The Mostly-Complete Dino Drac Archives.

The Panettone Cake Monster.

Dudes. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of panettone, but in my family, no Christmas is complete without one on the table. Even if nobody touches it. Few ever do. It’s basically bread masquerading as cake. It’s sweet, faintly fruity, very Italian, and eating it is like trying to c

Dino Drac’s Advent Calendar: 12/17 – 12/18/12.

“They can’t be serious. What is this, a translucent breadbox?” Nah, I think it’s just some kind of holding tank. Either way, a pretty junky gift. In fact, it’s so junky that I refuse to respect it with a bold font. These Playmobil Advent Calendars really love their peaks and

Dino Drac’s Advent Calendar: 12/16/12.

Expecting more disappointment after that hideous stretch of tree parts, Dino Drac is pleasantly surprised by today’s gift. Meet Safari Woman, a fiery brute who may actually just be a statue. “She’s not moving! She’s not moving at all!” Actually, Dino Drac, she is moving. She’s

Vlog: Top-Drawer Christmas Vacation Stuff.

I wouldn’t normally post two videos so close together, but I think the combination of the background music and my trademark five-minute pauses make this one especially suitable for late night weekend viewing. Behold, top-drawer thingamajigs from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation: P

Vlog: 1991 Christmas Crunch w/ Mystery Gift!

Yes – more Christmas Crunch content! Don’t complain. I have a good reason: This is a sealed box of 1991 Christmas Crunch, with a SURPRISE GIFT BOX glued to the top. What treasures will we find inside? It will only take nine minutes to find out: After filming, I was left with a box

Awesome Xmas Junk Food!

A post like this needs no introduction. You know what you’re in for. But I still feel compelled to write one. That wretched header image will seem excessive without a small army of paragraphs beneath it. So, I’ll use this space to share my feelings about pomegranates. In summary: I lov

Dino Drac’s Advent Calendar: 12/14 – 12/15/12.

A tree! Dino Drac is PISSSSED. He’s pissed, and it’s all my fault. I made such a fuss about how Playmobil was only going to give us good gifts for the rest of December. Now we got a tree, and it’s not even a WHOLE tree. It’s really just a branch. Today’s gift is a

BFCDAW #12: Karen and Shirley.

Here’s Karen Carpenter and Shirley Manson, singing a duet at an outdoor Christmas concert. Explanation: For the past week, I’ve spent my entire commuting hours listening to nothing but The Carpenters’ Christmas album and a Garbage greatest hits compilation. Garbage broke big when I w

Dino Drac’s Advent Calendar: 12/13/12.

A gecko! I like him. He’s tiny, he’s drowsy, and he looks a lot like a baby alligator. (Despite this, I am sure that he’s a gecko. I’ve never been more sure of anything.) His arrival was not without drama. Dino Drac assumed the gecko to be food, and was salivating like

1995 Christmas Crunch with HOLIDAY FROSTING.

You might think that I’ve exhausted the well of Christmas Crunch posts, but nuh uh. I may have written about that cereal fifty times, but I never told you about the time it came with cake frosting. This super special version of Christmas Crunch came out in 1995, and if not for Coolio, wo

Dino Drac’s Advent Calendar: 12/12/12.

Let’s get something straight. This isn’t just some random patch of grass covered in weeds and flowers. It’s a miniature golf course. Granted, it’s a miniature golf course with only one hole, and it comes with no clubs or balls. So what? It’s only December 12th. There are still pl

BFCDAW #11: Good looking cookies.

Today is busy. I’m only BCFDAW’ing because I need to push that eel sushi off of the main page as soon as possible. There. Much better. A palatable set of Christmas cookies, purchased for WAY TOO MUCH MONEY from one of those design-your-own-salad places. ($9 for two cookies, and no, I w

Dino Drac’s Advent Calendar: 12/11/12.

A raptor. (!!!) Just like the ones from Jurassic Park. But so much more orange. Dino Drac is pleased, but he hesitates to really let loose. “I’m just worried that this isn’t a real raptor. I don’t want to start screaming about raptors if people are going to tell us that it’s some

BFCDAW #10: The Christmas Sushi Roll.

There’s a new feature up, listing ten strange and wonderful things I want from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. (Including Aunt Bethany’s cat food Jell-O. Yes.) For today’s BCFDAW, I’d like to introduce you to the “Christmas roll.” Several of New York’s sushi joints a

Dino Drac’s Advent Calendar: 12/10/12.

Oh yes, the party has truly begun! I foresee nothing but GOOD GIFTS from here on out! Proof’s in the pudding. Of course, in this case, “pudding” refers to a scorpion and a video camera. Not since car tires and frog legs has a combination seemed so natural. I’ve endured many Playmo

Five good things from the Christmas Fair!

Wow, what a handsome header image that is. “He worked really hard, Grandma.” If you read me back on X-E, you know all about this Christmas fair. The one with the “basket raffles.” I’ve gone to this church-hosted Christmas fair every year for as long as I can remember. It can be a

Dino Drac’s Advent Calendar: 12/9/12.

Yesterday, you may have seen a post about how I was canceling the site’s Christmas season due to time-and-other constraints. As you can see, that post is no longer here. And we have a solid argument from Dino Drac to thank. “I know you’re busy, but I just got a giant python. You sure

Dino Drac’s Advent Calendar: 12/8/12.

Okay, NOW things are starting to feel like Christmas. Today’s gift is a complete DINOSAUR SKELETON, which arrived in pieces for Dino Drac to put together. (As you might imagine, that was a macabre image. In human hands it would have only seemed like an archaeological process, but Dino Dr

BFCDAW #9: Cheers, trunky.

It’s Friday. Fantastic freakin’ Friday. I’m so looking forward to having time to put more on the site than bad doodles and pictures of plastic shovels. But, since it is not the weekend yet, I must do what is necessary to survive: That’s a Christmas tree trunk. You know, the part yo

Dino Drac’s Advent Calendar: 12/7/12.

A shovel, a pickaxe and a hatchet. Joy to the world. You can tell by Dino Drac’s forced smile that he’s not a big fan of these. And sure, I admit that this year’s Playmobil gifts are starting to feel like someone just raided their garage for passable Christmas presents. Today, a shov