I Just Want Some Water

Ok, the holidays are over time to get back to some serious blogging. The hard-hitting topics, like: What the hell did Poland Spring do to their bottles?

While, I respect the eco-friendly design, who came up with this new opening mechanism? I've lost countless (zero) fingernails opening these things. If you haven't had one of these yet, here is basically how it works:

1. Place tip of fingernail underneath blue tab
2. Pull blue tab
3. Question whether what you just did was the correct way to open said bottle because it hurt
4. Realize, yes, you did it correctly
5. Wash wound with bottle of water
   

Figgy Pudding

Merry Christmas all! Time to open presents, drink eggnog and eat figgy pudding - the most mysterious food ever created.

There is no other day during the entire year when you will consume, request or receive figgy pudding. I have never had a wonderful meal at a great restaurant and capped the night off with their delicious figgy pudding. I have never seen it on a menu or, for that matter, ever seen it anywhere outside of Christmas day. Sure, turkey is served on Thanksgiving, but it doesn't go into hiding the other 364 days of the year. Figgy pudding falls off the epicurean map after Christmas.

Secondly, is "figgy" the adjective form of "a fig?" If so, I did not know you could do that with the English language. Sure, you can say "chocolaty," but you wouldn't say "chocolaty cake," you'd say "chocolate cake."

Finally, figgy pudding is good, but it's not that good, yet those kids in "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," are like drug addicts for the stuff. It's like being addicted to celery. Has anyone every given one of these children a snickerdoodle? And, how about your kid has a problem, "We won't stop until we get some," well, that kind of sounds like an enhanced interrogation technique to me.

Tell them about the ham

So, for this one, feel free to post your input for a friend of mine who texted me with an interesting dilemma:

My friend had a few friends over for a dinner and was handling the cooking duties. One of his friends' new girlfriend was a vegetarian. He was cognizant of this fact throughout the cooking (except he's an idiot as you will soon find out - I can call him an idiot because he is my friend and because I am 100% sure he doesn't read my blog.) So, everything went well, until he thought back on how he made the soup he served first. It was a veggie soup except the moron cooked up the broth with ham.

Ok, so the strained out ham flavor probably isn't the worst thing you could serve a vegetarian (that would be Turducken) but it's still from meat. By the way, oh my God, can you imagine if you accidentally slipped turducken by a vegetarian guest, wow, good luck on that one.

So, he asked me if I thought he should call and tell his friend or just let it slide.

What would you guys do?

It's a Christmas Miracle!!!

After you open your presents and have a lavish dinner this Christmas, curl up on the couch in your brand new Snuggie and induldge in a new family tradition: Watching Newman on TV!!!

(Yes, that was 3rd-person, and yes, I did post a recent blog about how I hate The Situation from MTV's Jersey Shore for referring to himself in the 3rd person, but what can I say, you get on TV and these things go to your head.)

TV Land has made the greatest decision of their lives by bringing back Make My Day (the TV show Shinn and I, or more specifically - my back - were on) and guess when our episode airs: Christmas Night at 10pm - PRIME TIME!!!! You dream of time-slots like this as a big-time actor.

So, 10pm Christmas night check out TV Land (More Details)

A Holiday Thought. . .

When we run out of fossil fuels all those kids who got coal for Christmas will be laughing all the way to the bank.

The Christmas Sweater

John Mayer showed up on Ellen yesterday wearing what can only be described as the most awesome sweater ever. As you can see, it features two reindeer, an ill-proportioned Christmas tree and the pattern of a fine couch cushion.

This sweater would make little sense in June (as would any long-sleeved garment) but this time of year it just happens to be perfect. It's the holidays? BOOM! You automatically have a worse eye for fashion than the Germans. How exactly did the Christmas holiday get associated with such awful clothing?

Everyone had one; just dig through your box of old pictures and you'll see one or two of you opening presents in one of these monstrosities. I would love to see any pictures you have of you or a loved one in an ugly Christmas sweater. You can email them to me at: Newman@wpst.com and hopefully I will get enough to make one big collage to post here before Christmas.

Top Chef Finale Conspiracy?

Not sure how many Top Chef fans are out there, but it happens to be one of my favorite shows on TV, and wanted some takes on the finale.

SPOILER ALERT!!!! (For those who haven't watched it on their DVR's from Wednesday)

I found this season a bit strange, because unlike some seasons in the past it seemed a little over-planned. As much of a fan as I was of both Kevin and Jennifer, it can definitely be argued the Voltaggio brothers were the best chefs in the competition, but here is what I find odd: Why did they eliminate Kevin before the announcement of the winner? Have they every done that before?

So, why is this weird? Well, they obviously did it for the story-line. They liked the idea of this sibling rivalry throughout the season, and the pay-off was the two of them standing there at the end. But, could it have gone so perfectly or was this a small guiding influence on the decisions made throughout the eliminations. Again, I don't know if this is really true, because Brian and Michael seem like pretty damn good chefs, but the removal of Kevin before the announcement made me start thinking. By the way my spies tell me (That's right, Chris Rollins isn't the only one with spies in Hollywood, I as well have spies - got them from Brookstones) that Kevin's marriage fell apart right before the finale, wonder if that got to him?

Anybody else find this a bit strange?

Other Random Thoughts on Top Chef:

• Could there be more product placement?


• What's the deal with that short break around 40 minutes into each episode? They come back from commercial do 2 minutes of pointless banter, go back to commercials.


• Kevin is the only person to ever pull off a comb-over