The Perfect Christmas

Christmas might be all about the big, family-focused celebration on the 25th, but if you slack off during the crucial Christmas Spirit Prep Phase you might as well not even show up at Mom's doorstep on Christmas Eve.

I will be taking the following steps in the coming weeks to guarantee that 2008 is remembered as "The Year Josh had the Perfect Christmas."

1. Wear Holiday Flannel - as Vince Vaughan movies will attest, any asshole can wear a Santa hat; true Christmas fashion is a more subtle thing. I will be wearing my new green and red flannel for a few hours most (if not every) day between now and December 25th to establish a solid power base of Christmas Spirit. Its festive grid of overlapping green and red squares will be spreading subliminal seasonal cheer to store clerks, bank tellers, and bartenders all over the Seacoast Region.

2. Pound Christmas Tree Cakes - Christmas Tree Cakes are the most disgusting, over-sugared, confectionery poison in the Little Debbie line-up of snack cakes. No matter how pure your Christmas Spirit, it is impossible to eat an entire cake without feeling just a little ill. Nevertheless, I will manfully commit to eating at least one entire box of these snack-sized delights before Christmas Eve.

3. Get Serious About Your Soundtrack - I've chosen A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector as this year's Official Christmas Soundtrack - all your Christmas favorites belted in full Wall of Sound, high-octave, Girl Group force. I'm giving this the edge over other Christmas albums based on the inclusion of The Greatest Christmas Song Ever, Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)."



4. Pound Holiday Brews - I can't really stomach eggnog (at least in concept; I've never actually tried it) and so will be turning to seasonal beers to get my Christmas buzz going. This year's chosen brew: Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale.

5. Start but Don't Stop at Home - As the Christmas Spirit I generate at home begins to snowball and gain momentum, I plan to let it avalanche into my 9-5 life. Maybe a Christmas tie? Maybe a miniature Christmas tree in the cubicle? Definitely candy canes in all my pockets.



If all goes according to plan, one day I will leave my desk, pluck a candy cane from my tree, drive home with the Ronettes belting out "Sleigh Ride" (traffic be damned, I'll listen to it twice), return home, don my Holiday Flannel, and kick back with a Christmas Tree Cake and a Celebration Ale and watch Home Alone. And in that perfect moment when the shards of broken ornaments pierce Marv's bare feet and my lips taste of candy cane/beer/pastry, I will look down to brush the green and red sugar crystals from my green and red checked chest, and The Perfect Christmas will be mine.

Smoothies and Jeremy Davies

Being both a finicky and a reluctant eater, most of my diet choices are based on either convenience or caprice. My recent relocation has taken me out of walking distance from my preferred burrito and pizza establishments and I've had to adjust accordingly. A winter infatuation with fruit cups paved the way for the reintroduction of fresh and frozen fruit into my life and combined with sudden access to a blender and the urge to eat as many bananas as I can before the bananapocalypse I now take at least one meal a day in smoothie form.

Semi-logical jump: I just wrapped up the fourth season of Lost, which is set on a tropical fruit filled island and guest stars oft gaunt actor Jeremy Davies as physicist Daniel Faraday (left, in Rescue Dawn). I have mixed feelings about Lost after the stellar first two seasons were followed by a flaccid third but Davies was a welcome addition to the cast and brought some much needed energy to season four.

Does Davies have the magic touch? A quick glance at his recent filmography - littered with choice roles in films such as Rescue Dawn, Dogville, and Secretary - seems to suggest that he does. Upon closer scrutiny, even Davies' roles in clunkers like Saving Private Ryan and Million Dollar Hotel provided watchable moments in otherwise iffy films.

"This Davies kid is money. I'm telling you. The numbers don't lie!"

Davies never garners any awards attention or makes any publications' lists of best/sexiest/banged most B-list starlets but is it possible that his presence on screen elevates whatever project he's currently involved with? I wish someone would come up with a way to gauge actor efficiency in much the same way that Hollinger's PER system offers statistical insight into a basketball player's actual value to their team.

Casting directors seem to be a subjective bunch who rely heavily on chance and instinct but I like to imagine them sitting around like GMs in the war room, pounding coffee by the gallon, scrawling on marker boards and pointing to the irrefutable statistical evidence that Jeremy Davies' arsenal of brooding glances and physical tics guarantees big time results no matter the size of the screen.

Bananas on the Brink

Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, reports that the banana as we know it may soon become a thing of the past.

Lack of genetic variation makes bananas especially susceptible to infection and Panama disease, the fungus that wiped out the Gros Michel banana of our grandparents generation, is now threatening the modern Cavendish banana. Read Koeppel's article Banana R.I.P for an excellent overview of the impending crisis.

For those interested in learning more about the fate of America's most popular fruit, Koeppel's website, bananabook.org, is a comprehensive resource for all banana related news and events.

PBR & Pringles

After reading the lovely piece about the man who plans to be buried in a PBR-can coffin, I thought I'd share another strange news article about brand name burials.

The inventor of the Pringles can was buried in a Pringles can.

Product Review: Kashi TLC - Natural Ranch Tasty Little Crackers

For those who know me, this will come as no surprise: I do not like foods with strong tastes. For me, usually, the blander, the better.

With that said, I would like to offer a review of Kashi Natural Ranch TLC all natural snack crackers. Kashi has wittily used the acronym TLC to refer to “tasty little crackers.” After tasting these crackers, I have to ask, who wouldn’t want to give themselves a little TLC with these TLCs?

Aesthetically, they leave something to be desired; they look like a snack you may give a small rodent or bird. And, the consistency is what you’d expect from a cracker made from 7 whole grains, and no hydrogenated oils or trans fats – crispy and grainy. Don’t be surprised if you get a seed stuck in your teeth. However, the taste is absolutely heavenly: Earthy, hearty, with the slightest hint of ranch. After you take a sip of water, the taste is essentially completely cleared from your pallet, unlike many other ranch flavored snacks that seem to linger for hours on the back of your tongue.

While not particularly high in fiber (8% of your daily suggested value per serving), the sodium content is extremely low for a salty snack at 200mg. And as we all know, foods sans trans fats and high in whole grains are heart-healthy!

I bought these crackers at a small, over-priced campus grocer for $3.49, but I’m sure in a more traditional grocery store, they’d be much cheaper. If you can’t find them with the other snack crackers, try the health food aisle.