can even stand the music in (very) small doses. Sometimes.

Still, decorating the house for the holiday is more or less a suicide mission.

It began innocently enough, with a simple light-up snowman. Frosty was sold more or less assembled, save a few zipties that had to be strategically placed to ensure no strong winds would tear it asunder. The process was more challenging than I anticipated, but I was able to get our front-yard decoration up and running fairly easily and with all of my fingers still attached. Then, I decided to hang a few “icicle style” lights from the front of the house.

As an aside, Courtney was not terribly insistent about these decorations, and truth be told, I was rather adamant about needing to put up *something.* We agreed that Eli would get a kick out of the snowman, and I felt strongly that we just had to do something else in addition. Driving around town, I mutter to myself every time we pass a house with a ridiculously intricate set-up, with the lights all over the house, on every bush, with Santa and his reindeer soaring through the trees, with inflatable Mickey’s and Winnie the Pooh’s and Spongebob’s covering every square inch of their property. I mean, being next to these houses, if you don’t put at least some effort into your decorations, *you* end up looking like a jerk. It’s crazy, right?

As Courtney pointed out, I have been swept up in the insanity of suburban life.

It was hard to argue with her as I found myself struggling to maintain my balance on our 8-foot ladder outside our house, trying to get a handful of lights over our bay window.

When we bought the lights, we also bought a “kit” that helps you put up the lights – it’s am extendable rod with hooks that allow for easy installation of lights – no ladder required!

Suffice it to say, it didn’t help much.

Trying to jam the hooks for the lights under our shingles was no small feat, and it did require a balancing act on a very tall ladder, resting on uneven dirt.

Also, why is it that these icicle lights, that are supposed to hang down vertically (hence the name), much prefer to stay in little bunches? Straightening these things out while on a tall ladder is not my idea of a good time.

Despite my struggles, I was eventually able to get the lights up, but it occurred to me that I struggled mightily with just one pathetically small amount of decoration, while all of our neighbors seem to have no trouble doing much more every year. Maybe I’ll get better with practice… if I don’t kill myself or tear down the house in the process.

Which brings me to the next part of my story. Saturday night we went out to pick out a beautiful Christmas tree under which Santa can put all of Eli’s many toys. We found a place that was open late, offered free hot cider, and are happy to attach the tree to the top of your car for free. How nice!

Until of course, I attempted to drive into the carport with the tree still on top of the car.

Yeah, I did that.

It sounded something awful, and I immediately imagined the entire carport collapsing, crushing us, our cars, and the Balsam Fir that we never even got to decorate.

Luckily, we didn’t seem to do any major structural damage to the carport, and as a bonus, getting the tree off of the car was much easier now that the carport roof had done most of the work for me. Plus, there were just a lot of branches on there that made the tree look far too healthy and full for my tastes. Now, we have a much more “Peanuts”-esque tree at home. Like this:

Hey, less tree means less pine needles to sweep up later! Right?! Ugh.

Alright, Christmas, you’ve bested the Jew this year, but I’ll be ready for you again next December!

Maybe.

The other day, I was reading a friend of mine’s blog, and he had written a post about the random keyword searches that bring people to his blog. I read that, and I thought to myself, “Hey, there’s a great idea I can borrow!”  And of course, by “borrow,” I mean “steal.”  But regardless, I now bring you some of the bizarre Google searches that lead strangers to this blog.

“Huge wood chipper” and “wood chipper what to do with wood chips” – I didn’t realize that wood chipping was such a big deal, but apparently an awful lot of people have questions about them. And they are no doubt disappointed when they are led to my rants and raves about Why I Hate Larry.

“Ron Jeremy,” “Katherine McPhee,” and “Katherine McPhee in Halloween” - Speaking of people being disappointed, I somehow get the sneaking suspicion that the folks looking for images of the infamous ‘hedgehog’ Ron Jeremy and über-babe Kat McPhee were not hoping to see them standing next to my lame-ass on my Brushes With Greatness page. Also, what does “Katherine McPhee in Halloween” even mean? Were they looking for shots of her in a slinky Halloween get-up? Maybe including the word “costume” would have helped their search be more successful.

“Entenmann’s donut holes” and “pop ems” - That’s right, folks, I am not the only person out there that is convinced that Popems are in fact The Perfect Food.

“Short Circuit movie” – Three and a half years ago, there were reports of a remake of the 80’s classic movie, Short Circuit. I wrote a post featuring ten questions I had about the remake, and it still amazingly drives traffic here.

“iv league schools” - Because I’m a pretentious jerk, I wrote an informative and helpful post on what defines the Ivy League. Unfortunately, the fact that people think that it is in fact spelled “iv” and not “ivy” completely justifies my elitist mindset.

“LIRR Quiet cars” - My raving about loud people on the Long Island trains actually led to a Newsday reporter finding my site and contacting me for comment when the news broke that it was actually going to happen. Sadly, I didn’t get his email until after his deadline, and I wasn’t quoted in his piece. Bummer.

“Pink dumbbells,” “rolled up tshirt,” “iced tea,” and “swedish fish” – When I wrote my piece on Baby Measuring, I had to find pictures of all sorts of random images. Oddly and rather surprisingly, other people also searching for these images have ended up at my blog. Maybe they need them for their own blog musings about who-knows-what, or maybe they’ve just never seen a pitcher of iced tea and are doing some research. Regardless, you’d be shocked at how many people do Google searches for pink dumbbells every single day.

“Happy Birthday pictures of handsome men” – I swear I’m not making this one up… Apparently a bing search of that phrase brings you to my Housewarming Party pictures page. I have no idea what that bizarre search phrase means, but I choose to interpret it as a strange kind of interwebs compliment.

Bret McKenzie, one-half of the hilariously amazing music duo Flight of the Conchords, wants to do a movie.

I want them to do one, too.

We were listening to a few FotC tracks on our road trip last weekend, and Courtney and I were discussing just how hilarious that show was. She said she had to warm up to it – for me, I was in love from the second Bret started singing about the most beautiful girl in the room. I was fairly heart-broken when the HBO show signed off after two short seasons, so obviously a follow-up movie sounds like a damn fine idea to me.

And since he thinks it could be done in a month, even better!

(Oh, and the fact that Bret co-wrote the songs for The Muppets makes me want to see *that* movie even more, too!)

A random poll for my loyal readers:

If you wanted better cell phone service, would you stand closer to a pay phone?

If you were having some problems getting your GPS to find its signal in a tunnel, would you rub it on a road map?

If your watch was running a bit slow, would you leave it overnight on a freestanding clock?

If your digital camera’s pictures came out blurry, would you show it some of your favorite prints so it could learn a thing or two about proper framing and lighting?

If your electronic gizmo ran out of power, would you hope to give it some additional juice by putting it on a pile of batteries?

If your calculator was on the fritz, would you place it near an abacus for a day or two?

If you wanted some new music for your ipod, would you rest it on top of some speakers that were playing your favorite tunes?

If you needed some wi-fi access, would you hold your non-connected device to a nearby desktop computer and hope for the best?

No?  You wouldn’t?  Because each one of those things is more ridiculous than the last?

OK.  Just checking.

Thanksgiving has always been one of my most favorite holidays.  And why wouldn’t it be – it combines my three favorite “F’s” – family, food, and four-day weekend.

Love it as I do, there is one thing I will never understand about Thanksgiving: the turkey.

Because here’s the thing about turkey.

It’s not that great.

If it was, wouldn’t we eat it more than once a year?

Sure, people eat turkey burgers and turkey breast sandwiches once in a while.  But how often do you really eat a whole roasted turkey?  Just the last Thursday of November.

On the Fourth of July, people traditionally eat hamburgers.  But we also eat hamburgers the rest of the year, too.  Why?  Because burgers are awesome!  Why on Earth would you only eat them once a year?  That would be madness!

And think about it: what makes a good turkey dinner?  Gravy, stuffing, side dishes.  People rave about deep-fried turkeys, but anything tastes great when it’s deep fried.  Or how about turducken?  You need two other animals to make the turkey more tasty – what does that tell you?

This year, I’ll eat turkey on Thanksgiving, just like I do every year.  But the majority of my plate will be overflowing with everything else: the sweet potatoes, the stuffing (even if it’s not from White Castle), the corn bread and biscuits, and of course, the desserts.

And isn’t that the food that everyone REALLY looks forward to?  I’d gladly have a smaller portion of turkey to save room for a fourth slice of pie any day.  But definitely on Thanksgiving Day, when that is not actually frowned upon.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I just walked past a burnt-out school bus on Seventh Avenue.

Thank G-d, there were apparently no injuries in the fire.

What freaked me out, other than the obvious, was that at first, I didn’t even notice the bus.  There looked to be a large crowd ahead of me on the west side of Seventh Avenue, so I crossed over to the east side.  People were all looking and pointing at something, but I just assumed it was tourists gawking at a minor celebrity or TV filming or something like that.  Come on, can’t you see I’m walking here?

Then I saw the bus.  It had stopped smoking, but it had been totally burnt out.  Then I started to really worry.  What happened?  Were there kids on there?  Are they OK?  Jeez, it’s almost Thanksgiving – what’s going to happen to those families?

Thankfully, the initial reports said that the bus was empty, and that no one was hurt.  Now I can only imagine the parents of the kids that got off that bus before it burned up, hugging their kids tighter than ever before.  It’s scary and awful, but things like that are a good reminder for us all to be grateful for the good fortunes in life.

Over the past quarter-century, Super Mario has battled many foes: his arch-nemesis Bowser, Daisy-napping alien Tatanga, future frenemy Wario, and a bizarre Shadow Mario that turned out to be Bowser Jr. in disguise.  (Obviously I am excluding Wart, since Mario never actually battled him, what with the whole thing being just a dream and all.)

But now, Mario is squaring off against his most unusual enemy yet: the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Here’s the long story short: In Mario’s latest adventure, Super Mario 3D Land (IwantitIwantitIwantit), Mario can use the Tanooki power-up, an item that hasn’t been seen since Super Mario Bros. 3.  When Mario gets this power-up, he grows a Tanooki tail, which he can use to hover over short distances.  Totally awesome, right?

Well, not according to PETA.  Because “Tanooki” isn’t just a made-up funny sounding word – it’s actually the name of a real animal in Japan.  PETA calls the tanuki a “raccoon dog,” that is often skinned alive for its fur.  Obviously, that is a horrible thing, and no animal should ever be made to suffer in such a horrible way; PETA is certainly justified in it’s outrage there.

But they made a pretty big leap in logic after that.  Their website makes the bold (and ludicrous) statement that: “By wearing Tanooki, Mario is sending the message that it’s OK to wear fur.”

Um… what?

They know Mario is a cartoon video game character, right?

I mean, he wore a frog suit in SMB3 – does that promote people killing frogs and wearing their skins to swim faster?  Do his adventures in Super Mario Galaxy encourage players to go into space without a space helmet and adequate oxygen supply? Does his riding Yoshi constitute dino-abuse?

And let’s not just focus on Mario.  Link has been wailing on chickens for his perverse amusement for years.  What about those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – do they promote the youth of the world to soak their pet turtles in mutagenic ooze and then train them to fight?  Let’s not forget Sonic, and the hedgehog abuse implied there.  And despite what happens in the Raving Rabbids series, not all rabbits enjoy playing unending wacky mini-games.

Not surprisingly, PETA faced the wrath of the nerds after news of their Mario-bashing went viral.  Now, they’re telling fans of the iconic character to “Relax!”  They’re saying that their crusade against the moustachioed plumber was a humorous way to call attention to a serious problem.  They said they were shocked by the backlash.  All they were doing was trying to protect the poor little raccoon dogs of Japan.

Yeah.  Well.  The thing is, they really did it ass backwards. A smarter, alternative strategy would have been for the organization to write an open letter to Nintendo.  In it, they could have said that Mario’s use of the Tanooki power-up is a fun element of a storied franchise, but that there is a serious problem with real-world tanuki being killed for their skins.  Then, they could have set-up a specific fund to collect money to help and protect the tanuki, and ask Nintendo to make a portion of the proceeds from Super Mario 3D Land go to that cause. The odds of the Big N going along with it would have been slim, but at least that strategy would have pressured a big company to help your cause or ignore you at their own peril. Instead, the PETA people have (once again) just made themselves look like nutjobs.

But hey, in the end, this is small potatoes for Mario. He’s the savior of the Mushroom Kingdom, the owner of a lucrative go-kart racing industry, a licensed physician, and the host of countless parties for his friends. If a handful of wackos don’t like all of his outfits, so be it. He can always just grab a vegan-friendly fire flower and just torch ‘em, after all.

It’s just like that old “You Might Be a Redneck” bit by Jeff Foxworthy – and at least twice as funny! (The former Mathletes among you will remember that anything times zero is still zero.)

• You see under-dressed kids walking around in the cold, and you think to yourself, “Man, those kids really should put on a jacket.”
• When you hear a screaming baby in public, you’re not annoyed by the noise; you just feel bad for the upset kid and the panicking parents.
• Your social calendar is completely dependent on a nap schedule.
• Watching movies or TV shows where bad stuff happens to kids has become infinitely more disturbing. The Walking Dead, I’m looking at you.
• Leaving the house now requires more preparing, packing, and planning than a foreign invasion.
• Getting someone else’s pee and poop on you is something you just sort of accept as part of your daily routine.
• You’d love to slap the $#!& out of not only the bastard who molests little boys and his pals who turned a blind eye, but also the whiny punks who are worried about how this atrocity may impact future sporting events.
• The songs that are most likely to be stuck in your head are “Wheels on the Bus” or “Old Mac Donald.”
• Even if you’re alone, you still have the urge to point out any truck, bus, train, or plane you happen to see. (This may apply more to the parents of boys.)
• You are completely baffled by the unending appeal of Elmo, Gymbo the clown, and Thomas the Tank Engine.
• The prospect of catching a cold seems far worse than it ever did before.
• You find yourself coveting your very own pair of footie pajamas.

Anything else I’ve left off the list?

We’re just a week and a half away from one of my favorite holidays of the year – Thanksgiving. I’m usually quite happy to handle the “eating” aspect of the special day, while leaving the “cooking” part to the more experienced family members.

The most notable exception was a few years back when I insisted that we grill the turkey, which ended up being pretty tasty. Since then, I’ve been pushing for a deep-fried turkey, but that request has so far fallen on deaf ears. But that’s OK, because now there’s something that sounds even more amazing that I am dying to try on Thanksgiving.

That’s right – a stuffing made from White Castle hamburgers! Click on the picture for a better look at the recipe:

This has to be the greatest coupon page… ever – it even includes a deal on a Crave Case so you can buy burgers for the stuffing, and have a few leftover!

It sounds pretty amazing, though I think if you’re planning on getting up early the next day for some Black Friday shopping at a super crowded mall, you *may* want to take it easy on the WC stuffing the day before…

You may not have known it, but today is a very special day:

It’s my mom’s 60th birthday!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

To mark the occasion, Chuck, Sam, Courtney and myself threw a surprise party for the (now officially) old lady (just kidding!) this past Saturday. Keeping the affair a secret was a big enough challenge, but things were made even more tricky with two very special out-of-town guests, Aunt Georgia and Cousin Ellen, who were secretly staying with us before the big bash.

That wouldn’t have been an issue, except that my mother will usually come by one night after work to hang out with Eli. Which is all well and good, except last week she asked if she could come by on Thursday, instead of her usual Wednesday. Only problem: Aunt Georgia and Ellen were going to be at our house on Thursday night.

Whoops.

My mom asked about coming over on Thursday over the phone, and I knew I had to make up a lie quick. Fun fact about me: I’m a terrible liar. I was floundering, trying to come up with a lame excuse. Courtney began pantomiming brushing her teeth. I had no idea what she was doing at first, but then I got it in a flash.

“You can’t come over on Thursday, Mom. That’s when we’re bringing Eli to the dentist.”

OK, maybe it wasn’t the greatest lie in the history of the world, but it worked…

At least at first.

See, on Friday, I had to call my mother again, this time to tell her that we’d be taking her out for lunch the next day. (We let her think it was going to be a simple lunch with just the immediate family – that way we could get her to the party location at the perfect time without arousing suspicion, while also maintaining the surprise that what was actually waiting for her was a big bash with the whole family and a bunch of friends.) Anyway, the call had gone perfectly, and everything was all set for the next day…

Until, just before saying our goodbyes, my sneaky mom (reference!) asked an out of the blue question:

“Oh, by the way, I wanted to ask how Eli did at the dentist. How many teeth does he have?”

How many teeth does he have? Who asks that? And how the hell should I know???

I’m floundering again. I have no clue how many teeth Eli’s got. What’s a good guess? Six? Ten? Eighty-Three? I look at Courtney, but this time, she is NOT being helpful. Instead of holding up a particular number of fingers, or a piece of paper with a good answer on it, she’s just covering up her mouth, doing all she can to not burst into hysterical laughter. Thanks, Babe!

I wasn’t thinking – I just blurted out a number. “Twelve!”

Being a terrible liar, my mom quickly sensed something was up. “Why are you so surprised that I asked that?”

“Uh, no reason,” I replied. “He really did well at the dentist…” Then I went into an overly long and detailed story about how they had cartoons on in the waiting room, and then they put on an Elmo DVD during the exam, which put Eli at ease. I figured I had totally blown it.

But my mom, ever trusting in her children’s nonsensical ramblings, was convinced.

See, that’s the great thing about my mom – she’s always going to ask a thoughtful and caring question about her family… and you can count on her to not get overly suspicious when the answer is dubious at best.

(As an aside, no, I never took advantage of my mother’s faith in her kids as a teenager. A certain sibling who’s name rhymes with Bamantha is another story, but that’s neither here nor there…)

Anyway, the party went off without a hitch, and Carole Abramson was able to ring in her seventh decade (!) on Earth in style! There was good wine, tasty food, a pair of good-natured roasts, and, because I was involved, a cheesy photo slideshow. Behold:

Have a great birthday, Mom!