Jan Terri - Excuse My Christmas

This is the hit single. When this is the top of the charts and everyone's feeling the glow of Christmas warmth, you remember that you heard it hear first.

Popcorn in Bed - National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

Another classic.

Growing up, we never had advent calendars. I remember my friend had one in 1st or 2nd grade but that was it. Whenever I would watch this movie, the thing that would fill me with Christmas awe and wonder was the advent calendar. As the date of the calendar increases, childlike joy and excitement build inexorably.

It's good... it's good... it's good.

Understanding a Joke 25 Years Later

I first saw "So I Married an Axe Murderer" probably in 1997 and have been thinking about it ever since. But there's a joke in there that I didn't understand until this very day.

In the famous "Wo-man, whoah man" beat poem, Myers jokes that he's so unlucky with women that he's become obsessed with cartoon women. He references a series of cartoons and then ends with "Hey Jane, get me off this crazy thing... called love."

Who's Jane? I seriously didn't know and kind of assumed it was someone in the coffee house, perhaps the manager. How embarrassing. 

It was today that I realized he's referring Jane Jetson which I should have known because I used to watch "The Jetsons" regularly.

To be fair, he got the quote wrong, it's actually, "Jane, stop this crazy thing!" but that's no excuse for me. Shame. Shame.

What are Sugar Plums?

It's Christmas time, basically, so naturally I've been wondering what sugar plums are and how to get hold of some. If you do a search on amazon you'll get sugar coated plums for sale, which are not the same thing at all. Then talking to a friend, he sent me a recipe but wikipedia warns:

"Another 21st-century take on the sugar plum instructs home cooks to combine dried fruits and almonds with honey and aromatic seeds (anise, fennel, caraway, cardamom), form this mixture into balls, then coat in sugar or shredded coconut.[8]"

... which is what the recipe was. I'm not looking for the 21st-century anything.

So this video explains what they are and how to make them and I guess I won't be trying sugar plums.

Except.

They mention jordan almonds are technically sugar plums and he also refers to some brand of coated pine nuts as being sugar plums; but he doesn't mention or link to whatever he's specifically talking about. Jordan almonds that fit the criteria are all over amazon, so that's obtainable. Pine nuts are trickier. With some work, I was able to track down the pine nuts he's referring to as being "1880 Candy Coated Pine Nuts." They appear to be obtainable but not from any place convenient to me. To be continued perhaps.

Popcorn in Bed - Uncle Buck

"Uncle Bucke?" Aw, heck yeah!

A John Hughes/John Candy classic.

The Name of the Song is the Name of the Artist is the Name of the Channel

It's been 3 years since I premiered "Moscow" and now Youtube has progressed to the above. Workin' the algorithm, I suppose.