The holiday gods have chosen me for their annual sacrifice! I have a fever that’s getting worse by the hour, and a light congestion that’s actively baiting me to cough so it can reveal itself as much, much worse congestion. Fun!

If this stays the course — and knowing my body, it will — we’ll be spending Thanksgiving quietly at home. Which… actually isn’t the worst thing in the world?

I’ll get to wake up and watch the parade and never once have to worry about getting out of my Kool-Aid pajamas. Maybe we’ll even subvert the old Christmas Story tradition and order Chinese for Thanksgiving. I could think of worse ways to spend the holiday.

Fortunately, I haven’t hit Peak Sick quite yet, so we were FINALLY able to finish a new episode of The Purple Stuff Podcast!

It’s our first show since, what, September? Life got in the way for a while, but we’re happy to be back… and especially happy to be back just in time for some kind of mutant Thanksgiving show.

This week, me and Jay from The Sexy Armpit talk about ten things we’re thankful for, like, uh, Clamato and Jakks Big Figs. And a song from the Ninja Turtles’ Coming Out of Their Shells tour. Yes, that’s where we’re going.

Give us a listen by clicking the giant, ugly play button down below!

You commuter types can also download this week’s episode by right-clicking here.

Thanks to everyone who oh-so-gently poked us over the last month or so, wondering when a new episode might drop. Knowing that people cared motivated us to get back on the horse, and we look forward to resuming a regular schedule from here on out.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go become one with the couch while treating ginger ale like an antihistamine.

Oh hey, how about a survey?

In the comments, tell me and everyone else about some of the weird things that YOU’RE thankful for. Be heartfelt if that’s your bag, but feel free to just rave about a beloved brand of potato chips, too.

Enjoy the show!

Well, here’s my recipe for Thanksgiving stuffing — a perfect fit for this ‘80s/’90s nostalgia blog.

Stuffing is my only must-have Thanksgiving dish. The turkey is okay and I love a good artichoke, but all I really need is the stuffing. Piles of it. Enough to build a decoy Matt completely out of wet bread.

It’s gotta be the homemade kind. If you’ve only ever had Stove Top, it’s just not comparable. I adore Stove Top, but that stuffing and homemade stuffing are two completely different dishes.

Stuffing is one of those dishes that’s impossible to get wrong. (Well, actually, it’s pretty easy to get wrong, but the miraculous thing about stuffing is that it is always salvageable, no matter how badly you treat it.)

Below is my recipe, which is technically my family’s recipe, albeit with some modifications. Read More…

Sit. Make a cup of coffee. Wrap yourself one of those $10 throw blankets, because I know they’re your vice. This one’s gonna take a while.

Below are nine finds from the 1993 JCPenney Christmas catalog, a 600+ page behemoth filled with toys and video games and lime green lingerie.

I would’ve been in the eighth grade at the time, a little less into action figures, but desperate to not let anyone know that I was still into them at all. Video games and shitty sneakers were safer picks, but I still managed to satisfy my inner six-year-old whenever no one was looking. (Hip hip hooray for Christmas vacation.)

Street Fighter II Tabletop Game!
($39.99)

Essentially a souped-up version of Rock ‘em Sock ’em Robots, here we had Guile and Ryu beating the holy hell out of each other. I’m glad that they didn’t go with the safer-but-boring Ryu/Ken matchup, but the perfect world version of this game would’ve so obviously pitted Blanka against Dhalsim.

The warriors’ kicks and punches were scored by strange electronic noises, which I suppose made up for the fact that this Rock ‘em ripoff didn’t let you punch Ryu and Guile’s heads off of their bodies. C’mon! Read More…