Ancient Christmas Appetizers!
This morning, I dived deep into my collection of ancient recipe books, looking for the kind of snack ideas that no book published after 1975 would dare include.
After choosing my “subjects,” it was time to gather the ingredients. Good God, I spent a fortune. I’m not sure what happened, since I specifically chose recipes that seemed not only easy, but cheap.
Oh well. Christmas only comes once a year, and it’s not like I ever pay attention to these old recipe books when it’s not Christmastime. If I was gonna blow a hundred bucks on cream cheese and bootleg caviar, I picked the right day.
Below are four of my creations, based on recipes from Better Homes & Gardens’ 1963 classic, Snacks and Refreshments. May they bring you good tidings, and inspire you to do wacky things with black olives. Read More…
Dino Drac’s Advent Calendar: 12/21 – 12/23/12.
Dino Drac hates today’s magnifying glass, but I don’t. I love how Playmobil made it all jewel-like and oversized, as if it’s actually a supernatural crystal-gazing thing that will let us see the future.
“So you wanna see the future, eh? Then let me open tomorrow’s gift.”
I don’t even put up a fight, anymore. He’s too hard to argue with. Too many dismissive hand gestures. Read More…
Christmas Cat Litter?
Meet Kitten. She often tries to kill me, but when she likes me, she really likes me. Kitten has made good days better and horrible days livable. She’s a great cat.
All cats are great. Even the terrible ones. They’re smart, they’re funny, and if you howl at just the right pitch, they’ll think it’s coming from some coyote outside.
Cats shit in boxes, too. For us, it’s a blessing and a curse. We’ll never have to stand in the freezing cold waiting for them to handle things, but we will have to share living space with a plastic box full of shit.
We own several cats, so we go through a lot of litter. I don’t know much about cat litter beyond what it’s used for, but I think that’s enough to know. If it works, cat litter will make the obvious downsides of having animals shit in your house more tolerable. If you own a cat, litter is as much a part of your life as, I don’t know, popcorn.
Nobody sticks with one brand of litter forever. Eventually, there will be an “incident,” and since blaming the cat creates a problem with no solution, you blame the litter. The pebbles are too small. The pebbles are too big. You are a mad scientist, and your work involves making cat shit less of an issue. The formula is constantly changing.
When you find a brand you can stand, you treasure it. It’s very hard to switch to a different litter when the current one works. It’s not like trying a new soda and disliking it. The repercussions are FAR more severe.
Right now, we think we have a good brand. I’m not going to tell you what it is, because I think that’s too personal for some reason. Just know that there have been no “incidents,” and we like our brand enough to travel twenty minutes out the way for it. Its purpose is just too critical.
Well tonight, and very uncharacteristically, we switched brands without some cat-related devastation to encourage us. Had to. Folks, you’re looking at CHRISTMAS CAT LITTER up there.
Officially, it’s Winter Pine, from Purina Tidy Cats. “A seasonal blend with super-absorbing crystals.” A Dino Drac reader tipped me off about this, and though I can’t find the name of this reader at the moment, I owe her a great deal of thanks.
In a world where bizarre “holiday edition” things compete with so many other bizarre “holiday edition” things, it gets to the point where nothing really seems bizarre anymore. But this? This does. For it is CHRISTMAS CAT LITTER. A way to mask the stink of cat shit with the stink of Christmas trees.
Holy Mary, Mother of God.
A blurb on the back reads, “Super-absorbing crystals plus the fresh scent of winter pine will help keep your home smelling cozy and clean, all season long.” This blurb is, no joke, less than two inches away from a big warning about how parasites found in cat shit can cause toxoplasmosis. I don’t know if things still jump sharks, but if they do, Christmas just did. Read More…
BFCDAW #13: Christmas on Ker-Zerzenic.
Between Christmas fast approaching and the world possibly ending, I’m not going to have many more chances to post bad holiday art. So, here goes:
On Ker-Zerzenic, Christmas is a little different. Santa is a befuddled, three-eyed snake creature. Snowflakes fall in white and pink. Then there are the little blue guys jumping all over the place, who we’d assume to be horrible devils if not for their halos.
But remember what Danny Aiello said. “If you’re frightened of dying, and you’re holding on, you’ll see devils tearing your life away. But if you’ve made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you.”
Ker-Zerzenic is an interesting place. Its snowmen remind me of that giant cactus from SMB2.