much like tastycakes, i don't feel like people outside of new jersey appreciate theraflu like they should. screw dayquil and walmartquil, and don't bother with equate-aflu. theraflu is indeed the shit.
- 3 cups sugardirections:
- 3 3/4 cups MAZOLA corn oil
- 3 cups dark brown sugar packed tight
- 8 JUMBO eggs (also stressed to me, the importance of JUMBO.)
- 4 teaspoons vanilla extract (here, i stress to you, DON'T use imitation vanilla. for anything. EVER. except perhaps to get drunk in a pinch. and i really don't recommend that either.)
- 9 cups all-purpose flour
- 4 teaspoons salt
- 6 teaspoons baking soda
- 12 cups of chocolate chips (12 cups of chips is a lot. even for this number of cookies. i ended up using 2 regular sized bags of hershey's chocolate chips, 1 1/2 bags of hershey's white chocolate chips and 1 bag of toll house chocolate chunks. regular sized bags of chocolate chips usually measure out to about 2 1/2 cups each.)
- mix oil and sugar until well blended***i'm not a huge fan of crunchy cookies. or mushy cookies. that's why these are perfect. lightly crunchy on the outside, and chewy on the inside. and toss them in a ziplock, and they stay that way for weeks! Read more...
- add brown sugar and mix until well blended
- lightly beat eggs and add to oil/sugar mixture
- add vanilla
- mix flour, salt and baking soda in a seperate bowl (i know you usually skip this step, but it's important to make sure that salt and baking soda get ditributed evenly. so shut up and do it. what's one more bowl?)
- add flour mixture to oil/sugar/egg mixture slowly until it's all well blended
- add chocolate chips
- scoop golfball sized hunks of dough onto a cookie sheet (non-stick or not, you're always better off lining your cookie sheets with parchment. for any cookie recipe. it keeps them from sticking and cooks them more evenly. and you can use the same sheet of parchment to bake all of these cookies. no need to change it everytime. you can find it in the grocery store by the aluminum foil and plastic wrap. a roll costs $4 and will last you forever. invest in your cooking stardom, my friends.)
- bake in a 375 degree oven for 15 minutes
- gain 50 pounds eating them one tray at a time!
Happy New Year.
Happy Holidays.
Happy January 1st.
Hair of the Dog.
Greasy Breakfast.
Cup of Coffee.
Charlie Parker.
i'm glad that 2008 is almost over, because it's been a really, really long year. i'll spare further details, and just say that i'm glad that i had music to escape to. this album consists of 27 songs that helped me get through the year; some new, some old, some classics, some soon-to-be. in any case, these are the jams that got me through some strange times. many of them you may have heard throughout the year, be it with [your morning coffee] on weekends, or in a listen-up post whenever a song was stuck in my head. this album is my gift to you, i hope you enjoy it.
a few notes on the album- 1) i usually stress myself out when making a mixtape, by trying to put the songs in the perfect order. i didn't this time. i did a bit of shuffling, but for the most part, i let the album make itself. consider it to be organic. 2) i didn't pay much mind to the number of songs that would fit onto a cd, because i put the songs as a playlist on my ipod. if you plan on ripping this to a cd, you're gonna need two. 3) i've already passed some of these songs on to some of you regular-reader types, so i setup the file to download one song at a time, in case you already have some. sorry it'll take you a little longer than it should. and 4) when you click the link below the tracklist, the page has the songs in the same order, except for song #22, because the band's mp3s have chastity belts tighter than a jonas brother and i couldn't change the track name.
01- momma's boy - chromeo
02- valerie - mark ronson & amy winehouse
03- m79 - vampire weekend
04- foundations - kate nash
05- wonderful world - james morrison
06- that green gentlemen - panic at the disco
07- throwin' shapes - minus the bear
08- crushcrushcrush - paramore
09- sex on fire - kings of leon
10- is there a ghost - band of horses
11- the other side - brendan james
12- live high - jason mraz
13- float like a feather - dawn mitschele
14- best days - matt white
15- today - joshua radin
16- chasing pavement - adele
17- can't get it right today - joe purdy
18- almost lover - a fine frenzy
19- against the grain - city and colour
20- for emma - bon iver
21- ordinary - wayne brady
22- the weight - the band
23- suite: judy blue eyes - csny
24- sometimes i don't get you - yo la tengo
25- fade into you - mazzy star
26- body on me - nelly & akon
27- peace sign, index down - gym class heroes
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD
a portion of a note from the artist, jesse higman, as sent to the staff of the stranger:
I made this Christmas print to give to friends and the people I meet each year who I hope will appreciate it. Please accept it as a gift from the painted streets for the work you do to make our culture so rich.[via slog] Read more...
I had a vision of this ideal couple up there on their own. It seems possible, to give, to have love and be proud, naked and getting old. It's one of those moments when you know what's important and nothing else matters. It felt like a dance to me, with grace. I mean it with all the commitment I can muster.
I drew this over eight years with a technical pen. The original is five feet tall. I drew it in the negative with black ink on white paper, then reversed it on a color copier and glued the pieces together again. Obviously, a computer has become the way to go for assembly but I would still draw it with a pen. The scribbles on the sides were to get the ink flowing in my pen. In the end they seemed like snow to me, so I kept them.
I hope you have happy holidays and a loving, productive year.
--Jesse
i wrote earlier this month about how i haven't felt the christmas spirit in quite a few years, and about how i wasn't sure i'd ever feel the same way about the holidays again. but last night on my six hour trek from richmond up to the poconos, the christmas spirit was alive again, albeit in very strange ways.
now i've driven the i-95 corridor more times than i can count over the years, and i've pretty much traveled every bit of it at some point, from maine to georgia. but never have i had such an eventful evening on the endless highway that is i-95, than i did last night. so i scribbled these letters on a coffee stained envelope from under the seat of my car with a half dead pen, to try and capture the spirit of christmas and the open road, to share with you all.
thank you for tailgating me with your brightass lights gleaming in my rear view mirror. those were the most enjoyable 23 miles i've ever traveled. i know it must have been upsetting to you that i was only going 75mph in the slow lane in a 65mph zone. that, on top of the fact that there was only one other car on the road and only four other empty lanes, i'd be pissed too. santa came early when you finally gave up trying to lick my tailpipe and flew by me. forgive me if i didn't shed a tear when i caught up to you a few miles down the road and you were handcuffed and spread eagle on the hood of your truck with two 5-0s searching you fly-ass whip. don't worry, i hear they make delicious hotmansexcocoa in jail. merry christmas shitwhistle.
you smell like beef & cheese. and not in a good way. and trust me when i tell you, having someone from new jersey, of all places, tell you that you stink, means something. you should really work on that.
thank you for doing me a solid and paying my toll. and for telling the obviously muslim toll collector to tell me "merry christmas." i thought our country was going to shit, but you made me believe that there is hope for us yet.
you're welcome. merry christmas.
it was a pleasure meeting you at the sunoco station at the chesapeake house rest area. i appreciated the 1/2 gallon of wiper fluid that you gave me because "the salt was going to crust me up" and you couldn't fit anymore in your resevoir. "jolly christmas tidings" back to you.
thank you for keeping me alert by attempting to toss me off of every overpass between richmond and philly. my white knuckles appreciate you more than you'll ever know.
what the fcuk are you doing in pennsylvania? go back to arizona where you belong.sincerely,
if you can make it past madonna, the olsen twins, colonel sanders and charleton heston, to round three, you can earN extra points for pelting sarah palin in her hunting helicopter. but you better play this now, because the GOP is making a big stink over it and it may not be around too long...
in the limited time left before the christmas festivities begin, take note of when you can have five minutes to yourself. when your husband runs out for a quart of milk, and the kids are building a snowman outside, and your mother-in-law's hands are covered in salmanella-ey turkey fluids up to her elbows, sneak back to this post on your computer. lock your door, blast the speakers, (or a pair of headphones if you need to blockout background noise), wrap yourself in a blanket (which you'll need for the goosebumps) and listen to this song:
my favorite from today's holiday secrets. in case you can't read it, it says:
"My bus driver gave all the kids on my bus Christmas cards to fill out and give to someone that they didn't know on the bus. This whole year I've been looking for a Miracle...and I think she is it. Despite what everyone says about us, she believes we are special. And in the end that's all I really want for Christmas. -Thank you."[via postsecret] Read more...
though i humbly prefer a snifter or two (or ten) of grand marnier to a christmas foo-foo drink, i also know that they have their place at family gatherings. because as my family has always said, "a family that drinks together, stays together." then again, come to think of it, judging by the fact that three of the five of us will each be alone on seeming opposite ends of the earth this christmas, i'd have to question the legitamacy of that statement... but i digress. a few of you buttersweaters have asked me for some recipes for the holidays and such, to which i am happy to oblige, and to which i add a bonus gift. almost like the fourth jonas brother, only this one'll get you drunk. but a bonus nonetheless. eight recipes to help you fondly remember or quickly forget this holiday season, depending on your consumption of course. cheers to a merry christmas!
1. The Grinch
2. Candy Cane Martini
3. AJ's Orange Christmas Punch
4. Christmas Cosmopolitan
5. Christmas Cookie Concoction
6. Deck the Halls Shooter aka "The I Don't To Talk To My In-Laws Shooter"
7. The Three Wise Men aka "The I Don't Want To Talk To Anyone Shooter"
8. White Christmas...to go with all her new ornaments that were proudly paid for by the republican national committee. (don't worry, she'll return them after christmas.)
NOT ME: i am going to watch the rest of 'the year without a santa claus' with mikey...
ME: tell mikey that i'm gonna stab santa with a pirate swordNOT ME: that's horrible
ME: i knowNOT ME: i see
ME: i'm bitchy
ME: but santa's blood tastes like candy canesNOT ME: stop. you are disgusting
ME: get over it. cuz it's the truthNOT ME: listen, dickhead
ME: ha. go before santa is d-e-a-dNOT ME: i hope you get coal in your stupid stocking
ME: is your roof icy?NOT ME: is this a joke?
ME: so maybe those flea ridden deers will fall off and break their stupid necksNOT ME: bah, humbug to you too
ME: goNOT ME: good
ME: i got a call
being away from new york city has no advantages for a city boy like myself. for me, it just promotes longing. growing up so close in jersey, it just seemed normal to care about what was going on in the big apple, even though i wasn't actually there. you get used to the way new york does things, and like riding a bike, they're ingrained in you forever. a few examples:
- the "tri-state area" will always be ny/nj/ct, no matter where i live.and so, as i watched the tree lighting last night, i felt as if i was a world away down here in virginia. virginians don't care much for the city's tree, (they cut the televised broadcast to an hour so they could show reruns of deal or no deal). i tivo'd it so that i can watch it over and over again and feel like i'm there. it was so nice being an $8 tunnel ride away... nyc during the holidays, is what christmas means to me.
- i will always refer to the following networks simply by their new york station numbers, cbs/2, nbc/4, fox/5, abc/7, no matter where i live. (i get caught up in this on a daily basis)
- i never say "the city" unless i'm talking about new york city.
- the only tree lighting at christmas, as far as i always knew, was in rockefeller center.
Humble Beginnings - Today it's a multimillion-dollar extravaganza that attracts thousands of tourists every year, but the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree hasn't always been so glamorous. On Christmas Eve 1931, with the nation mired in the Great Depression, a group of construction workers erected a 20-foot tree on the muddy site of what would become one of the city's greatest architectural and commercial monuments. Despite their grim faces, the men had cause to celebrate. Unlike most of their colleagues, they were about to get paid. (Notice the wooden crate at the foot of the tree and the clerk behind it dispensing checks). Two years later, a Rockefeller Center publicist organized the first official tree-lighting ceremony.
War on Christmas? - In 1942, Rockefeller Center unveiled three small trees dedicated to the war effort — each trimmed in either red, white or blue. Though it wasn't the first time more than one Christmas tree stood there (two were erected in 1936 to celebrate the opening of the skating rink), it was the first time organizers announced that the trees would be replanted after the holiday season. In 1944, in keeping with wartime black-out regulations, the trees remained unlit, as did every other outdoor Christmas tree in the city that year. After the war's end in 1945, organizers more than made up for the previous years of darkness by using six ultraviolet light projectors to make all 700 fluorescent globes on that year's tree appear to glow in the dark.
Television Debut - In 1951, NBC televised its first tree lighting on The Kate Smith Show, hosted by the "first lady of radio" herself (above). From 1953 to 1955, children across America watched the ceremony on Howdy Doody. Since then, the tree lighting has featured a number of famous personalities — Barbara Walters in 1972, Bob Hope in 1982, Lily Tomlin in 1985 and Liza Minnelli in 1990. This year, Miss Piggy and Stephen Colbert will be in attendance. 
Christmas Conservation - Spurred by the growing environmental movement, Rockefeller Center recycled its first Christmas tree in 1971, turning it into 30 three-bushel bags of mulch for the nature trails of upper Manhattan. Other organizations to later benefit from the leftover lumber include the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts and, most recently, Habitat for Humanity, which in 2005 used the wood to make door frames for homes in New York, Louisiana, India and Brazil.
Adornments & Ornaments - The tree's decorations have come a long way since 1931, when tin cans and scrap paper replaced garland and glass. In 1934, organizers festooned that year's evergreen with 1,200 colored lights and ornaments shaped like dogs, horses, giraffes, sailboats and stars. A public-address system also piped in holiday tunes, creating the effect of a "singing tree." The 1950s saw a white spray-painted tree, the return of garlands made of cranberries and popcorn (or at least, plastic balls that resembled them) and 10-foot-long aluminum icicles that turned treacherous in high winds. In 1954, Saks Fifth Avenue inadvertently created midtown traffic jams with its 32-foot-high display of aluminum angels floating along the building's facade (above). And for a few brief minutes in 1980, a human body adorned the tree before police could arrest the man who had unsuccessfully tried scaling it.
The Great Hunt - Nowadays, finding the perfect tree is a daunting task reserved for Rockefeller Center's garden manager. But this has not always been the case. In 1956, a polite (or perhaps proud) New Hampshire man presented a 65-foot White Spruce to the state's Governor, who in turn offered it to Rockefeller Center as a gift from New York's neighbor to the north. Ten years later, Canada delivered a 64-foot White spruce in honor of its 100th birthday — the first Rockefeller Christmas Tree raised out of the U.S. Today, a helicopter is used to scour New England for the perfect specimen. This year, the winning evergreen is a 72-foot-tall Norway spruce from New Jersey. Its owner, Bill Varanyak, dubbed it "the miracle tree," telling local reporters that his late mother always predicted it would one day stand at Rockefeller Center. Varanyak's parents had planted the tree in 1931, the very year the tradition began.
A Star Is Born - Last month, pop star Fergie unveiled the 550-pound Swarovski Star, created for the Rockefeller Christmas Tree by German artist Michael Hammers for the 100-year-old Austrian company. Standing 10 feet tall and composed of 25,000 crystals with a total of 1 million facets, it is the largest star to ever top the tree and the first to represent a corporate sponsor. Neither the crystal maker nor Rockefeller Center will disclose how much money changed hands, but some speculate Swarovski paid as much as $1.5 million for the rights to the tree's crown. Either way, it is a far cry from the 4-foot plastic star used during the 1950s and 60s or the fiberglass, gold-leaf star that adorned the tree during the late 1990s. 
Let There Be Light - New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had the honor of flipping the switch during the 2007 tree-lighting ceremony, illuminating the more than 30,000 energy-saving LEDs that were part of NBC's latest attempt to go green. Compared to the tree's old incandescent bulbs, the new light-emitting diodes used 1,200 kilowatt hours less electricity per day, enough to power a 2,000-square-foot home for a month. Even so, the new lights did not win universal praise; some complained the tiny lights weren't as appealing as old-fashioned incandescents, while others decried NBC's glowing coverage, so to speak, of the eco-friendly move — noting that NBC's parent company, General Electric, manufactured the bulbs.
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