Ah, the world of the Part 15 Radio Service. You've settled into a time and dimension with the potential for being the "wild, wild west." Those handhelds were most likely licensed under Part 15 like Citizen's Band (CB), the General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS), Remote Control (R/C) devices and toys, and a whole host of "unintentional radiators" like scanners and computers. Since you're a lawyer I'll send you to the rules via the shortest URL possible. Go to http://www.fcc.gov/oet/info/rules/ and click on "Part 15." Scroll down the list and you'll see not only the rules but the frequency bands that the baby monitors and the walkie-talkies can operate on legally. On the other hand, if the radios don't say that they're Type 15 Accepted (in the instructions or on a tag on the radio) you may want to contact a lawyer specializing in 47 CFR Part 15

As you scroll down Part 15 you see a daunting frequency list. If you have a scanner you could get lucky and find the frequencies quickly. If you know any amateur radio operators you can ask if they know anyone with a frequency counter or a spectrum analyzer -- they'd likely be curious to find the operating frequency, too. Newer equipment is likely to be higher in frequency (900 MHz and up) and harder to cover in a scanner. I only have one scanner that goes up to 1.3 GHz, for example.

The oldest baby monitors use a short list of possible frequencies. A Google search didn't reveal the Rescue Heroes frequency but some curious person may discover it and post it.

I'm impressed that you got them walkie-talkies. My appreciation for shortwave listening and two-way communications led me to get licensed, which contributed to me getting involved in my career in public safety. The internet can make us take even reliable and long-range communications for granted. Nice to see that kids still have access to real-time communications without a per-minute fee.

This is a case for N2DLY (a/k/a Joe-maha). Since Christmas I've been listening to the boys play with their Rescue Heroes walkie talkies and all I've wanted to do is instigate some good clean mischief. The best I've been able to do is convince Mojo to take his into the bathroom with him so he could report back the progress of his poop.

I can do better.

I've got some of those Motorola TalkAbout radios, a-and the old baby-room monitor, but they appear to be on different frequencies. Web research turns up nothing, but I'm certain to be missing key resources (frequency look-up tables, mod sites, anything).

Hey Nebraska! Got any ideas how I might inflitrate the communication link of the dreaded Rescue Heroes?

Many Christmas seasons ago, a malicious acquaintance of mine got me a plum pudding. We prepared it, spread it with hard sauce, and ate it. Its taste and texture sang of horseshit bundled with raisins and steamed in parchment -- it was so dreadful that I simply had to have it again the following year.

I thought of that stuff just now as I picked over the half-stack of strufoli that's still congealing on the kitchen counter. I offered some to Alane but she is still reeling from the Stollen that I brought home last night. It was a high-density slab of pre-stressed concrete marbled with raisins, fruits, and marzipan spackle. It too was perfectly dreadful -- so much in fact that I had to have a slice with my coffee this morning.

What is it about the holidays that makes us long for the nastiest of baked treats?

Hey, didn't I know someone who once had a hot dog wagon in their living room?

Once again, the New York Post brings us the quote of the week. Or is it quote of the month? Year?

"We've never seen hot dogs mixed with prostitution before," Deputy Inspector Rick Capece said. "There are so many jokes, so little time."

I love the Post!

I hear the U.N. will be sending blue-helmet peacekeepers to Florida this weekend. Something about a party... with flaming golfballs, marshmallow projectiles, and big hats.

Everything is like a hat.

I'm almost ready to unveil my proposed constitutional amendment. Not to give Nebraska a bicameral legislature -- I'm talking about fixing the federal constitution, baby!

Just a little more research... And a few more pain pills...

Is it coincidence that both "Vicodin" and "vermouth" both start with the letter "V"? Shall I re-read Thomas Pynchon's 1961 classic "V"? Shall I declare that my pill bottle smells like... "victory"?

Anyway, I just got back from the doctor with my brand new Rx. My pain-killer addiction starts tonight. Yeee-ha!

Okay, I'm starting understand why I've been in so much pain lately. These pictures kick ass! I think I can see my spleen from here!

That bright thing that goes down the center of the image and wants to get along unimpeded? That's my spinal column. That dark spot that erupts from between T8 and T9 and rubs angrily against the spinal column? That's the blown gasket.

The other images are just as shocking. My colon looks exactly like a delicatessen steam table. My pancreas has hands. And why didn't anyone tell me my ass was that fat?

An old acquaintance recently commented (in response to one of my mini-tirades) that it was the pain of a compressed nerve that was triggering my descent into political argumentation.

Normally, that assessment would be perfectly backwards.

But not today: this morning I dragged my busted ass out of bed, got dressed, cleaned the snow off the car, and drove to Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville. I staggered up to Radiology and requested a copy of my MRI images.

Why did I have to do this in person? Why couldn't I call ahead or ask Alane to pick these up? Because politicians respond reflexively to the "don't just stand there, do something" mob -- and they recently passed the HIPAA Permanent Medical Bureaucracy Act.

Yeah, I know I there are ways to do these things without having to show up in person. But I'm a lawyer who hates paperwork (which, in a nutshell, explains why I don't practice law). And what forms am I supposed to use? Who knows. And what if the forms are for whatever reason rejected? I don't have time for red-tape delays.

Big Kahuna runs into this nonsense all the time. At least his files are safe from access. By him. Or his RN wife. Or by needed specialists.

Vote libertarian. In the meantime, I gotta haul my ass back to Bronxville to pick up the films I just ordered.

That is correct. Whoever is eating the strufoli must be soaked in vermouth. Or rum. Or brandy.

Oh, and there was indeed fotwear: I got Alane froggy slippers.

Thank goodness for Babel Fish Translation. Now I know how strufoli is made (more or less).

Speaking of encyclopedias, did you know that in some parts of the world "honey balls" is an affliction and not a tasty treat?

Hats? Check. "Hulk Hands?" Check. What, no footwear? Sounds like they might need inline skates for Christmas next year. Or tap shoes.

BTW there's no truth to the rumor that you can soak strufoli in vermouth much like soaking a fruitcake in rum or brandy.

The next entry in the Encyclopedia Mastandrea: strufoli (a/k/a "honey balls").

It's the holiday pastry that always outlasts the holidays. Everything else gets eaten -- the leftover ravioli, the soggy cannoli, the last crumbled bits of frosted cookies. You put away all the gifts. And you take down the Christmas tree. You make plans for the day off you'll get for MLK Day.

Then you eat the strufoli that someone brought to your place on Christmas Eve.

And when you eat it, you don't really want to eat it. It makes your fingers sticky, it looks like deer droppings, and you know it's just... honey balls. But you try one (out of boredom, hunger, or just plain desperation) and the next thing you know, you've eaten half the pile.

Vito brought strufoli yesterday (from Scotto's on 13th Avenue). After he handed it to me I popped it open and ate a few (I was very careful to cut myself off -- I know how this stuff works). He asked me if it was fresh.

Fresh? How would anyone know? The stuff tastes the same in mid-January as it did the day it was made in mid-December. I suspect that's related to the timelessness of its molecular structure -- or perhaps it's a mystical quality. I took it out just now, promising to have just a few. I ate many more than a few.

Once again, I've been had.

Oh yeah. Need I mention it? The hats were a big hit. All the hats.

Now the big clean-up. Last night we broke down boxes and cleared away debris -- today we are getting a closer look at the toys. I played table-hockey against John Paul and I whupped him. I need to beat him at these games now, because in a few years he'll not give me an inch.

The boys had a very interesting day yesterday. One highlight: Vito reading aloud from the Postal Worker Union collective bargaining agreement. John Paul continues to ask me the definitions of various new words. New to him, that is.

What I need now is sleep, but spine will not allow it. Nor will the monster trucks that the boys are pushing through the rooms at high velocity (we'll get you back, BazzukaJoe!). Maybe I'll put on the Hulk Hands and mete out some superhero retribution!

Mojo assumed a triumphant pose as he donned the "Hulk Hands" this morning. More like "Hulk Arms" on him.

Today we ate much prosciutto, many olives, and a pile of turkey. The refrigerator is teeming with leftovers, meaning there is no room to store the leftover cake. So we'll just have to finish it all. Of course, that isn't quite possible -- Vito brought a giant chocolate cake from Juniors (I had one piece of that and three pieces of the fancy cake Alane got). Maybe I'll stay up tonight (yeah, maybe!), eat the cake, and sip the cognac left over from the tree-raising (I already killed the vermouth from the Pork & Vermouth Christmas Lighting).

Rumor has it last night's gathering at Spumoni South was another milestone event. I hear Jenia is still finding marshmallows hidden in the folds of his clothing and stuck in the crevices of his flesh. Did anyone remember to fish the sofa out of the pool?

Ahhh. As I cut the Perugina Pannettone and was overcome with the urge to blog. Yum. Suddenly life is not so bad, and living in the midwest is almost bearable. I wouldn't know where to begin looking for lamejun, so if it's any good I don't want to know!

We're thawing after a few days of single digit temperatures and below-zero wind chills. For the benefit of the Florida syndicate, it is sunny and 36 degrees outside right now, with a 3 MPH breeze from the south and a relative humidity of 65%. We had a dusting of snow in November that melted pretty quickly, so the El Nino must be strengthening as NWS predicted. If it continues to strengthen it could be a warm and dry winter. That's OK by me, I hate to shovel snow and I don't even have a bad back!

Do the instuctions mention robot lubrication? Anything about using a dab of olive oil where moving parts meet? At least "first cold press" quality, I imagine.

It's Christmas gift madness around here. Fun. The boys are eager to build robots. And race them against the monster trucks.

Santa Patrol has begun. Alane is busy wrapping presents. I'm guarding the Christmas tree's forward flank. And watching my Patricia Kaas "Christmastime in Vienna" video. Again. While sitting on the couch. Distressed that I've now finished all the vermouth.

Steve likes the new color scheme. He calls it "daydreams in the color of chianti." I call it "wonder what color I'll get if I change this HTML code to a random string."

BazzukaJoe worried aloud yesterday that being married to me has somehow damaged Alane. Hey, who's got the broken back around here?

Body-ball kicks ass -- Andre: you da man. Still, I forgot to mention one of the more depressing aspects of my medical report: that my doctor saw no particular necessity to further avoid my jogging routine.

Crap! I was starting to really enjoy spending ice-cold mornings indoors. With hot coffee. A newspaper. And no exertion.

So I took a short run this afternoon -- just to Crestwood and back, plus a few runs up and down the train-station stairs to keep he heart-rate up. The back felt pretty good throughout. Cooled down on the body-ball and everything seemed good. Pain started kicking while we were at Mass this evening, but not huge like it's been.

Maybe Alane brought me the good luck of a Christmas elf! And just in case she hasn't, I'm going to start drinking tonight. Heavily.

Being the excellent wife, I went to Sports Authority at the mall on Christmas Eve at high noon to purchase a body ball for John. Andre recommended this as a pain relief treatment for John's big and oddly placed disc herniation. I was quite happy with myself as I had no trouble finding parking and the check-out line was, considering that it was Christmas Eve, reasonable. I began waiting in line. The line was one where everyone waited on the same line until one of the register people called out, "next customer." As I got to the head of the line, I would be the next customer -- someone line-jumped me. And not just any someone: in a case of divine retribution, a midget cut in front of me. What pray tell would I midget be buying at a sporting good store? Why a basketball, of course.

Finally got results from last week's MRI: I got a blown disk between T8 and T9. Speaketh my MD: we don't see that very often. Well, that makes me feel special -- no garden-variety maladies for me.

And he kept calling it a "big" herniation... I'm not sure how I feel about that.

So off to the specialists I shall go. I gave Andre a call to tell him my happy news; he too was surprised at the location of that particular injury.

"To get a herniation there means you did something really stupid. So what did you do?"

Nothing. At least, nothing I can remember. He doesn't believe me. Would you?

I've given this blog a happy new color scheme: chianti. What do people think? Should I have gone zinfandel? Cabernet sauvignon? (I tried to match the color to Uncle Lenny's brew, but HTML apparently doesn't support it.) Comments?

Just got back from shopping. Saw a really nice bracelet for Alane, but it looked too much like one a friend of hers wears. And it was a little pricey. So instead, I got her a bottle of grape seed oil from Yaranush. A new snow shovel too.

I'm gonna eat some lamejun now. Hopefully I can stuff it into my mouth before the boys pour sprinkles onto it.

As John traverses the wilds of Central Avenue in search of a Christmas Gift, I believe for me (aside: my friend Melissa was sporting a $3,600 white-gold bracelet that one of her dates got her -- I'm certain that this will not be my gift), I have once again decided to attempt more Christmas activities with the boys. I learned nothing from the mailing debacle. I will shortly attempt to make a gingerbread house and cut-out cookies. As I explained to Joe, generally speaking the cookies are not very tasty and are almost pure sugar as the boys' only interest is putting as many sprinkles as humanly possible on them. They also consider it fun to actually cut out the cookies only for about the first three cookies, at which point I am left to cut out about a billion cookies. This year the cookies should be especially festive as the boys were able to spy Scooby-Doo sprinkles at the store and insisted they must have said sprinkles for their cookies. If you all are really good, a tin of these delicious treats may head your way.

Uber-blogger Instapundit is also tackling Dickens, I see. He's showing links to some interesting versions of the holiday standard. Maybe I should start reading Ayn Rand to the boys at bedtime (the Internet revolution means nothing if not the need to disintermediate).

This is no day to shop. And yet I must. Soon, I shall be driving up Central Avenue. Perhaps there'll be no crowd at Yaranush. Middle Eastern food as Christmas gifts? People can learn to like lamejun. How does one giftwrap a medjool date? Status report later.

Working with so many lawyers here in the bluest of blue states means I inevitably mingle with some of the world's most politically-charged progressives. Tensions have eased since the election, but there are still plenty of signs of "blue state bubble" syndrome. One interesting symptom is how people treat me when they discover that I don't quite share their views on public policy:

"Oh, you're one of those."

I've heard it often -- even this week. It's profoundly amusing: those who say such things are often the very same people who cheered loudest when the Supreme Court last year legislated the new "diversity" loophole in federal anti-discrimination laws.

Diversity in schools? They don't even want diversity in their lives!

Yeah, yeah, I know the diversity thing was just a means to an end. And the court knew it too. And that reminds me: I'm long overdue for a Supreme Court rant. Stevie-baby, save me from myself -- don't let me spoil the holidays with another political harangue!

Tonight, we read another chapter from Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." After chapter 1, we recapped the tale as we sat at the kitchen table. Cookie remembered all of it -- even Marley's warning that three more ghosts would come visit.

Suspense not being critical to the storyline, we told them what to expect in the coming chapters:

"Scrooge is going to see the Ghost of Christmas Past, then the Ghost of Christmas Present, and then..."

At this point, Mojo interrupted:

"The Ghost of Christmas Butt!"

And he stood on his chair and wiggled his little ass at us.

I don't teach him this stuff. He gets it from Alane.

Well, I'm not sure Andre is going to join the blog, but he does think he can fix the enraged nerve root that gnaws at my spine, surges out along my rib, and deposits a blowtorch of pain in my abdomen. So maybe I'll schedule some trips to Queens after next week. Perhaps chiropractic can do something about my nasty disposition as well. It better do something about my posture: I was groaning on the bed this morning and apologizing to Alane for being so useless lately. She helpfully informed me that my current uselessness is really no different than my normal uselessness.

So you see, I need a lot of help...

I'm taking a vacation day today and hope to sit around the house like a bum as much as possible. The boys are outside in the snow -- they were very excited to see the white stuff this morning and made a tremendous commotion getting themselves ready.

That leaves me here drinking coffee, toasting yesterday's Italian bread, and watching my "Christmastime in Vienna" DVD. It features the ever-charming French jazz vocalist Patricia Kaas. She appears with some other guys named Domingo and Fernandez... never heard of 'em. Why they gotta stand so close to her?

Like most of her music, I no speak-a da language. But somehow I just know: whatever she's singing, she's singing to me.

Alane thinks I've gone insane. She doesn't feel threatened, though -- she knew me during the Spring semester of 1985 when I was taking French classes. She remains quite certain that it is impossible for Patricia and I to ever effectively communicate. She has taunted me by giving me Patricia Kaas CDs as gifts.

Her latest CD is called "Sexe Fort." I love the name. Yeah, I know it really means "The Stronger Sex" (I didn't exactly fail that French class). But the first thing to jump into my head is that old Vandals song "Clowns Are Experts."

Clown walks into a bar and says: bartender, give me a tree fort
Bartender says: what's in a tree fort?
Clown says: Playboy books and cigars, hyuh hyuh!

Ah, here's one she's singing in Eng-rish. "Merry Christmas, Baby."

Thanks, babe. Thanks.

After driving Helen to Brooklyn and Vito to the Post Office, I settled into my sofa this afternoon and talked to the boys about Christmas' imminent arrival. Gripped by yuletide spirit I took out my Dickens (hey, watch that) and told the boys I'd read them a ghost story.

Ghost stories are the lingua franca these days -- Cookie and Mojo have developed a sudden but deep liking for Scooby Doo. Even our night-time little lion and little elephant stories must involve haunted houses and zombies.

Zoiks!

So I started into the first chapter of "A Christmas Carol." It was rough sledding: the language is flowery at best and archaic at worst. Translating it on-the-fly into the vernacular of the thoroughly modern 4-year-old was a bit of a challenge.

In fact, I thought I had blown it -- they fidgeted, they climbed on my back, they picked their feet. I stopped at the end of the first chapter, wondering if they'd ask me later to hear more.

But Alane now tells me that Cookie has already related to her all the details of what I'd read -- Scrooge at the office, Scrooge going home, Marley's face appearing on the door-knocker, his ghost appearing in the locked bedroom.

Okay, I suppose I'll be reading them the rest of the book.

Oh, and for the record: when I'm a ghost, I want my face on a knocker.

It's still not clear to me whether lutefisk is essentially a Christmas treat. One thing is certain: it will not be on my menu this Christmas Eve. But would I try it if given the opportunity? Hmmm...

Back in May I attended a conference in San Francisco. There was a contingent of people from company in Sweden also in attendance and we all chatted. Inevitably, a conversation about Vikings arose.

"We were to this continent first," one of the Swedes offered.

"Not before the Native Americans," replied a proud American.

"That's right," the Swede allowed. "I've read it was probably clashes with the Native Americans that drove us out. We offered them milk, but they didn't have tolerance for the lactose. They thought we were trying to poison them."

Those Scandinavians: always boasting about their ability to process dairy.

"That's not what caused the clashes," I interrupted. "To grow food, Native Americans used to bury fish as fertilizer. But your guys would dig it up and eat it as a delicacy!"

Hearty laghter erupted from, well, at least most of the Swedes.

In an effort to mend fences, I invited them to come out with me to the Tonga Room at the Fairmont across the street. It was a dark bar with a Polynesian them, very tacky tikki. In other words: perfect. The Swedes demurred so I went alone, ordering a Blue Hawaii and tapping out an e-mail to Dr. Basu (who suggested the place) to tell him that I was very much enjoying the ukelele music and simulated rainshower.

I wonder what they'll have on the menu for Christmas Eve?

Here's Mojo, baked inside a giant gingerbread house at the Bronx Botanical (Maniacal) Garden.

He looks happy, and well he should.

All I can say is this: if I were a gingerbread house, I would want a roof that was made of breasts. In fact, even if I wasn't a gingerbread house...

Nevermind.

I've known the guy almost 20 years and don't learn until this very day that a very close personal friend, whose name will not be mentioned, is... crap-shy. I was on the phone with him just now, relating yet another amusing anecdote, when he urged me to hurry up: nature was calling.

I reminded him that his phone was cordless, but he still begged off.

"Nah, nah, I can't do that."

I never would've suspected it. With Mastandreas, it's a given. I can't count how many times I've been on the phone with BazzukaJoe while launching.

BazzukaJoe: "Whuddyadoin?"

Me: "Squeezing."

BazzukaJoe: "Aggghhh, you too? I just got off the phone with my cousin Steve and he was doing the same thing."

Me: "What can I say, you have a laxative effect on people."

Even in high school I'd often have phone conversations with Andre while one or the other us was letting loose. I also remember distinctly a phone call in which Andre abruptly blurted out: "Aggghhh, I stepped in shit."

It was an odd thing to exclaim: I pictured him somehow catching a glimpse of the bottom of his shoes.

Me: "What, you stepped in shit on the way home?"

Andre: "No, I stepped in shit just now."

It was his dog Yogi, not yet fully housebroken.

I gotta get Andre onto this blog. He's practically a Mastandrea: our Military Science instructor SGM Benford kept referring to us as brothers.

Andre: "Benford just yelled at me. Told me 'If you don't stop that right now I'm gonna give you ten days jug just like your brother.'"

His brother was not yet enrolled in the school (I was the one who had just been given ten days jug -- can't remember why).

As the boys love Christmas, yesterday I decided to allow them to aid me with the annual Christmas card mailing. This was probably as bad as an idea as when I took them by myself for their first cross-country skiing adventure. Yet moved by the Christmas spirit and maybe just a tiny bit by the whining sound the boys emitted, I told them they could help put stamps and the return address labels onto the envelopes.

Now had I undertaken this task on my own, it may have taken five minutes. With the boys help this became an almost hour long debacle. For a moment, I felt like I had returned to that motel room in Florida trying to place an order for pizza with Vito. Steve will certaintly recall my state after that adventure. It wasnt pretty nor was this. But to give the boys a break, they are 3 and 4 not adults, unlike the pizza culprits.

I guess I never realized the amount of fine motor skill involved in placing stamps and return addresses on envelopes. Some of the stamps are floating somewhere near the middle of the envelopes. I mailed them, though I should have consulted Vito, the resident mail expert, as to the ramifications for my mail.

Today, the Moose Munch arrived in the mail. We already ate some, and it is yummy. Thank you Jenia and Marlena.

I took today off and joined Alane in taking the chimps to school; we dropped them off, went to the mall to shop and have lunch, and then back to the school to get them from their classrooms to the pool.

Wow, those monkeys enjoy their swimming lessons. We watched as they bobbed up and down excitedly, barely able to wait their turn to lunge, float, or swim "big arms" toward their instructors. Well, Cookie was somewhat more eager than Mojo, but they were both clearly the first and second most enthusiastic kids in the pool.

I'm happy to have coaxed Joe-maha back onto this blog. I know Brandi and Ree are both tied up with schoolwork these days. As for BazzukaJoe... he just needs a beatin' (as usual).

Is it Christmas-time that Swedes eat rotten fish?

What's this? Plea bargaining? Steve's motion is granted: the charges are dismissed.

As for the spinach pizza: not to worry, I keep that well-protected. (Someday I have to post the nutsack-stretching tale of the Jupiter batting cage -- paging Doctor All-man!)

And speaking of medical procedures, I just got back from my MRI. I felt like a burrito in a microwave -- my cheese and bean filling got hot. I plan on pestering my doctor for a copy of the images. Expect a photo of my spleen to be posted here if/when I get those pics.

Voting to ban or suspend? What? No double secret probation?

John, you shouldn't curse yourself for overcooking the pork loin; instead just be grateful you didn't char the spinach pizza. I'm afraid Joe-maha's puntastic performance only elicits praise from me, but as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council my vote means absolutely nothing.

Finally, I guess the image on every Mastandrea's mind was the monstrous and vile McDump that had to immediately follow that Quadruple McBypass Burger. Big and Cheesy indeed.

The Cleveland Clinic is finally trying to evict McDonalds. I remember that place. Some years back, Alane's mother had bypass surgery there. (At Cleveland Clinic, not at its McDonalds.)

We were all camped out in the family waiting area for the six or eight hours that the surgery would take. After a while of that, one tends to get hungry.

We walked through what seemed like dozens of buildings and found the food counters. Yeah, I was a little surprised to see a McDonalds. And more surprised to see what was featured on the menu.

It wasn't a double cheeseburger (those have a long history, though I'm not sure they're still offered).

It wasn't a triple cheeseburger (though I think those too were widely available for some time).

It was a quadruple cheeseburger, offered as a limited-run market-test.

It was called The Big and Cheesy.

I had to have one. I purchased one and brought it back to the waiting area. So, with my mother-in-law upstairs with her ribs cracked open, my father-in-law sitting across from me sweating bullets, and my brother-in-law Joe at the next table reading from a stack of law books, I tucked into that greasy pile.

Big and Cheesy indeed!

Yes, I was fully aware of the irony. Joe looked up from his books from time to time to stare at me, disgusted. If there's an Internet connection in the Great Beyond and he's reading this post, he's probably muttering: "You ate that crap, and it was my heart that wound up giving out."

That would be fair criticism.

Alas, the Big and Cheesy didn't play outside Peoria. After that day, I never saw it again on any menu (though I did see a McKroket at an Amsterdam McDonalds -- unrelated but just as strange).

BTW, so nobody gets the wrong idea Mojo Gamer and/or our parenting skills: those computer games are all education. "Clifford." "I Spy." Mojo knows how to build a skyscraper in the "Tonka Construction" program. (Though I think last night he was playing "Grand Theft Matchbox.")

We'll be taking a vote on whether Vaudeville Joe-maha should be banned from this blog. Or at least suspended. Vote early. Vote often.

So I walked into the house tonight and I stood in the doorway taking off my coat. Around the bend I saw the computer monitor was lit -- I assumed Alane was sitting at the desk, lookng at e-mail or something. It wasn't Alane. It was Mojo Gamer. And he was quite content with himself, navigating his Lego game, catching the sound fx over the headset, not disturbing his brother's Scooby-Doo video.

Okay, this is bad. And when he moves from gaming to blogging, it'll be worse. For all of us.

Some say that this season is about "chestnuts roasting on an open fire." Who'd have thought they steamed on a radiator?

That's quite an injury. Poor Alane. I bet she was expecting the sun to rise this morning, not moon beams. This is Jingle Bells season, not Dingle Bells season.

I for one am glad that I missed this backwards drama. I hate the smell of singed hair.

For some reason I bet you stood on the train this morning. In fact, I bet you stood for a lot today.

The question must be asked: are you prone to this this behaior?

While some might delight in a lawyer getting his butt grilled, I can't say that I'm one of them. Well, maybe. It depends on the lawyer.

John, I hope that you're not "steamed" at being the "butt" of my post. It was written "tongue-in-cheek," as you could have predicted.

In the Encyclopedia Mastandrea, there's an entry for the word "pathetic." It appears right after "panettone" and right before "pizzaiola."

Pathetic: Bending over to put on your underwear after your morning shower, momentarily losing your balance, and then backing your wet ass into the red-hot steam radiator.

I tried to show Alane the grill-marks but she couldn't see very well through her tears of laughter.

Joe-maha wins this round. I never would have thought of making a steel-belted-radial Christmas tree (note to self: try harder).

Separately, I'm finding that debilitating back-spasms, as painful and sleep-depriving as they are, do have a silver lining. About an hour ago I stepped outside to get my New York Post off the porch and was blasted by the Arctic chill that has descended on the region. All I could think was:

"If not for the back-pain, I'd be out jogging in this freeze."

Bring on the muscle-spasms!

Not in front of a house. In front of the business. They also pile tires into the shape of a tree and string lights on it.

That's terrible, stringing lights on the Edsel in your front yard... That's where the Nativity scene should be...

I hope I'm not bursting any bubbles but I haven't seen Christmas lights on anything in the fields, although the auto repair shop we frequent does trim a '57 Edsel in lights (no, not the twinkly kind) out front. On the way home I didn't see much seasonal lighting, but for most of that journey homes are a half a mile to a mile apart.

I think that there was one place in Ames, IA that could have met your vermouth and panettone needs. I was there for refresher training today. Not "getting certified" but "maintaining my certification." I don't think there's been much debate about me being certifiable for some time.

Good news on the panettone front here. We bought one a couple of weeks ago and hid it so we would have it for Christmas. Then we realized we hid it too well. Luckily we found it and are ready for the holidays. Mental note: don't send panettone to Cookie or Mojo.

Damn it's cold here. Single-digit temperatures this morning and it stayed below freezing all day. If you can believe the forecast it will get into the mid-40's tomorrow. Nobody from the Weather Channel will be diving into snow banks here like they did in upstate NY yesterday, though. Odds are against snow here for at least a week.

Stephen, I feel your pain. I haven't eaten beets in over 10 years.

John, are you sure you weren't thinking of Detective Rizzo from "Kojak" in "The Case of the Killer Strufoli"?

Marlena, you want to break Annie of that habit before you take her on a plane.

OK, I apologize for the prolonged absence from the blog. Between work, christmas shopping and this mutant strain of ebola that's plaguing me, I have been truly neglectful. First off, Id like to clear up a few items: I was not criticizing the practice of panettone-eating, I merely said I thought it was used to stuff sofa cushions. (After all George Washington Carver found about a half a million uses for the peanut.) However, the story of Cookie and Jojo's monumental disappointment reminded me the infamous pie incident of 2004.

Kim and I received of invitation from Jenia's brother Aleksey for a little get-together at his apartment. The party was quite charming, full of finger foods, wine, vodka and amusing home video footage of his recent trip to Russia, and then there was... the pie. I do not lie, I have numerous witnesses who will confirm it was the most beautiful pie ever created. It was a velvety burgundy color (suggesting maybe a raspberry or strawberry) and sparkled in the light, it had perfect-looking crust as if it was pulled from a Sara Lee commercial, and I was salivating for it. To my pleasant surprise, he decided to serve the pie early, and watched in glorious anticipation as he made the first cut in. As he placed it in the serving plate and slid it before me, I noticed the inner layers of the pie were a moist white. So I bit the bullet and asked exactly what flavor it was... and his answer was "cold smoked fish, mayonnaise, and beets".

I was devastated, I was deflated, and I've never been the same. Any one of those three ingredients would make me regurgitate. In summation: Mojo and Cookie: I feel your pain.

By the way, vermouth comes from the mysterious puddles that accumulate in front of the fruit and fish stands on Canal Street. That is why I won't drink it

Just as much as people have responded to our vermouth-drinking ("Vermouth? People actually drink that?"), I've gotten similar reactions to our panettone-eating ("Panettone looks like the stuff you'd expect to find in the cushions of a sofa").

I'm appalled.

Got e-mail from Joe-maha: he's in Iowa this week getting certified. C'mon, bro -- we could've gotten you certified! I have a question for him: Is Iowa decorated for Christmas? Another question: If you went to an Iowa restaurant and asked for a shot of vermouth and a slice of panettone, what would happen?

Guido and I made our pork-chop-run early yesterday afternoon and while at C-Town I picked up a few extra items -- including two boxes of panettone.

Well, the boys have been eyeballing those boxes since they arrived. So this morning, with Alane out at Mass, and me sitting here doubled-over with back pain and a fresh pot of coffee brewing, I finally acceded to John Paul's repeated requests to please let him eat the bread in the box.

"Okay, Cookie. Let's open it."

So we trundled into the kitchen and ceremonially opened the box, slid out its weighty payload, undid the plastic bag, and carefully carved off a big hunk of perfectly-formed panettone flesh.

The boys watched with great anticipation.

I put the big hunk on a plate and then hacked off three small wedges -- one for each of us. We started eating.

The boys' faces didn't actually fall as they began eating, but their underwhelmed expression made it perfectly clear that panettone is a grown-up's food.

They ate a little, played with some of the runaway raisins, and eventually turned their attention to other things.

A perfect outcome: more panettone for me.

Well, I'm glad it didn't come to this.

The Second Annual Pork & Vermouth Christmas Lighting has just come to a close: the hedges are lighted; the doors are wreathed; and the porch is beaconed. It was a productive afternoon: Guido was able to easily locate the proper lights and cords; the propane tank had enough gas to slow cook a ton of pork; and the boys were active helpers. Yeah, "helpers."

Not everything mirrored last year's festivities. For one thing, we didn't burn the pork chops. And surprisingly, we didn't finish the entire liter of vermouth.

(I tend to think that those two facts are intimately related.)

So I'm calling it a night... I still have a fair amount of shopping to do -- I'll see if I can get that knocked off tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm eyeballing the remnants of that vermouth bottle -- drinking the stuff seems to relieve some of the fierce back-pain I've been experiencing recently.

Bring on the vermouth!

Think of the toilet as the whirlpool you've long overlooked.

While I was alone watching Annalise at our house this morning around 10am, a hard knock with a loud "Halloo" was heard outside our front door, followed by a man turning the knob open. I was so scared and shocked I left the baby in her designated tv room playing as I checked to see what som-un-beech walked his way into my house.
It was George The Bugman Angus. So much for that sharp pencil I had hidden in my back pocket. (yust yoking)
So we said our hello's and I went back to play with the baby, who was just chillin'... inside our diseased-ridden toilet bowl. She had one leg in, one leg out. Her toes were fluttering about inside the flush hole. (This isn't new for me, she's done this before, I guess it's like a little water park with the piss water and all).
Ahh, she keeps me young that Annie Girl.

I don't do nostalgia television, and as a kid I never had the patience to actually watch an episode of Perry Mason, but there is clearly a Mastandrea connection (if you look hard enough). At the beginning of "The Case of the Soggy Sfogliatelle," the trial judge ruled against Mason's motion to suppress improperly-obtained prosecution evidence. Mason was angered by the judge's ruling and later described his reaction to his law partners:

"This degenerate judge thinks announces to the court that my motion was denied... So I looked at him..."

Uncanny, eh?

You can't just tease us with some general statement that Christmas decorating is stalled at Spumoni South -- we need details!

Talked to Joe-maha today. They had a light dusting of snow this week. Not enough, apparently, to make a blog post. No word on the progress of hanging chaser lights on Nebraska's fields of winter wheat.

Tonight we tried to put up Christmas decorations. Note the verb tried.

This weekend was splendid indeed. Jenia and I lodged at Orlando's Portofino Bay Resort. It was great, and the weather was freakin' nippy. I won't bore you with details, but we did eat out about 5 times during our trip, thanks to meeting up with Joey, Kelly and Whitney at the Hardrock Cafe, and lots of meal gift certificates ala Uncle Joe and Aunt Phyllis from last Xmas. Back to the details, I won't tell you each dish or snack Jenia ate, instead, I'll just tell you the meats that he ate. (Including fish).
Salami, Copicola, Ham, T-Bone steak, the largest salmon I have ever seen in my 21 years of life, and veal, lots and lots of veal.
Is that normal eating for a 30-hour span? I'm always open to suggestion.

Okay, with Alane and the boys out for the day, I went over to Guido's to help him get his Cristmas tree up and decorated. We wound up back at Stew's to get another tree-stand -- and, since we were there, another bottle of beverage. This time we picked up Chartreuse. French bastards... It looked like a giant bottle of Hai Karate. Drank a lot of it. Positioned the ornamental angel atop their tree ("ram the tree tip up her cooch!"). Watched Kay decorate, decorate, decorate. Ate cupcakes with Nutella as frosting. Now I need a nap.

Just slammed a 7-lb. chicken into the oven. I'm sure Alane and the boys will be home soon. Our tree is ready and lit -- the holiday season is here!

Where's the rest of that cognac?

Alane has accused me of being like Uncle Vinny. That's because this year she's hanging the lights on the tree -- while I sit here at the computer and give... advice.

Guido and I got the tree last night at Stew Leonard's. While there we also stocked up on liquid refreshments... like port, cognac, and vermouth.

The cognac we started last night. Instant heartburn (just like I remember it). The vermouth is for next week's Second Annual Pork and Vermouth Christmas Lighting. This time, we'll try to not go so blind as to burn the sausages... like we did last year.

Since last night the boys have been insane with desire to put ornaments on this tree, enough so to get Alane hanging lights on it this morning as prep. Of course, last year's lights were not up to the task. So she had to go out and get more. That set was still not enough (and I was the one who had to break that news to her; it was at that point that she accused me of the Vinny-ness).

Anyway, after the second trip to the lights store, the tree is looking good and the boys are starting to hang balls. And I'm being commanded to make a pot of coffee.

So off I go, muttering to myself "Who sounds like Vinny now?"

Saw something strange on my way to the office this morning: a man bicycling toward 7th Avenue on 51st Street with... something stuck in the spokes of his back wheel. I'm used to that, from the old neighborhood. But it wasn't a baseball card snapping in his spokes. Nor was it a Spaldine.

It was a bagel.

Very bizarre. I thought of him later as I sat through an 8 a.m. meeting where a continental breakfast had been ordered -- but had not arrived. Everyone was rather surly about the lack of food and I imagined what might have happened if that man had somehow bicycled past the open door of the conference room.

He wouldn't have known what hit him.

So I hear the Christmas lights are aglow at Spumoni South. The decorations were put up by Bazzukajoe under the direct supervision of Big Kahuna.

I wasn't there, and I don't have details but I do know this with absolute certainty: Joey did it wrong.

I may have mentioned this in the past, but in case anyone has forgotten, let me say something about jogging in the cold weather: it's blowjhinsky. Even with the new gloves I bought on Amazon (wore them to work too, but they were sweaty from the run -- yech).

And just one more thing, this time about the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center -- a big fat Al-Roker-type of obstruction standing in the center of the plaza waiting to get lit. Yeah, they're throwing the switch tonight, and throngs of people have gathered from miles around. What a disaster. What's wrong with people? When I see a crowd, I go in the other direction. Tonight, as we pushed toward Grand Central trying to get home, we passed multitudes of idiots trying to press into the growing, howling mob.

Are these the same people who stand outside the Today Show studio in the 12 degree cold, holding signs and giggling, waiting to touch the cloak of some fat-bastard weatherman? Can't they do that stuff in Brooklyn where they won't be such a nuisance?

Happy Sunday! (hey, that's almost like the album we got from John called the Happy Mondays. Ree, Kristie, Stefanie and myself listened to that cd as if it was the only piece of fine art readily available to us. Ok, well I guess that's why we listened to it).
Going to NY was a fun experience, thank you to John, Alane and the mungchins for hanging out with me for 6 days. It was great. On my flight home I had a gargantuan insulated lunchbox that we put the cherished bagels and cannolies in. While waiting to pre-board, I unzipped the cooler just slightly to slide a napkin in to add extra padding to the treasures inside. As I zipped it up and stood up straight I smelled a cloud of onion farts permiating the lobby. Who cares, it was breathtaking onion farts. FYI: Those Stew Leonard's bagels were devoured in no time, as well as the 15 cannolies.
Right now my mother and father are at the Kravitz Center in Downtown West Palm Beach to see a Motown Christmas special. MariaRose is studying and Jenia is in the living room making pretty awesome music, I must say, with his new mixer/turntable toy he bought today. He just mentioned to me that he can't wait to use the microphone.

Okay, the turkey sandwiches are starting to make me sick. And speaking of sick, I hear they've been serving warm slices of Roto-Pie down at Spumoni South. A la mode. Yum yum, eat 'em up!

I see there's snow in the Omaha weather forecast.

In honor of the Thanksgiving, I think it is important I return to an integral chapter of the Encyclopedia Mastandrea: eating. It has been said often, a Mastandrea does not simply ingest and digest for physical and cellular nourishment. Eating is love. Like any sucessful marriage or relationship, it requires dedication, hard work, patience, and mutual respect. So with that I pay tribute to the legends.

Cauliflower Balls---A rare and innovative delicacy developed by Joe Fatone Sr. in November of 2004. One begins the preparation by mixing cauliflower, eggs, breadcrumbs, pepperoni, and shrimp until it is moist and pliable. The mixture is then molded it into a spalding-sized ball and then fried in a shallow pan of olive oil. The results are breathtaking. I nominate the man for the Nobel Prize in Physics and Chemistry.

Eggplant Lasagna---Its been a while since I've experienced this exotic dish, Big Vin pioneered this update on the standard lasagna back in the early 1990s. Vin's eggplant parmigiana is of mythical proportions in its own right, bake it inside a lasagna and what you have is the beginnings of a religious movement. Who is the more Almighty Creator, the one who started the Big Bang or the one started the sauce at 5am. You be the judge.

Vin Stuffing---I'm not sure what the ingredients are in this masterpiece, and I'm not entirely sure I ever want to be told. According to rumor there are turkey gizzards involved, and if thats the case, I have new found respect for the spleen and gall bladder.

I will continue on with this sometime soon, all this talk has made by hungry as hell. Think I'll call the Kahuna and say thanks for giving us......vin stuffing.

Tonight I made stuffin' muffins using leftovers from yesterday's dinner. Worked well. It's probably the only useful tip I've ever gotten from Rachel Ray on Food TV. I know of a few guys who have the hots for her; I just find her annoying (though not quite as irritating as the fake-Nigella minx we watched last week when we were in Brooklyn).

From what I've heard of Thanksgiving at Steve Fatone's, had a midget inadvertantly shown up at the table he would've been devoured as readily as an herb-stuffed mushroom. And that would leave the checkout at Publix sorely understaffed.

That was Orlando. I still haven't heard about Thanksgiving results in Montgomery. Or in Omaha.

I did speak to Joe Nebraska yesterday morning, and over the yelling of the crowd I asked him to guess where I was.

"The parade?"

That's the great thing about being from New York: despite all the small town parades all across the country, when someone says "the parade" you know that can mean only one parade. I told him to guess again.

"The game?"

And that's the great thing about having gone to Xavier High School: there may be hundreds of football games scheduled for Thanksgiving day, but say "the game" to one of us it can mean only one game.

Since I'm still obsessing over Thanksgiving memories, I've asked Andre to join the blog. Hopefully he will share the tale of his being at the 1983 game, dressed in a bearsuit, mixing it up with the Fordham Ram (who walked the sidelines at yesterday's game, leading Mojo to ask us: "what's that goat doing there?")

In any event, it may be some time before we hear from Andre -- his brother is getting married this weekend, and I'm sure it'll take some time for the bif fella to recover.

Ok, just a quick observation, but I would say that coming home for Thanksgiving is necessary travel. This speaks volumes about many things, however that is for another entry.

Today as a Christmas gift, I took my folks to the Radio City Music Spectacular. I let them pick the show and this was their choice. Things were going as well as could be expected since we were seeing the 10:00 am show and it was a fairly cold day to be walking. We sat down in our seats and the show was going well until the appearance of the... MIDGETS!!! It never occurred to me in a thousand years that midgets would be in the show. I knew it was a Christmas show, thereby the possibility of elves--but c'mon, who would think midgets and the Rockettes would share a stage. It's kinds cruel if you think about it. Now, not only did these midgets have a speaking roles--they danced. There is something particularly disturbing about midgets shaking their "tail feathers" so to speak.

In addition to dancing, they put the midgets in snowmen costumes. Why they needed snowdwarves is anyone's guess. What was even weirder about the snowdwarves was they were on ice -- during the show they have a miniature skating rink where a regular sized couple skates a routine. So these snowdwarves are on ice -- and I swear they were not on skates. My mom has now weighed in and says she too thinks they were skateless. My dad says that it may be physically impossible for midgets to ice skate. (Note to Joe: check with the Publix midget about this.) So there were slip sliding snowdwarves.

Anyway, besides my tiny friends, the show was really pretty enjoyable. The living nativity was pretty cool, and I liked it even better when I found out that the animals stay at Radio City and get walked early mornings in Rockefeller Center.

Here's another entry for the Encyclopedia Mastandrea, something that floated up through the pangs of Thanksgiving nostalgia and the torture of excessive storytelling I've subjected Alane and her parents to since yesterday's game at Fordham.

It was Thanksgiving 1984, and my brother and I came home to Brooklyn -- unannounced. My brother had pulled this trick before, but this was my first semester at college, so I was new to it. I got in sometime late morning on Wednesday, in time to see Vito before he left for work. He was both suprised and annoyed, in his Vito way (he really didn't want us traveling unnecessarily). I stayed at the house briefly and then ran out to catch up with some friends. The highlight of the day's schedule would be the informal reunion held at my high school, a Thanksgiving-eve tradition that was strong at the time but is now defunct.

At Xavier, I saw Andre and Joe Nebraska, who had since gotten into town. I asked him if he saw Vito, but he hadn't -- he'd already left for work. Fine, a new item for our schedule: we'd surprise him when he got home from work.

So we spent some time at the school; then we followed Andre to a party at the Armenian church on the east side, and then the three of us went back to Brooklyn. We were sitting in the kitchen in the wee hours of the morning when Vito got home. From the way we were all sitting, he saw me first -- no shock there, he already knew I was in town. Then he saw Andre, and despite the full beard he had grown, he recognized him, went over and shook his hand and said hello. Then Joe, who had been sitting by the heat pipe and was also sporting a full beard, stood up to present himself. Vito turned to him, shook his hand and said hello.

Andre and I looked at each other, a little confused -- for hours we had been predicting a more melodramatic reaction from my dad.

So Vito started unloading the cake and other stuff he'd caried home and my brother hovered. Had my dad even recognized him? We weren't sure what had just happened until a few seconds later when Vito took another look at Joe, leaned forward and squinted...

"Aw shit," he muttered, a reaction more in line with what we expected. But the delay and the double-take -- unimaginably funny. Andre fell into a fit of laughter that lasted a week to 10 days.

We stayed up a while longer and in retrospect it's surprising that Joe Nebraska and I made it to The Bronx at all the next morning (though if I remember correctly, we got there late -- late enough that we didn't need to buy a ticket, something that meant a lot in those days).

It's the oldest hight school rivalry in New York City, or so they say. I haven't been to the Xavier-Fordham Prep Thanksgiving game in exactly 20 years. I dragged everyone out of bed early this morning to get down to Rose Hill. Good turnout in the stands, and it's still a hard-fought game. Rain threatened, but the temp was around 60 -- very comfortable. We stayed until halftime to see the X-Squad exhibition -- they were sharp. We were in the stands near where the drill team was grouped, and as they were uncrating their weapons I yelled over to one of them "What is the nomenclature of the 1903A3 Springfield?" Without hesitation (and without a breath, it seemed) he spun off the whole thing. I used to know it; to me it is long forgotten. Just as their drill ended, a storm cloud let out a few heavy drops. It was short-lived, but we were heading out anyway. As the sun re-emerged, we made our way to the parking lot. Now we're home and the turkey is in the oven. Lots of memories, not the least of which was the mini-brawl we experienced last time we were there -- with Xavier winning the game and wanting to ring Fordham's victory bell. They didn't like that, but we rang it anyway, causing a good-natured little fistfight that you'd never be able to get away with in this day and age.

When I met Guido in 1986, he had an audio cassette that he played often. It contained, among other music, a series of strange cuts from Yellow Magic Orchestra ("Japanese Gentlemen, Stand Up Please!"), followed by "Da Da Da" by Trio. Hearing it always put me in the mind of the "Da Da Da" music video which I had seen years earlier as between-movie filler on Wometco Home Theater in Brooklyn. It was a strange video: just a kooky Euro-old-old-man-barroom scene (not unlike that Cafe Noelle bar in Amsterdam where Oakley had them play "Der Vlieger" for us) but the visual always stuck with me. And I haven't seen it since those dark days of early adolescence (and over-the-air pay-TV). Haven't seen it until tonight, that is, when I found a clip of it online. Yup, just as strangely entertaining, even some 22-or-more years hence.

But not quite as entertaining as Mojo Jojo, who stood over me earlier this evening with his toy horse (you know, the traditional horsehead-on-a-stick toy of yore). He held it over me with the horsehead turned away from me and uttered: "Poop, poop poop."

Yup, he thought that was pretty funny. Maniac.

I was standing in the kitchen drinking chocolate milk (soy) and eating a piece of chocolate chip cookie (Whole Foods) when the call came in. Wow, Marlena was in some serious emotional distress. She sputtered out her tale (tail) of woe and pointed back to the scene of the tragedy. I could see she was suffering badly; I found it supremely entertaining.

Upon entering the room of bad water, I saw that the situation was not nearly as dire as Marlena supposed. The toilet was indeed clogged, but not hopelessly so -- the water level had already returned to normal. The floor was only a little wet. And it was reassuring to see that Song Airlines, despite its financial difficulty, still serves roasted peanuts on its flights from West Palm to La Guardia.

Minimal plunging effort freed the obdurate turd -- this was nothing like the intergalactic dark matter that emerged from Mojo back in March. That ten-pounder couldn't be plunged -- it had to be dynamited first. No, this one was easy.

Having slayed the offending offal, I returned to the living room to find Marlena wallowing in denial. She asserted (yeah, asserted) that it was just a wee bitty little turd, and not even a lot of paper -- how could that have happened? We immediately declared that testimony non-credible. We recalled that before Marlena even ventured to the bathroom she announced that she hadn't crapped in four days; she was also interested in selecting a book to bring with her, as this effort would likely take some time. I took down from the shelves a thin volume of poetry; she rejected it, opting instead for a thicker volume of epic saga.

In fact, from behind that closed door, I thought I heard her yell: "Who does number two work for?"

In short, whatever she launched was no meager morsel. But as for Steven's question, I'm afraid the visible evidence was inconclusive. I considered sonar testing, but was afraid the added salvage time would only invite further disaster -- the longer the bathroom stays out of commission, the longer my boys are a puddle risk. That's just how it is.

Evening,
My final comment on the afore mentioned hellish incident will be about that of the size, the font, if you will. It was the size of a Publix prepackaged sausage link that they keep in their meat department, you know, the standard small ones. My bowels haven't been the same since, a small sausage link is insufficient.
But anyhow, today we went to see the Polar Express in IMAX3D. This was awesome considering anything in 3D requires everyone to wear gigantic two-tone glasses and be serious. This was the first time the boys had gone to the movie theater and they were psyched. John Paul ate popcorn and drank fruit punch throughout the entire duration of the feature. Joseph, on the otherhand, was horrified by the movie. Whether it was due to the piercing train sounds and 3 dimensional characters reaching out for him or by Tom Hanks hauntingly playing all of the characters in disguised voices, no one can tell. He was so disturbed he changed seats and sat on Alane's lap to bury his head in her shirt. He wanted out and he was ffurious.
As we walked out of the movie I noticed John Paul's shirt was drenched with punch, yet it sounded like he drank every drop. I thought I could hear his beverage stream down his esophagus and pass his epiglottis. I guess not. He didn't seem to mind.
Lastly, Alane found the 4 million elves in this film to slightly spook her. They had stubble and detailed midget-like hands.

First off, thanks to Marlena for returning to blog to a territory so close to every Mastandrea's heart....and colon. So lets get right down to business.

Was the toilet clogged by the paper or by the log?
This is a very important question and the guilty party is being very sketchy on details. Three inches may not be an enormous length for a log, but it would be a spectacular diameter. A turd of such impressive girth would certainly clog the pipe and cause a backflow. If this is actually the case, be not embarassed, BE PROUD. Be thankful there was a house of witnesses to such a historic event!

Oh, how I love discussing crap.

hello
This is a very sad post. Let me say my side of the story first, before John turns it into a tall turd tale. Here it goes: I made a comment that I hadn't gone cockasheda in 4 days upon entering the bathroom. After a poor attempt to eliminate I flushed down a 3" cockie. Then the worst of worsts happened to me. The badwater rose up rather than down and overflowed there toiletbowl area. I flipped the lid down before the boulder poured out and screamed. This is everyone's nightmare, real movie material.
I ran outside shutting the door on John Paul, who then started to cry and hated me for 10 minutes. Ran into the kitchen and cried to John, being clueless of how to rectify, for lack of a better word, the situation. Well, he went in there and was a real trouper... poo poo all gone.
Unfortunately I'm still blushing so bad that I can be mistaken for a human-lobster hybrid.
I'm very sorry John. This one's for you, John the King of Johns.
Love,
Marlena PS: Reader beware: Don't believe a word he says.

Today, Marlena made the obligatory pilgrimmage to Stew Leonard's. It has been a whirlwind adventure: we drank key lime pie wine; we watched Laibach videos; we told golden tales of one-armed bricklayers; the boys went to school. John Paul had gymnastics. We have photos. Of the boys' heads. One is in a sack. See left column link.

Alane made chicken wings tonight -- yum! Got home and they were on the stovetop, just out of the oven. The boys wanted to start eating immediately:

Alane: They're still very hot. Let's wait a little.

Mojo: Mommy, you're fired.

We don't watch NBC, so I don't know where he picks this stuff up. I suppose I'll be sent to the boardroom next.

Last night my disillusionment with life was made complete: reclusive author Thomas Pynchon "appeared" on The Simpsons. This wasn't a cool appearance (like Joey's). Pynchon had a bit part. His character wore a paper bag over his head. And his few lines consisted of self-deprecating humor. Unfunny humor -- commenting to Marge that her dessert was "V-licious."

That's it: I'm burning my tattered and dog-eared copy of Gravity's Rainbow (what the hell, I already gave away my hardback Mason & Dixon, that bomb).

Now, had he performed a modernized rendition of the Disgusting English Candy Drill, now that would have been funny.

A one armed bricklayer? This is new to me. He must move very quickly. Does the one arm have anything to do with the cement truck?
My dad somehow found FULL MONTY and he gets the job done. I told my dad to have him sign a waiver. I do not need him rolling off the roof into the pool and blaming my dad. He is a really respectful guy so I resist the temptation to make fun.
I emailed John the original Gagalis's picture. I would like to see it on this blog.
Speaking of Gagalia theres is a black midget that bags groceries and takes them out to your car at the store near us. I was telling him about Alanes fear of small people on my last publix excursion and he offered to help her face her fears. He said he would drive home with you guys on your next trip down. All he needs is a flight back. He may need a car seat I am not sure on the rules. 24 hours with little mo will do you both good. I have his card for future reference. We made need him at our new years party. You never know. He told me he can juggle but he meant his women.
I am not seeing any new words. Work on it.

The best part about the one-armed bricklayer is why we remember him. It's not because of his unfortunate deformity -- that alone is barely remarkable. We remember him because he pissed someone off. Pissed him off over 30 years ago.

Cultivating annoyance for that many years is a signature Mastandrea achievement. The fact that a man with one arm had hired himself out as a bricklayer -- that fact was merely a prop in a greater morality play.

And, as ever, history repeats itself.

So it was that I was walking to my office one morning this week, alone in my thoughts, listening to The Clash through the headphones of my mp3 player. Walking ahead of me with great effort was a man with terribly turned-in legs and feet -- he wasn't using crutches, but clearly each step was a struggle. And yet he maintained a healthy pace. He was dressed for office work and was clearly on his way to his job. I felt embarrassed to have even notice his disability. Surely, he wasn't thinking about it, even as he threw his weight back and forth, lumbering ahead with each labored step.

"More power to him," I thought, and settled back into my morning fugue.

The song on my mp3 player changed: it was now the Magnificent Seven. I listened to the bouncing bass of the song's opening. And I watched the man ahead of me as he walked. He was walking to my music. Walking exactly to my music.

That's pretty much where I lost it, accepting at once through tears of irrepressed adolescent laughter that for all the trappings of dignity that I carefully cut for myself, I am at bottom just a very bad, bad person.

Morality play? I'm going to burn in hell.

It occurs to me after reading Joey's post about the handy-man that the Mastandrea family and in-laws must be some of the most charitable folk to walk the planet--first the one-armed brick layer and now the newest addition to the group. How does this family manage to locate these people? I know there can't be a special phone listing for them. It must be some kind of Mastandrea radar...

I agree with that assessment of the Haynie Lane nightmare house. It resembled the CAMP Crystal Lake house from the Friday the 13th movies. I offerred pat a 10 if he ate a pickle out of the fridge. He declined. In one of the rooms I stepped back and stepped on a full foil wrapped baked potato on the floor. In another room there was an alter set up in the closet with some gateway and hand written scrawl in another language. Entrance to the BIZZARO WORLD. There was one other thing that confused me.
Something Steve left out.

HAIR- One dog and one cat could not not possibly have created the amount of hair that covered this home. And as far as I can tell most of the furniture was damp. Chairs do not perspire. It was moist and covered in hair. It looked as if there was a hair hurricane and then it rained but only inside the house. Have you ever carried a wet hair covered couch. I burned the clothes i wore. That stink was infectious. I think the house had an infection.


What steve was not present for was my last visit. The house has been gutted out and we went on a tour. Darrell pointed out where he believes the waterbed broke and leaked through the ceiling. I wonder if that was a BAD water bed. We checked out the water sysytem. Or lack of. I removed the filter and there was a solid block of dirt in it. That filter is to remove sand and sediment. Our house filter is changed once a year and its clean, a few bits of sand and pebble is all. I could not see the filter. I dumped it out and and was not surpised to see no water at all. Bone dry. Black bath tub was the least of thier worries if they were drinking that stuff. Nasty. Astonishingly enough the house retained its stink. I was confused. No rugs tile or wood and most of the sheetrock torn out and yet this place could still generate a stink like no other.

Anyway I will be on the look out for Rabbi Marley. I haven't seen him yet.
Be on the look out for The Full Monty he will be working on the roof.

I need to return to Joey's previous entry about moving the Hell House of Haynie Lane, because I think I can break down the experience itself into some broad themes.

1. Strange Colors. How does a bathtub become blacker than tar? According to Darrel the water filters were failing. Now, I don't claim to know much about science but if the water is doing that to the porcelain, what the hell was it doing to this poor woman's body? Anyway, I have my own theory; I'm convinced the stains were left from a bath-tub cremation. I also must mention the living room walls, which were caked so thick with green mold, that it appeared to be growing broccoli and green squash. ( And not the kind you see in the produce section, but the giant mutant strain that Uncle Lenny cultivates in his 40th St. garden)
2. Deformity. Each animal residing in this house posessed a physical abnormality: a labrador with some sort of tracheotomy which prohibited it from making any audible sounds other than a cough was being followed around by a cat missing a portion of its skull. And of course, as Joey mentioned earlier there was the most adorable tail.....missing a cat.
3. Odor. A decade of accumulated dirt, mold, and fecal matter produced an indescribable smell; the distinctive scent of an entire colony of e.coli. It surprises me that none of the house pets were missing a nose.
4. Yarn. I have never seen so many spools of yarn in my entire life. Every wall unit, bureau, chest or armoir we moved was overfilled and erupting with spools of yarn, which would inevitably fall out and drag under our feet while we were loading the truck. I can only assume this woman was sewing a quilt to cover Alaska. As a bonus, the yarn wore the special house scent, so in Joey's possession they transformed into WMDs. (I think Heidi may still be suffering from Gulf War Syndrome)
5. Irony. I counted four vacuums and three lawn mowers (one of which she insisted on us moving to a townhouse which had no lawn) . The grass and shrubs were three stories high and the carpets needed the cleanup crew of the Exxon Valdez.
6. Wagers and Dares. Examples: "Pleeeease, Jessica. I will give you 15 dollars, all you have to do is put this woolen hat on your head" or "Pat, I dare you to press your face into that daybed mattress ". Needless to say these continued throughout the day without a single acceptance....until Darrel scooped up the cat tail with his bare hands and chased his daughters around the house. (And for this he is King)

I must admit I'm glad I partcipated in moving day at the Hell House. We had a lotta laughs, and after all a little Legionnaires Disease is good for you once in a while.

In other news, a few days ago I witnessed a Reggae Hasidim on the UPN network. He sings like Marley, dresses like Rabbi Moskowitz. I encourage everyone to keep their eyes peeled for this rising star. I don't know his name yet, but my prediction is he going to make it big. Mazel Mazel. Good things.

Did I say Florida was a strange place.......

So Mary has made it to Spumoni South. She will watch over the property. As I pulled up in the driveway today i observed the driveway being sealed with blacktop by a man with a strange walk. He is referred to as the FULL MONTY. He is a handicapped handi man. It fascinated me. He looked at mary and said, " You can clean that up with some clorox and a hose". Amazingly enough the mans honesty and polite manner trumped my immediate need to make a joke. He rolled out the sealant and gave a bid on sealing the roof. My dad is out in his wheelchair surveying the work being done. he is out there bargaining from the chair.

I have unearthed a picture of the original Le GAGALIA. Watch your email......

In other local news preparations are being made for the decorating to begin I know how much John misses hanging lights and untangling and changing bulbs as he once did in Staten Island
but first a plan has been hatched for the look. El Duce has spoken.
Stay tuned....

Shtroopiad-to walk or carry oneself in an uncoordinated or unbalanced manner.
Too much Busch can make billy shtroopiad.

Yes, Floridians are newly portrayed as very interesting people these days -- ask Maureen Dowd at the New York Times. Her couch is sweating. I'm still enjoying last week's election. People are taking it so hard! I've actually had to calm some folks down: remind them that the world isn't going to end. That the stuff they heard from Michael Moore (who?) and Dan Rather (what's the frequency?) and others was nonsense specifically designed to scare them silly. Their real beef is with them. Yeah, beef. Like the stuff in that woman's refrigerator.

So I must confess that I am happy the election is over. I am quite tired of every person I run into blubbering on about who they are voting for of these people have problems remembering to wipe but they will argue domestic policy till they stop breathing. It fascinates me how someone can argue about something so vehemently and yet they pulled up their mutandes without a single wipe. Saving trees? We know, we can smell you from our driveway.
Its a weird place....Florida. If we could just harness hurricanes and send them where we need a good cleansing wind I would have sent it to Haynie Lane in Jupiter Farms. Me and Steve decided to help Jessica's dad move a divorced women out of a big house he had purchased in Jupiter Farms. I thought it would be a few chairs and a couch. I enlisted Steve because the mighty soup can Pat has conveniently broken his right thumb. He was voting early. So we walk in this house and the scent alone was enough to kill cancer. There was an indescribable stink in this house. I lift the first couch with Steve and its wet. Couches do not perspire. We lifted it up and there is a cats tail under it. We have no idea where the cat went but he forgot it. Whatever we moved left a stain on our clothing and scar on our brain. My brother made the comment" How could you get out of that shower clean?" He referred to a bath tub that was black with stains. We kept daring each other to eat things from the fridge. I am pretty sure that a fridge should not smell like dirty clothes. So eating from it was not an option. The dog was so filthy he couldn't bark. He just groaned. I dunno. But i know that my dad went by there and he wants the statute of mary that was in the front yard. I wonder if it smells? Its not going in my car.

Nice work, America. It makes me smile when I imagine James Taylor hugging a sobbing Leo DiCaprio and softly singing "you just call out my name..." in his ear. My apologies to the staunch Kerryites such as Stefanuch and Vito, lets remember that before we are Republicans or Democrats, above all we are BARESE. So lets try and stay focused on our ultimate mission:
"A Government of the Barese, For the Barese, Tutti Barese". Thank You.

Now for the important stuff:

New Words for the Encyclopedia Mastandrea:
1. Baloney-Spiccoli- I'm not sure I even need to define this one. Obviously, a reference to the male reproductive organs, and can be applied in a variety of contexts.
2. mumble folks mumble Kerry mumble mumble- not sure of the definition, but we all heard Bruce Springsteen say this 500 times the past month.

Business calls, I will return.

Da boyz are very excited about seeing Marlena. They asked if everyone could come -- and then they launched into a tangent:

Cookie: We'll bring BazzukaJoe and Frylock into our workshop. The four of us will build a giant robot.

Mojo: And I'll put a butt on it.

Alane: That's a Mastandrea thing.

I suspect that's correct.

I subscribe to The Economist, and I generally find it factually informative and analytically savvy. But endorsing Kerry for president? Pure European idiocy. The rationale? In part:

...on social policy, Mr Kerry has a clear advantage: unlike Mr Bush he is not in hock to the Christian right. That will make him a more tolerant, less divisive figure on issues such as abortion, gay marriage and stem-cell research.

What horseshit -- only a non-American could possibly think that Kerry's preferred policies on social issues won't be extraordinarily divisive. Bush in hock to the Christian right? What about Kerry in hock to the anarchist left?

Morons.

Now we know the key to keeping this country safe from Islamofascist attack: we need to be more like Sweden!

So, let's see... which candidate advocates Sweden-like policy positions?

Vote or Die indeed.

So it was sort of his "Cambodia finger."

Guten tag everyone,
Lastnight Jenia and I were watching The Deadliest Season: Alaskan Snow Crab Fisherman, the #1 deadliest occupation out there. These fisherman work for one season and make upwards of at least $140,000, usually tons more depending on the number of crabs caught (large male), and how large the vessel. Typically, for every crew, one member does not make it back alive. So show interviewed a few chosen fishermen, one in particular was going back to sea for the 3rd time. This season he was eager and back with a vengeance, since last year he lost his index finger at sea. He was prepared now though, he said, because he keeps his finger with him for good. Then, without warning, the fisherman pulls down his shirt and takes out a 3" black index finger with a green rotten nail shoved into his gold chain. Then he gently and ever so lovingly tucks his special knub back into his shirt for safekeeping. It all happened so fast. Jenia laughed, I shit my pants.

We eagerly await a report from Steve, who is no doubt monitoring the early balloting in Palm Beach County.

So, how're your chads hangin'?

Listening to the campaign rhetoric, I start to wonder what Kerry's campaign would sound like if he were running in the 1950s at the height of the Cold War. I can almost hear him explaining that the victory in WWII had been botched -- sure, we knocked off the incompetent Nazis ("I always considered them a threat"), but we failed to win the peace in the East!

Or perhaps he would have taken the opposite angle: asserting that we should have moved pre-emptively against the Axis, instead of outsourcing our Pacific fleet to bottom of an island harbor!

Can a man really win the White House as a Monday-morning-quarterback who so solemnly and deliberately politicizes national security?

Hey, this is America -- all things are possible!

This shouldn't be so devastating, but I am nonetheless saddened: that august chain of quality merchandise outlets "Odd Job" is no more. They're not going away, mind you, but they are changing their name to "Amazing Savings."

The new name is lame. And the old name is packed -- packed! -- with Mastandrea gift lore.

Just took the boys to the park so we could kick around the soccer ball. John Paul seems to have an interest in that lately. On the field was a high school soccer team in the middle of practice. We stayed off to the side. Sometime later a school bus arrived. A team wearing neat blue uniforms marched off and started their warm up.

I hardly paid attention as the game started. As the boys' attention wandered, I started telling them about how the game is played by pointing out the action on the field. Surprisingly, John Paul showed interest, then Joseph did likewise.

I was trying to show how each team was trying to get the ball away from the other so they could kick it into their net. I quickly realized that the game was very lopsided -- the blue team was everywhere the ball was going; the other team... stank.

It wasn't until we took new positions at the other end of the field (the blue team's goal, where all the action was) that I was able to read the jerseys. That was Bronxville. And the hapless slobs who couldn't string two kicks together? That was Tuckahoe.

Figures.

It reminded me of all those awful teen angst comedies, where the preppy jocks come to the game well-groomed and well-drilled but somehow the working class mooks seize the day.

That wasn't about to happen here. We watched for a while. John Paul cheered for the blue team. Mojo fussed. And then we came inside to eat lunch.

I'll leave class warfare to the professional politicians.

We skipped the candidates' debate last night, preferring to get the boys to sleep and get some rest ourselves. I did read some live-blogging before lights-out, reading reports from Bush supporters saying W was kicking ass. I woke up sometime after 2:30 and decided to put on the radio. Top of the hour news reported, of course, that Kerry won the debate. Natch.

So I listened to a few hours of talk radio as I tried to get back to sleep.

Whatever happened to the Art Bell radio show? I used to enjoy spending sleepless nights in the company of alien vistors, U.N. helicopters, and paranormal seers.

So I put on my tinfoil hat recently and pick up a promising new book that set out to prove that which we already know: that 1996 the downing of TWA flight 800 was an act of terrorism.

Halfway through the book I'm mostly satisfied that I'm getting new information -- and also a new way to look at already public information. His theory: a bomb, not a missile. Interesting. Not sure if I buy it -- too many people saw missiles that night. But as I plow ahead in the book, I start to notice sloppy logic. Thrown into discussions of grievous FBI failures are backhand swipes at the Bush administration, attacks only marginally arising from the material he's covering. Then I see Richard Clark's name popping up more and more often, with his self-reported acts of pre-9/11 heroism getting lots of favorable slant. I'm catching some serious vibe that the author wishes we'd left Saddam Hussein alone. This book is falling apart.

I don't read books very often. My attention span normally doesn't allow for it. And now to invest time in one just to be jerked around by some Michael Moore wannabe... That's crap.

My friggin back has been out for the last week and a half, so I took a vacation day today to give my twisted spine some needed rest. I think it's helping. Maybe I need another cup of coffee. That's the best part of staying home -- I can make coffee just the way I like it, as much of it as I want (which usually means too much).

I can also read blogs as much as I want (which also usually means too much). I'm so tempted to get back into politics, but there are so many others doing it so much better. It's a lot of fun just to watch. Watching John Edwards implode the other night was good for the soul -- he reminded me of the insufferable 1L's who got to law school feeling so smug and so smart they thought they could take challenge the old professors on logic and facts. That never went well (even when the profs were insufferable blowhards themselves); nor did it go well for Forrest Gump the other night.

What I really need to do is clear off my desk here at home. Too much computer equipment, music playing gadgets, pens and papers. Gotta find a place to keep all that stuff so I'm not such a slob all the time. I'll work on that this afternoon.

There it was! The only part of the vice presidential debate that matters: John Edwards telling his Jerusalem story, putting on his jury face, exploiting the six children killed in a nearby suicide bombing...

...Alane and I were surprised he didn't start channeling their voices for the audience.

"The dead children, they speak through me."

The man is a ghoul.

And he's getting his ass kicked.

Got a call from BazzukaJoe while on the train this evening. He gave me the run-down on the latest hurricane experience, the damage report, and the unwelcome news that he is down to his last pair of mutandes.

Yes, Stefanuch alerted us to the stench; I could almost smell it through the telephone.

I'm looking forward to the presidential debate tonight. I may even watch it! In any event, I expect to see on this blog a full analysis of tonight's event -- and I expect it to be submitted by this blog's newest member, the esteemed John Simms.

That's right, I'm handing out assignments now!

Just in case you're not reading the comments section, here is a welcome update contained therein, submitted by Stefanuch:

well, i heard from Spumoni South and they are all peachy as of yesterday. no power, and a few screens on the porch appear to be eaten, and they are surrounded by aligators. other than that everyone is fine, and well, and covered in sweat-humid-stench. its ok though, we still love them through their smell.

This blog is the Bible, man!

I can't believe he calls himself "the Mike Wallace of meterology." The guy makes me sick.

We watched Jim Cantore a lot in the televised run-up to Charley, and then again as Frances came through. He looked too damned happy to be standing in a category 4 storm. Oh, and what ecstasies he enjoyed as a fourth (!) hurricane came through to kiss his stern and rain-drenched cheeks.

What a pervert. We're not sure if he's married, but if he is we suspect his latest bedroom game involves role-playing:

"Okay, you be Jeanne and I'll be Ivan."

"Be gentle against my eywall."

"When I say go, start blowing."

No word yet from Spumoni South. I suspect the phone and electric will be out for some time. Hope they made enough sandwiches to get them through.

They're going to the mattresses again in Florida, waiting for Jeanne to come hose things down. Uncle Vinny is considering painting Halloween scenes on the plywood boards that will be used to board up Spumoni South -- can Nativity themes be next?

Perhaps if I went down there and smoked enough cigars with Jenia, we could sufficiently pollute the atmosphere so as to alter the prevailing weather patterns.

That's it, I'm on my way!

I have a magic toenail. I keep it on my foot. It's always there to rescue me when something goes ow, ow, ouch!

Okay, we're starting to receive documentation of last week's storming of New York's Flatus-hotel. At first we weren't sure just how many people/bagels/doughnuts would actually fit in a regular hotel room. But we learn quickly!

I talked to Joe Nebraska yesterday, but I'll give him a belated birthday shout-out on the blog -- and once again tell him he's a bum for not posting anything for so long.

And the rest of you are bums too!

Election season is always fun. I remember spending the waning days of the 2000 recount right there at ground zero -- watching the chad-counts on the local West Palm television stations, even as the dreaded roto-virus silently took hold of our intestines.

And this year, in a campaign already weighed down by gratuitous images of the Vietnam conflict, we have the spectacle of Dan Rather immolating himself in the public square -- hoping beyond hope to convince everyone to please, please come to their senses and properly HATE BUSH as much as he does.

As for me, I'm loving every minute of it. It's not that I ever trusted Dan Rather to report real news -- the networks are entertainment shops. But for so many years Dan Rather convinced himself that he was the gatekeeper -- the man behind the curtain who could control what people knew, control the terms of the debate.

And now it's all over for the old man. I almost want to think it's sad but it's not. It's friggin' beautiful. And I love watching it unfold.

Blogs are good for a lot of things -- not the least of which is for publicizing long-standing grudges! I was reminded this week of my legal education alma mater, Fordham Law School, and why it is I'll never have a kind word to say about that institution.

Back in 1993, Alane and I started school there -- I was in the day program (a three-year program) and Alane was in the night program (a four-year program). With all the personal tragedies, the career shuffling and hard work we had to endure over those years, completing our studies was no small matter. I finished in 1996; Alane finished in 1997. In the run-up to Alane's graduation, we discovered that Fordham had a policy of allowing alumni family members to confer a graduate's juris doctor degree at the actual ceremony. Normally, this tradition played out with long-ago graduates handing off sheepskins to their children or grandchildren. It's unlikely they ever had spouses requesting to participate in this tradition -- but considered all we'd experienced over the years (and the obscene sum of money we'd forked over to attend) we signed up for it.

It would be cool: I'd be on the dais as a 1996 graduate, and would hand Alane her degree at the 1997 ceremony.

To make a long story short, Fordham Law told us we didn't qualify. They never did quite explain themselves. Clearly, they don't consider marriage to be a sufficient family connection (itself deplorable). Or it could be that they were afraid that by honoring a traditional marriage they would next be challenged to honor a non-traditional arrangement (and being modern liberals they would incapable of distringuishing the two).

Whatever their reasoning, Alane and I decided Fordham Law is run by complete assholes -- and once we paid off our monumental law school debt, they'd never see another dime of our money.

And so it shall be. And now, thanks to this blog, everyone can know it too.

(I particularly enjoy receiving the "please send donations" mail -- tossing it in the shit-can feels sooo good.