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.