The Shield
Talk about police brutality. The final season of FX's groundbreaking cop show outdid itself in emotional violence, as the bill finally came due for Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) and his years of rationalized corruption. As his partner in crimefighting and graft, Shane (Walton Goggins), turned on him, the ensuing spiral of revenge destroyed the very families that the Strike Team had been skimming drug money to provide for. (In Shane's case, his family's destruction was heartbreakingly literal.) After seven years, the staggering finale of this drama allowed us to see Mackey's history of misdeeds — and his complicated motivations for them — with fresh eyes. In a word: arresting.
(FX)
Mad Men
The phenomenon of 2007 returned just as poignant and wry, and more complex than ever. Adman Don Draper (Jon Hamm) began 1962 at the top of his field, yet feeling old and outmoded in an age of Camelot, youth and changing mores. His efforts to hold to a code of honor at work clashed with his falling off the fidelity wagon at home. But the best parts of season 2 — which unfolded like a series of John Cheever short stories — were the development of the peripheral characters. Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) proved not just a weasel but a lost, damaged young man; Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) rocketed ahead as a rare female copywriter, while dealing with giving away her out-of-wedlock baby; and January Jones added layer upon layer to Draper's wronged wife Betty, who could be both manipulative and sympathetic and turned out surprisingly strong. A banner year for mad men and women alike.
(AMC)
The Presidential Election
It had everything: sex (well, gender politics, plus that John Edwards scandal), controversy and out-of-the-blue plot twists. And from the debates to the conventions to Barack Obama's primetime infomercial, the yearlong campaign brought record audiences to a drama with real stakes. The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live were at the top of their satirical game, Katie Couric came into her own as an anchor, and for all their risible gimmicks (like Anderson Cooper talking to holograms election night), cable news found a way to drum up viewers with issues meatier than shark attacks.
(Network, cable and online)
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
The writers' strike, which began in November 2007, was the worst thing to happen to TV in 2008. But the best thing to come of it was this eccentric, tragicomic musical, which — like the strike itself — helped redefine what could be called "TV." Conceived as a strike-time diversion by Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), it starred Neil Patrick Harris as the title character, a would-be supervillain applying for membership in the exclusive Evil League of Evil. Whedon released it online, where it became an iTunes smash and inspired a deluge of homemade Evil League of Evil application-videos by fans. Cramming hilarity, heartbreak and high notes into a half-hour, it reminded us that no labor dispute can keep a genius from using his powers for Evil, and for good.
(iTunes)
The Wire
The Wire's last season was not its best, but even subpar Wire blows the doors off 99% of TV. HBO's sprawling saga of Baltimore started off as a cop show and became a vast social-realist novel of all the systems that make, and fail, American cities. Season 5 expanded its focus to the press, examining how a newspaper (here a fictionalized version of the Sun) can become too blind and decimated to notice the tragedies that The Wire had laid out for years. At the same time, the show wrote a poetic coda to its story of cops and gangsters, honoring and mourning the detectives and street kids who kept hope alive amid hopelessness. A combination of boozy Irish wake and searing hip-hop tragedy, The Wire put its story to bed, while helping us better understand the ongoing story of America.
(HBO)
Breaking Bad
Hey, America, who's up for a bleak buddy dramedy about drug dealing and mortality? This drama — in which a chemistry teacher (Bryan Cranston) gets terminal cancer and pairs up with a delinquent ex-student to make crystal meth — sounds damn near un-pitchable. But thankfully, creator Vince Gilligan pitched and sold it, affording Cranston (Malcolm in the Middle's Hal) the opportunity to transform himself in a surprise-Emmy-winning role. As nerdy, abrasive Walter White acclimates to the drug world to provide for his family after his death, Bad captures both the absurdity and the emotional reality of his situation.
(AMC)
Lost
Season 4 of Lost audaciously told us up front where it was going to end: with the Oceanic 6 getting off the mysterious Island and returning to civilization (as revealed at the end of season 3). What we didn't know was how and when — when being the big question, on a series that complicated its time-and-space-travel story deliciously. (How does a Frozen Donkey Wheel work, anyway?) Having spent the first half of the series flashing back to the characters' pre-island lives, season 4 started flashing forward, revealing tantalizing glimpses of the post-Island future that we're still trying to piece together. At season's end, Jack learned that the Oceanic 6's escape had disastrous consequences, and he vowed to return. We can't wait to get back either.
(ABC)
Battlestar Galactica
The closer Galactica came to Earth, the closer it came to God — or gods, or the absence thereof. The space saga took an even more philosophical and religious turn in the first half of its second season, as human leader/traitor Gaius Baltar got a new start as a Messiah figure; President Roslin continued to pursue her prophesied vision of leading her decimated people to the Promised Planet; and Starbuck was tortured by her own vision of the route to Earth, which put her in conflict with her leader. Meanwhile, the monotheistic Cylons took a break from trying to exterminate their human creators and had a devastating civil war, after which one camp joined with their former enemies to find Earth. When they arrived — and found the planet a nuclear wasteland — BSG left us with questions: Do the gods speak to man or to machine? And do we really want to hear what they're telling us?
(Sci Fi)
Architecture School
Architecture is the field of creativity where art literally intersects with where and how people live. This reality series followed a group of idealistic Tulane students building a modernist house in a poor New Orleans neighborhood devastated by Katrina. The laying out of the creative process — from conception and design to driving nails — was interesting enough. What made the show special, and sometimes devastating, was how it also chronicled the residents of the neighborhood — some of whom would love to buy the house but could not qualify for even "affordable" loan terms, others of whom saw it as an unwanted avant-garde experiment imposed on a poor black neighborhood. More than any cable competition or makeover show this year, Architecture School was a blueprint of how theory collides with practice.
(Sundance)
Chuck
It was a tough year for primetime comedies, in part at least because of the writers' strike, which threw some sitcoms off their game in the spring (30 Rock) or forced them to compress their stories (The Office). So it's worth recognizing one comedy that came back from the strike tanned, rested and recharged. This spy comedy always had a meringue of a premise (an electronics-store clerk becomes a spy after an email turns his brain into a supercomputer). But season 2, following an eight-month hiatus, developed the show's characters and romantic heart while still keeping the funny. On the strength of Zachary Levi's nerd-babe appeal, the title character became a more competent supernebbish while retaining his everygeek charm.
(NBC)
Kerry's Holiday Fun Headline Animator
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Top Ten Movies According to Time Magazine
1) WALL- E
Most smart filmmakers want to parade their facility with all the tools in the modern movie box. Andrew Stanton, the director and cowriter of the Pixar animated feature WALL-E, experimented with what talking pictures could plausibly do without. Talking, for example: the first third of the movie has almost no dialogue. How about depriving the two main characters — the humble, lonely trash compacter WALL-E and his space princess EVE — of emotional signifiers like a mouth, eyebrows, shoulders, elbows? Yet with all the limitations he imposed on himself and his robot stars, Stanton still connected with a huge audience. Great science-fiction love stories (there aren't many) will do that. So will futurist adventures that evoke the splendor of the movie past. A dirt-of-the-earth guy hooking up with the ultimate ethereal gal, WALL-E and EVE could be the 29th century version of Tracy and Hepburn, or Seth Rogen and any attractive woman. It hardly matters that the movie is not-quite-silent, when it blends art and heart as spectacularly as WALL-E does.
2) Synecdoche, New York
Ambition. That's what most independent films lack, and what the directorial debut of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman has, ad infintum, ad gloriam. It's an epic tragicomedy about Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a Schenectady, N.Y., theater director who moves to Manhattan with the gigantic notion of putting on a realistic drama as big as all New York City. A self-styled truth-teller (his full name anagrams to Acted Candor), Caden manages to exasperate or repel the fascinating women (including Catherine Keener, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Michelle Williams) who cross his downward path. The project drags on — it's his life's work, and it may take that long to finish — but Kaufman's imagination never falters. The movie keeps getting bigger and weirder and denser and sadder and finnier, till all the pressure on Caden leads to a final implosion. A movie so human you'll want to argue with it, spank it, take it home or give it some Xanax, Synecdoche is the richest, most devious — I'll cut to the chase and say best — live-action film of the year.
3) My Winnepeg
In 1942 the city of Winnipeg held an "If Day," dressing its burghers up as Nazis to show the locals some of the terrors of life under the Third Reich. For Canadian deranged-genius filmmaker Guy Maddin, every day is an If Day: his movies transform his hometown reality into comedy-dramas of sibling rivalry and family life that would give Freud the creeps. So Maddin is not the most reliable reporter. In spite or because of that, My Winnipeg is a trip: a "docufantasia" that mixes the city's history with Maddin family values. He moves back into the home where he grew up, hiring actors to play his relatives — including Ann Savage, the notorious harridan of the 1945 cheapo-noir classic Detour, as his mom. Filming in black-and-white, streaking the frame, explaining the action with silent-movie intertitles, Maddin must want us to understand that, in movies, nothing is real, and everything is true. Oh, and My Winnipeg: it's weird-hilarious.
4) 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days
In Romania under the Ceausescu regime, abortion was banned, and within 20 years some half a million women had died from having botched illegal abortions. This severe thriller from writer-director Christian Mungiu focuses on Gabita (Laura Vasiliu), a pregnant college student, and her friend Otilia (Anamaria Marinca), who finds a man who'll do the job: a quietly thuggish fellow who calls himself Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov). Remorseless long takes build the suspense as the young women secure a hotel room and, when Bebe explains how they'll have to pay, question whether it's worth the price. Strap yourself in for this minimalist, splendidly acted horror film — and count your blessings that you live in a country where choosing an abortion doesn't mean losing a life.
5) Milk
Affable and driven, Harvey Milk was a San Francisco politician who succeeded by inspiring crowds rather than making backroom deals. The country's first gay city supervisor, he used his energy and intelligence to help homosexuals secure civil rights. This exceptional docudrama — written by Darren Lance Black, directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Sean Penn — covers the last eight years of Milk's life, which ended when he was shot by fellow supervisor Dan White (Josh Brolin). Penn, who’s in nearly every scene, manages the neat trick of merging his star personality with the public figure well known from the 1984 documentary The Life and Times of Harvey Milk. Sunny, pushy and convincingly gay, Penn embodies a man hopeful for the future of his fellows but dreading what he believes is awaiting him. A how-to exercise in marshalling dozens of characters and one big political issue into exemplary, edifying entertainment, Milk is a must-see, right now.
6) The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
"He was born old." That expression, referring to the prematurely middle-aged among us, must have been what spurred F. Scott Fitzgerald to create his puckish 1922 short story about Benjamin Button, who was born an old man and got a day younger every day. In this greatly expanded, much less frivolous film version, Benjamin's birth year is moved from 1860 to 1918; instead of fighting in the Spanish-American War, Benjamin sees action in World War II. What neither of those times possessed was the technological legerdemain that enables Brad Pitt to play Benjamin, through computer effects work (and old-fashioned makeup), for most of the character's long life. But the most satisfying tricks are performed by writers Eric Roth and Robin Swicord and director David Fincher. They give flesh and feelings to the essentially passive Benjamin and provide him with a willful, glamorous partner: the dancer Daisy (Cate Blanchett). Of all the movie's dazzling effects, the most special are the internal ones. Benjamin, a minority of one, can raise his resignation into wonder, and lift the viewer along with him.
7) Slumdog Millionaire
Who wants to be a millionaire? Not 18-year-old Jamal, though he'd like enough to live on, since he's been scrambling to survive since he and his brother Salim were brutally orphaned as children. But he's gone on a nationwide quiz show hoping that his brief celebrity will catch the attention of the ravishing, unlucky Latika, whom he's loved for most of his life. Simon Beaufoy's script tells the three lives in flashbacks that illuminate India's dynamic and troubled history over the past 15 years (though not, obviously, of the last few weeks). As gaudy wealth and abasing poverty coexist in Mumbai, so Danny Boyle's movie catches the contradictions of slum drama, love story, social document and Bollywood musical in its capacious embrace. With its nonstop pace and fearless dives into affairs of the heart, Slumdog Millionaire is a dervish delight.
8) Iron Man
The weapons designed by arms manufacturer Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) are no sleeker, and his bombs no smarter, than the narrative lines of this marvelous Marvel Comics movie. A tin man who realizes that, if he is to become human, he must build himself a heart — and then a big red metallic airborne suit for buzzing unsuspecting planes and vanquishing his enemies. What a kick it is to see the thing fly. Same with the movie, for, like Tony, Iron Man is the perfect expression of Hollywood's engineering ingenuity. In an excellent year for action films (Wanted, Hellboy II, The Dark Knight and, as you'll soon see, Speed Racer), this was the coolest movie machine.
9) Speed Racer
Opening the week after Iron Man, the Wachowski brothers' race-car movie flopped at the box office. What can we say? Not every avant-garde FX masterpiece receives instant audience validation. This tale of a family of racers — Racer is the family name — exists simultaneously in the 1950s and today, in a live-action world and its own complementary alternate cyber-universe. Operating a pitch of delirious precision, the movie is a rich, cartoonish dream: non-stop Op art, and a triumph of virtual virtuosity. Maybe a lot of civilians didn't go see the picture, but you can bet it attracted the smart boys in Hollywood. They will pilfer its effects and, by next summer, produce a domesticated, more palatable version. My advice: Don't wait for the rip-offs; accept no substitutes. Speed Racer is the future of movies, on DVD now.
10) Encounters at the End of the World
If the German director-explorer Werner Herzog were to write an autobiography, this could be the title, for his 40 years of movies record his need to chronicle the lives of people as obsessed as he. The dramatic movies Aguirre the Wrath of God, Heart of Glass, Nosferatu the Vampire and Fitzcarraldo, and documentaries like The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner, Grizzly Man and The White Diamond, are all about men with grand or deranged dreams, dizzied by the helium of their aspirations, which drives them to triumph or catastrophe. Even sane men, scientists in the remote clarity of Antarctica, have this intoxicating thirst. Encounters could be called a travelog: on a grant from the National Geographic Society, Herzog spent some time at the McMurdo Research Station, chatting up the scholars, technicians and workmen, following them on their expeditions across the ice and below it. Since Herzog has eyes as restless as they are acute, you'll see wonders here: active volcanoes, string band concerts, singing seals. The strangest, most affecting creatures are the men and women who've slipped down the modern world to end up here. They are adventurers, sometimes tearful with joy, and kindred souls to this great ecstatic filmmaker.
Most smart filmmakers want to parade their facility with all the tools in the modern movie box. Andrew Stanton, the director and cowriter of the Pixar animated feature WALL-E, experimented with what talking pictures could plausibly do without. Talking, for example: the first third of the movie has almost no dialogue. How about depriving the two main characters — the humble, lonely trash compacter WALL-E and his space princess EVE — of emotional signifiers like a mouth, eyebrows, shoulders, elbows? Yet with all the limitations he imposed on himself and his robot stars, Stanton still connected with a huge audience. Great science-fiction love stories (there aren't many) will do that. So will futurist adventures that evoke the splendor of the movie past. A dirt-of-the-earth guy hooking up with the ultimate ethereal gal, WALL-E and EVE could be the 29th century version of Tracy and Hepburn, or Seth Rogen and any attractive woman. It hardly matters that the movie is not-quite-silent, when it blends art and heart as spectacularly as WALL-E does.
2) Synecdoche, New York
Ambition. That's what most independent films lack, and what the directorial debut of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman has, ad infintum, ad gloriam. It's an epic tragicomedy about Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a Schenectady, N.Y., theater director who moves to Manhattan with the gigantic notion of putting on a realistic drama as big as all New York City. A self-styled truth-teller (his full name anagrams to Acted Candor), Caden manages to exasperate or repel the fascinating women (including Catherine Keener, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Michelle Williams) who cross his downward path. The project drags on — it's his life's work, and it may take that long to finish — but Kaufman's imagination never falters. The movie keeps getting bigger and weirder and denser and sadder and finnier, till all the pressure on Caden leads to a final implosion. A movie so human you'll want to argue with it, spank it, take it home or give it some Xanax, Synecdoche is the richest, most devious — I'll cut to the chase and say best — live-action film of the year.
3) My Winnepeg
In 1942 the city of Winnipeg held an "If Day," dressing its burghers up as Nazis to show the locals some of the terrors of life under the Third Reich. For Canadian deranged-genius filmmaker Guy Maddin, every day is an If Day: his movies transform his hometown reality into comedy-dramas of sibling rivalry and family life that would give Freud the creeps. So Maddin is not the most reliable reporter. In spite or because of that, My Winnipeg is a trip: a "docufantasia" that mixes the city's history with Maddin family values. He moves back into the home where he grew up, hiring actors to play his relatives — including Ann Savage, the notorious harridan of the 1945 cheapo-noir classic Detour, as his mom. Filming in black-and-white, streaking the frame, explaining the action with silent-movie intertitles, Maddin must want us to understand that, in movies, nothing is real, and everything is true. Oh, and My Winnipeg: it's weird-hilarious.
4) 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days
In Romania under the Ceausescu regime, abortion was banned, and within 20 years some half a million women had died from having botched illegal abortions. This severe thriller from writer-director Christian Mungiu focuses on Gabita (Laura Vasiliu), a pregnant college student, and her friend Otilia (Anamaria Marinca), who finds a man who'll do the job: a quietly thuggish fellow who calls himself Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov). Remorseless long takes build the suspense as the young women secure a hotel room and, when Bebe explains how they'll have to pay, question whether it's worth the price. Strap yourself in for this minimalist, splendidly acted horror film — and count your blessings that you live in a country where choosing an abortion doesn't mean losing a life.
5) Milk
Affable and driven, Harvey Milk was a San Francisco politician who succeeded by inspiring crowds rather than making backroom deals. The country's first gay city supervisor, he used his energy and intelligence to help homosexuals secure civil rights. This exceptional docudrama — written by Darren Lance Black, directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Sean Penn — covers the last eight years of Milk's life, which ended when he was shot by fellow supervisor Dan White (Josh Brolin). Penn, who’s in nearly every scene, manages the neat trick of merging his star personality with the public figure well known from the 1984 documentary The Life and Times of Harvey Milk. Sunny, pushy and convincingly gay, Penn embodies a man hopeful for the future of his fellows but dreading what he believes is awaiting him. A how-to exercise in marshalling dozens of characters and one big political issue into exemplary, edifying entertainment, Milk is a must-see, right now.
6) The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
"He was born old." That expression, referring to the prematurely middle-aged among us, must have been what spurred F. Scott Fitzgerald to create his puckish 1922 short story about Benjamin Button, who was born an old man and got a day younger every day. In this greatly expanded, much less frivolous film version, Benjamin's birth year is moved from 1860 to 1918; instead of fighting in the Spanish-American War, Benjamin sees action in World War II. What neither of those times possessed was the technological legerdemain that enables Brad Pitt to play Benjamin, through computer effects work (and old-fashioned makeup), for most of the character's long life. But the most satisfying tricks are performed by writers Eric Roth and Robin Swicord and director David Fincher. They give flesh and feelings to the essentially passive Benjamin and provide him with a willful, glamorous partner: the dancer Daisy (Cate Blanchett). Of all the movie's dazzling effects, the most special are the internal ones. Benjamin, a minority of one, can raise his resignation into wonder, and lift the viewer along with him.
7) Slumdog Millionaire
Who wants to be a millionaire? Not 18-year-old Jamal, though he'd like enough to live on, since he's been scrambling to survive since he and his brother Salim were brutally orphaned as children. But he's gone on a nationwide quiz show hoping that his brief celebrity will catch the attention of the ravishing, unlucky Latika, whom he's loved for most of his life. Simon Beaufoy's script tells the three lives in flashbacks that illuminate India's dynamic and troubled history over the past 15 years (though not, obviously, of the last few weeks). As gaudy wealth and abasing poverty coexist in Mumbai, so Danny Boyle's movie catches the contradictions of slum drama, love story, social document and Bollywood musical in its capacious embrace. With its nonstop pace and fearless dives into affairs of the heart, Slumdog Millionaire is a dervish delight.
8) Iron Man
The weapons designed by arms manufacturer Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) are no sleeker, and his bombs no smarter, than the narrative lines of this marvelous Marvel Comics movie. A tin man who realizes that, if he is to become human, he must build himself a heart — and then a big red metallic airborne suit for buzzing unsuspecting planes and vanquishing his enemies. What a kick it is to see the thing fly. Same with the movie, for, like Tony, Iron Man is the perfect expression of Hollywood's engineering ingenuity. In an excellent year for action films (Wanted, Hellboy II, The Dark Knight and, as you'll soon see, Speed Racer), this was the coolest movie machine.
9) Speed Racer
Opening the week after Iron Man, the Wachowski brothers' race-car movie flopped at the box office. What can we say? Not every avant-garde FX masterpiece receives instant audience validation. This tale of a family of racers — Racer is the family name — exists simultaneously in the 1950s and today, in a live-action world and its own complementary alternate cyber-universe. Operating a pitch of delirious precision, the movie is a rich, cartoonish dream: non-stop Op art, and a triumph of virtual virtuosity. Maybe a lot of civilians didn't go see the picture, but you can bet it attracted the smart boys in Hollywood. They will pilfer its effects and, by next summer, produce a domesticated, more palatable version. My advice: Don't wait for the rip-offs; accept no substitutes. Speed Racer is the future of movies, on DVD now.
10) Encounters at the End of the World
If the German director-explorer Werner Herzog were to write an autobiography, this could be the title, for his 40 years of movies record his need to chronicle the lives of people as obsessed as he. The dramatic movies Aguirre the Wrath of God, Heart of Glass, Nosferatu the Vampire and Fitzcarraldo, and documentaries like The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner, Grizzly Man and The White Diamond, are all about men with grand or deranged dreams, dizzied by the helium of their aspirations, which drives them to triumph or catastrophe. Even sane men, scientists in the remote clarity of Antarctica, have this intoxicating thirst. Encounters could be called a travelog: on a grant from the National Geographic Society, Herzog spent some time at the McMurdo Research Station, chatting up the scholars, technicians and workmen, following them on their expeditions across the ice and below it. Since Herzog has eyes as restless as they are acute, you'll see wonders here: active volcanoes, string band concerts, singing seals. The strangest, most affecting creatures are the men and women who've slipped down the modern world to end up here. They are adventurers, sometimes tearful with joy, and kindred souls to this great ecstatic filmmaker.
Top 10 Sites We Cannot Live Without 2008
Wikipedia.org
Despite repeated attempts to compromise its integrity, Wikipedia remains the most popular online encyclopedia on the Web. Since anyone can create or edit a Wikipedia page, both companies and individuals have been caught airbrushing and embellishing their own entries. The Wiki community usually intervenes, however — egregious edits get reported on WikiScanner and Wiki trolls are given the heave ho — or at least a Wiki humiliation. Now you can even enjoy Wikipedia's wisdom without ever clicking on it. The Microsoft Live search engine automatically pulls up the first paragraph of any relevant Wikipedia entry in its search results. And a new print-it-yourself travel guide called Offbeat Guides (still in beta as of June 2008) culls information from the site to create custom travel guides tailored to the exact dates of your trip. Now that's neat.
Yahoo Finance
A haven for armchair investors and money junkies, Yahoo! Finance has everything you need to keep up with business — news, stock-specific research, charts, even press releases. In late May, Yahoo! Finance resumed free real-time quotes instead of the standard 20-minute delays on rivals like Google Finance. (The service had been suspended a couple years ago in a dispute with the major stock exchanges.) Power brokers can shell out $10.95 a month for real-time stock charting. For all the criticism about Yahoo!'s failure to innovate, its finance site showcases the best of what the company has to offer.
CraigsList
Its elementary page design has barely changed in 13 years, even as newer, flashier competitors vie for a chunk of the $15 billion online classified market. But so what? Craigslist is a Web pioneer that will never go stale, and remains the essential site for want ads ranging from real estate and used furniture to jobs, romance and one-night stands. Craigslist launched in 100 additional cities this spring, making the site's services available in over 500 cities in 50 countries. To stay ahead of other newcomers with a strong international presence — including Kijiji, Oodle and OLX — the venerable Craigslist now makes its listings available in Spanish, French, Italian and German in some cities. This way, you can't blame the language barrier for fumbling your "missed connection."
ESPN
ESPN is synonymous with sports. Die-hard fans come straight to this megasite for scores, schedules and analysis, then hang around for the video highlights, games and podcasts. Over the past year, ESPN has beefed up its fantasy sports league offerings and high school football coverage, and it's now pulling in news from college fan sites too. If you can't bear to leave your sports news at home, sign up for "ESPN Alerts" by text message and download small-screen videos.
Yelp
If it's a restaurant, shop or business, it's probably been reviewed on Yelp — an independent site with millions of user-submitted evaluations. Yelp's got a gaggle of rivals — most notably Yahoo! Local — but it's the only one that lets reviewees talk back. After businesses complained about their reputation getting trashed by careless reviews, this spring the site began allowing proprietors to e-mail reviewers directly, make instant changes to their company details on the site and see how many people have visited their Yelp listing. For you, that means more rounded and accurate reviews.
FaceBook
If MySpace is a PC, then Facebook is a Mac. The former may have more users, but the latter is classier and cleaner in design. Facebook also makes it super easy to find people you know, and it has won more fans among professionals and the thirtysomething crowd. The site has more than 30,000 add-on applications — among them, games, interactive maps and quizzes — to bling out your personal page (or spam your friends), and a redesign planned for later this year will restore the tidy Facebook look that the add-on apps have begun to clutter up. If you're on the hunt for new social networks to ply, check out upstarts Bebo and hi5.
Digg
Say you stumble across a news story you like. You "Digg" it, by clicking a link at the end of the story. The more people who Digg the same story, the higher it rises in the popularity ranking on Digg.com, where other Diggers can read and comment on it. While comments often read more like rants, they serve as an excellent barometer of the issues Web surfers are most interested in. In May, Digg announced plans to collaborate with Facebook, to let users see which of their Facebook friends also have accounts on Digg — as well as which stories they Digg. Next up: a planned recommendation engine that will suggest stories you might like based on your past Diggs. Handy upgrades like these should help keep Digg from getting buried by competitors such as Mixx and Reddit.
Google
Much more than a search site, Google has become the Microsoft of the tech world. Google Docs offers free spreadsheets, word processing and presentations. Photo-based Google Earth now operates inside a browser plug-in, no longer requiring a lengthy download to your desktop. You can even run Google on your mobile phone, including the iPhone. Next Google wants to help you get more out of your online social networks: its Friend Connect system, due out later this year, will make it easier to interact with your network contacts, even on remote sites. So, for example, Friend Connect might show you which of your Facebook friends also use the community music site last.fm — with your permission, of course — allowing you to share your favorite music with them more easily.
TMZ
There's no better way to spread gossip than to put it online. Sure, it's tacky, rude and unreliable, but TMZ is the most popular gossip site on the Web because it is chock-full of juicy celebrity tidbits, photos and videos. Check it out — it can help your otherwise dreary workday go a little faster. TMZ also breaks more stories on Britney, Lindsay and the rest of the Hollywood gang than any other gossip site. If you're still thirsting for more, you can watch TMZ on TV (find local listings here. Or read on at E! Online, Perez Hilton and The Superficial.
Flickr
Digital photo–sharing sites have come and gone, but Flickr has remained. It offers some of the smartest tools for managing your ever expanding picture collection — from Photostream, which lets you scan your pics quickly, to a newly added video tool for pro users (who pay $25 per year). We also dig Flickr's photo-editing capabilities provided by Picnik. Our quibbles: users who do not pay the annual subscription fee can upload only 100 MB of content per month, and Flickr's Photostream doesn't arrange newly added pics by the date the photo was taken.
By Anita Hamilton
Despite repeated attempts to compromise its integrity, Wikipedia remains the most popular online encyclopedia on the Web. Since anyone can create or edit a Wikipedia page, both companies and individuals have been caught airbrushing and embellishing their own entries. The Wiki community usually intervenes, however — egregious edits get reported on WikiScanner and Wiki trolls are given the heave ho — or at least a Wiki humiliation. Now you can even enjoy Wikipedia's wisdom without ever clicking on it. The Microsoft Live search engine automatically pulls up the first paragraph of any relevant Wikipedia entry in its search results. And a new print-it-yourself travel guide called Offbeat Guides (still in beta as of June 2008) culls information from the site to create custom travel guides tailored to the exact dates of your trip. Now that's neat.
Yahoo Finance
A haven for armchair investors and money junkies, Yahoo! Finance has everything you need to keep up with business — news, stock-specific research, charts, even press releases. In late May, Yahoo! Finance resumed free real-time quotes instead of the standard 20-minute delays on rivals like Google Finance. (The service had been suspended a couple years ago in a dispute with the major stock exchanges.) Power brokers can shell out $10.95 a month for real-time stock charting. For all the criticism about Yahoo!'s failure to innovate, its finance site showcases the best of what the company has to offer.
CraigsList
Its elementary page design has barely changed in 13 years, even as newer, flashier competitors vie for a chunk of the $15 billion online classified market. But so what? Craigslist is a Web pioneer that will never go stale, and remains the essential site for want ads ranging from real estate and used furniture to jobs, romance and one-night stands. Craigslist launched in 100 additional cities this spring, making the site's services available in over 500 cities in 50 countries. To stay ahead of other newcomers with a strong international presence — including Kijiji, Oodle and OLX — the venerable Craigslist now makes its listings available in Spanish, French, Italian and German in some cities. This way, you can't blame the language barrier for fumbling your "missed connection."
ESPN
ESPN is synonymous with sports. Die-hard fans come straight to this megasite for scores, schedules and analysis, then hang around for the video highlights, games and podcasts. Over the past year, ESPN has beefed up its fantasy sports league offerings and high school football coverage, and it's now pulling in news from college fan sites too. If you can't bear to leave your sports news at home, sign up for "ESPN Alerts" by text message and download small-screen videos.
Yelp
If it's a restaurant, shop or business, it's probably been reviewed on Yelp — an independent site with millions of user-submitted evaluations. Yelp's got a gaggle of rivals — most notably Yahoo! Local — but it's the only one that lets reviewees talk back. After businesses complained about their reputation getting trashed by careless reviews, this spring the site began allowing proprietors to e-mail reviewers directly, make instant changes to their company details on the site and see how many people have visited their Yelp listing. For you, that means more rounded and accurate reviews.
If MySpace is a PC, then Facebook is a Mac. The former may have more users, but the latter is classier and cleaner in design. Facebook also makes it super easy to find people you know, and it has won more fans among professionals and the thirtysomething crowd. The site has more than 30,000 add-on applications — among them, games, interactive maps and quizzes — to bling out your personal page (or spam your friends), and a redesign planned for later this year will restore the tidy Facebook look that the add-on apps have begun to clutter up. If you're on the hunt for new social networks to ply, check out upstarts Bebo and hi5.
Digg
Say you stumble across a news story you like. You "Digg" it, by clicking a link at the end of the story. The more people who Digg the same story, the higher it rises in the popularity ranking on Digg.com, where other Diggers can read and comment on it. While comments often read more like rants, they serve as an excellent barometer of the issues Web surfers are most interested in. In May, Digg announced plans to collaborate with Facebook, to let users see which of their Facebook friends also have accounts on Digg — as well as which stories they Digg. Next up: a planned recommendation engine that will suggest stories you might like based on your past Diggs. Handy upgrades like these should help keep Digg from getting buried by competitors such as Mixx and Reddit.
Much more than a search site, Google has become the Microsoft of the tech world. Google Docs offers free spreadsheets, word processing and presentations. Photo-based Google Earth now operates inside a browser plug-in, no longer requiring a lengthy download to your desktop. You can even run Google on your mobile phone, including the iPhone. Next Google wants to help you get more out of your online social networks: its Friend Connect system, due out later this year, will make it easier to interact with your network contacts, even on remote sites. So, for example, Friend Connect might show you which of your Facebook friends also use the community music site last.fm — with your permission, of course — allowing you to share your favorite music with them more easily.
TMZ
There's no better way to spread gossip than to put it online. Sure, it's tacky, rude and unreliable, but TMZ is the most popular gossip site on the Web because it is chock-full of juicy celebrity tidbits, photos and videos. Check it out — it can help your otherwise dreary workday go a little faster. TMZ also breaks more stories on Britney, Lindsay and the rest of the Hollywood gang than any other gossip site. If you're still thirsting for more, you can watch TMZ on TV (find local listings here. Or read on at E! Online, Perez Hilton and The Superficial.
Flickr
Digital photo–sharing sites have come and gone, but Flickr has remained. It offers some of the smartest tools for managing your ever expanding picture collection — from Photostream, which lets you scan your pics quickly, to a newly added video tool for pro users (who pay $25 per year). We also dig Flickr's photo-editing capabilities provided by Picnik. Our quibbles: users who do not pay the annual subscription fee can upload only 100 MB of content per month, and Flickr's Photostream doesn't arrange newly added pics by the date the photo was taken.
By Anita Hamilton
Here Come the Marathons
New Year's Eve Wednesday December 31 2008:
A&E: Dog the Bounty Hunter
Bravo: Project Runway
Cartoon Network: 6teen
Discovery Health: Untold Stories of the E.R.
E!: Keeping Up With the Kardashians
Food: The Next Food Network Star
Green: Living With Ed
GSN: $100,000 Pyramid
Logo: Sordid Lives
National Geographic: Earth: The Biography
Nickelodeon: Drake & Josh
Nick Toon: Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius
Science: Survivorman
Sci-Fi: The Twilight Zone
Spike: CSI
Sundance: Spectacle
TLC: Mystery Diagnosis
Toon Disney: Spider-man
TruTV: Most Daring / Speeders
TV Guide: Close Up
TV One: Divorce Court
TV Land: I Love Lucy
USA: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Versus: Rocky movies
WE: Bridezillas / The Locator
New Year's Day Thursday January 1st 2009
A&E: The First 48
AMC: Rocky movies
BET: Notarized Top Video Countdown
Bravo: The Biggest Loser
Cartoon Network: Looney Tunes
CNBC: American Greed: Scams, Scoundrels and Scandals
Discovery: Mythbusters
DIY: Dream Home / Renovation Realities
ESPN 2: 2008 World Series of Poker
Food: Iron Chef America
Fox Reality: American Idol
G4: Spaceballs: The Animated Series / Human Wrecking Balls
Green: Living With Ed
History: Ice Road Truckers
MTV: Engaged and Underage Bridal Bowl
The N: What I Like About You
Science: Deconstructed / Weird Connections
Sci-Fi: The Twilight Zone
Soap: Private Practice
Spike: CSI: NY
TLC: Ashley Paige: Bikini or Bust / Inside Brookhaven Obesity Clinic
TNT: Bones
Toon Disney: Spider-man
Travel: Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations
TruTV: Speeders / The Smoking Gun Presents: World's Dumbest Criminals
TV Land: Brady Bunch
TV One: The Jeffersons
USA: Monk
Versus: World Extreme Cagefighting
We: Bridezillas / Momma's Boys
WGN: Honeymooners
A&E: Dog the Bounty Hunter
Bravo: Project Runway
Cartoon Network: 6teen
Discovery Health: Untold Stories of the E.R.
E!: Keeping Up With the Kardashians
Food: The Next Food Network Star
Green: Living With Ed
GSN: $100,000 Pyramid
Logo: Sordid Lives
National Geographic: Earth: The Biography
Nickelodeon: Drake & Josh
Nick Toon: Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius
Science: Survivorman
Sci-Fi: The Twilight Zone
Spike: CSI
Sundance: Spectacle
TLC: Mystery Diagnosis
Toon Disney: Spider-man
TruTV: Most Daring / Speeders
TV Guide: Close Up
TV One: Divorce Court
TV Land: I Love Lucy
USA: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Versus: Rocky movies
WE: Bridezillas / The Locator
New Year's Day Thursday January 1st 2009
A&E: The First 48
AMC: Rocky movies
BET: Notarized Top Video Countdown
Bravo: The Biggest Loser
Cartoon Network: Looney Tunes
CNBC: American Greed: Scams, Scoundrels and Scandals
Discovery: Mythbusters
DIY: Dream Home / Renovation Realities
ESPN 2: 2008 World Series of Poker
Food: Iron Chef America
Fox Reality: American Idol
G4: Spaceballs: The Animated Series / Human Wrecking Balls
Green: Living With Ed
History: Ice Road Truckers
MTV: Engaged and Underage Bridal Bowl
The N: What I Like About You
Science: Deconstructed / Weird Connections
Sci-Fi: The Twilight Zone
Soap: Private Practice
Spike: CSI: NY
TLC: Ashley Paige: Bikini or Bust / Inside Brookhaven Obesity Clinic
TNT: Bones
Toon Disney: Spider-man
Travel: Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations
TruTV: Speeders / The Smoking Gun Presents: World's Dumbest Criminals
TV Land: Brady Bunch
TV One: The Jeffersons
USA: Monk
Versus: World Extreme Cagefighting
We: Bridezillas / Momma's Boys
WGN: Honeymooners
New Year's Eve Battle for Viewers
Two men enter. One man leaves with Dick Clark's crown on his carefully coiffed head. It's Seacrest vs. Daly in a New Year's Eve showdown for viewers because, yes, it turns out that 27 million of us are too pathetic to be anywhere but on our couches watching television when the clock strikes midnight.
Seacrest has the obvious advantage - being grandfathered into the annual countdown tradition by Clark himself - with ABC's Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve 2007. Daly has the scrappier of the two operations at NBC - New Year's Eve with Carson Daly presented by Chevrolet. The two hosts are engaged in a rumored tiff over who will reign supreme once Clark has bowed out for good. Both are on record denying the rivalry with Daly's producers pointing out that Carson is, like, way hipper because he has OK Go on his show and not lame-i-licious Fergie - "I mean, how many times have I heard Fergie sing 'Superlicious' or whatever she sings?"
Both men are in for a big surprise when the numbers come in. PBS is poised to take the night in a major upset. When this battle goes down in the history books, Garrison Keillor is coming out on top.
Seacrest has the obvious advantage - being grandfathered into the annual countdown tradition by Clark himself - with ABC's Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve 2007. Daly has the scrappier of the two operations at NBC - New Year's Eve with Carson Daly presented by Chevrolet. The two hosts are engaged in a rumored tiff over who will reign supreme once Clark has bowed out for good. Both are on record denying the rivalry with Daly's producers pointing out that Carson is, like, way hipper because he has OK Go on his show and not lame-i-licious Fergie - "I mean, how many times have I heard Fergie sing 'Superlicious' or whatever she sings?"
Both men are in for a big surprise when the numbers come in. PBS is poised to take the night in a major upset. When this battle goes down in the history books, Garrison Keillor is coming out on top.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Norad is Tracking Santa
Tracking Santa every Year has always been a BLAST for me. Just a Kid at Heart. NORAD
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Favorite Christmas Recipes
EGG NOG
Ingredients
4 eggs, separated (use only Grade AA)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
4 C. (1 quart) homogenized milk
1 C. bourbon or brandy, optional
Nutmeg
Directions
In large mixer bowl, beat egg yolks until thick and light. Gradually beat in sweetened condensed milk, salt, vanilla, and milk. In small bowl, beat egg whites to soft peaks; gently fold into sweetened condensed milk mixture. If desired, stir in bourbon or brandy. Chill. Pour into chilled punch bowl or serving cups. Garnish with nutmeg. Refrigerate any leftovers.Yield: about 2 quarts
____________________________________________________________________________
MEXICAN WEDDING CAKES
Ingredients
- 2 cups flour
- 2 sticks cold butter, cut into pieces
- 1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup almonds
- 1/2 cup pecans
- 1 teaspoon anise seeds
Cooking Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F
- Grind almonds and pecans in food processor, then add butter and continue to grind until smooth.
- Add 1/4 c powdered sugar and vanilla, then mix again.
- Add flour and anise seeds and grind mix until blended.
- After flouring hands, roll the dough into small balls.
- Place them about an inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
- Bake 15-20 minutes, or until brown on the bottom.
- Cool for 15 minutes, then roll the still warm cookies in the rest of the powdered sugar.
- Let cool again, then add more powdered sugar.
PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ⅓ cup peanut butter
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1½ cups flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup sugar
- 24 Hershey’s® Kisses
Cooking Instructions
Heat oven to 375 degrees F. In large bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium until smooth. Add peanut butter. Beat until combined. Add brown sugar. Beat until combined, scraping side of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg yolk until combined. Add vanilla. Beat until combined.
- Add flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat until combined.
- Using 1 level tablespoon dough for each cookie, form each into a ball. Toss in sugar to coat. Transfer to cookie sheet and flatten slightly. Continue with remaining dough. Make an indent in the center of each cookie with the base of a kiss.
- Bake 13 minutes, or until lightly browned.
- Remove from oven and place a kiss on each one. Cool on cookie sheet 5 minutes. Remove to cooling rack to cool completely.
Substitution(s)
Dark brown sugar can be used in place of light brown sugar.
Make-Ahead
Cookies can be made through step 2 and stored in the refrigerator up to one week or in the freezer up to 6 months.
Tips & Tricks
For a more festive look, use sanding sugar (the large sugar crystals) to coat each cookie instead of granulated sugar.
30 minutes
Servings:About 18 cookies
Baking Time: 13 minutes per batch____________________________________________________________________________
SUGAR COOKIES
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1½ cups flour
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
Cooking Instructions
- Heat oven to 350 degrees F. In large bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium until smooth. Add sugar. Beat until combined, scraping side of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg yolk until combined. Add vanilla. Beat until combined.
- Add flour and salt. Beat until combined, scraping down side of bowl occasionally.
- Between two sheets of waxed paper or plastic wrap with a rolling pin roll the dough to ¼-inch thickness. Cut out shapes. Reroll and use scraps until all dough is used.
- Bake 15 to 20 minutes,depending on the size of the cookies, or until lightly browned.
- Remove from oven and cool on cookie sheet 5 minutes. Remove to cooling rack to cool completely. Decorate as desired.
Make-Ahead
These cookies can be made through step 3, wrapped well, and refrigerated up to 1 week, or frozen up to 6 months.
Tips & Tricks
These cookies are also the perfect consistancy for making spritz cookies.
Preparation Time:
25 minutes, not including decorating time
Servings:About 2 dozen cookies, depending on the size of the cookie cutters
Baking Time: 15-20 minutes, depending on the size of the cookiesCHOCOLATE CHIP & ORANGE COOKIES
Ingredients
½ cup unsalted butter, cold
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated orange peel
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup sugar
- 2 egg yolks, cold
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup chocolate chips
Cooking Instructions
- Heat oven to 375 degrees F. In large bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Add orange peel. Beat until combined. Add brown and granulated white sugars. Beat until combined, scraping side of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg yolks until combined. Add vanilla extract. Beat until combined.
- Add flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat until combined, scraping down side of bowl occasionally. Add chocolate chips. Beat to combine.
- Drop by tablespoons onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10 minutes, or until lightly browned.
- Remove from oven and cool on cookie sheet 5 minutes. Remove to cooling rack to cool completely.
Substitution(s)
- Using all white sugar will result in a crisper cookie.
- 1 cup of toasted, or non-toasted, nuts may be added.
- Using whole eggs in place of the egg yolks will make a crisper cookie.
Make-Ahead
- Cookies can be made through step 2, wrapped well, refrigerated up to 1 week, or frozen up to 6 months.
20 minutes
Servings:About 3½ dozen cookies
Baking Time: 10 minutes____________________________________________________________________________
PISTACHIO CRANBERRY BISCOTTI
Ingredients
½ cup unsalted butter, cold
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated orange peel
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup sugar
- 2 egg yolks, cold
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup chocolate chips
Cooking Instructions
- Heat oven to 375 degrees F. In large bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Add orange peel. Beat until combined. Add brown and granulated white sugars. Beat until combined, scraping side of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg yolks until combined. Add vanilla extract. Beat until combined.
- Add flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat until combined, scraping down side of bowl occasionally. Add chocolate chips. Beat to combine.
- Drop by tablespoons onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10 minutes, or until lightly browned.
- Remove from oven and cool on cookie sheet 5 minutes. Remove to cooling rack to cool completely.
Substitution(s)
- Using all white sugar will result in a crisper cookie.
- 1 cup of toasted, or non-toasted, nuts may be added.
- Using whole eggs in place of the egg yolks will make a crisper cookie.
Make-Ahead
- Cookies can be made through step 2, wrapped well, refrigerated up to 1 week, or frozen up to 6 months.
20 minutes
Servings:About 3½ dozen cookies
Baking Time: 10 minutes____________________________________________________________________________
SNICKERDOODLES
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 8 ounces butter, softened (1 cup = 2 sticks)
- 1 1/2 cups white sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, more or less according to taste
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Prepare baking sheets by lining with parchment paper or spraying with vegetable shortening.
- In a large bowl, mix flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt.Set aside.
- Using a stand mixer, beat butter until creamy.
- Add sugar and continue beating until fluffy. Scrape bowl.
- Add eggs one at a time and mix well.
- On low-medium speed, mix in dry ingredients two cups at a time. Beat well and scrape sides of bowl, making sure to get down to the bottom.
- Chill the dough for 30-60 minutes before scooping and baking.
- In another bowl, mix 1/2 cup sugar and cinnamon together.
- Using a cookie scoop or Tablespoon, measure out dough, roll into balls and coat completely in cinnamon sugar.
- Place on prepared baking sheets, leaving room for the cookies to spread.
- Bake at 350 degrees F for 13-16 minutes or until the outside of cookies feel slightly firm to the touch.
- Remove and cool on racks before storing in airtight containers.
- Makes 24-30 warm and delicious nickerdoodles!
SOFT MOLASSES COOKIES
Ingredients
- 1/2 - 1 cup sugar for rolling cookies
- 6 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 Tablespoons baking soda
- 1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons ground cloves
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 2 cups (one pound) butter, softened
- 3 cups brown sugar, packed
- 3/4 cup molasses, your choice
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup raisins, optional
- 1 cup chopped nuts, optional
Directions:
- This is a large batch of 48 cookies. If you don't have at least a 5 quart mixer, divide the recipe in half.
- Prepare baking sheets by lining them with parchment paper or give it a good spritz with vegetable spray shortening.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. An oven thermometer is a handy item to have to insure your temperature is where it should be. Adjust if neccessary.
- Measure 1/2 - 1 cup sugar in a large bowl for rolling cookies and set aside.
- Blend flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and ginger in a large bowl and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl with a beater attachment, beat butter until creamy.
- Add brown sugar and molasses and beat until fluffy. Scrape bowl.
- Add eggs, one at a time and beat until light and fluffy. Scrape bowl again.
- Add flour mixture a few cups at a time and mix only until well blended and scrape once more.
- Add optional raisins and/or nuts.
- Cover dough and chill for 30 minutes.
- With a cookie scoop or Tablespoon, scoop and roll into balls. Roll cookies in sugar.
- Place cookies on prepared baking sheets leaving some spreading room between them.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 11-13 minutes or until slightly firm.
- Remove to cooling racks and cool completely before storing in airtight containers.
- Makes 48 warm, soft molasses cookies.
Christmas Facts
Each year, 30-35 million real Christmas trees are sold in the United States alone. There are 21,000 Christmas tree growers in the United States, and trees usually grow for about 15 years before they are sold.
Today, in the Greek and Russian orthodox churches, Christmas is celebrated 13 days after the 25th, which is also referred to as the Epiphany or Three Kings Day. This is the day it is believed that the three wise men finally found Jesus in the manger.
In the Middle Ages, Christmas celebrations were rowdy and raucous—a lot like today's Mardi Gras parties.
From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was outlawed in Boston, and law-breakers were fined five shillings.
Christmas wasn't a holiday in early America—in fact Congress was in session on December 25, 1789, the country's first Christmas under the new constitution.
Christmas was declared a federal holiday in the United States on June 26, 1870.
The first eggnog made in the United States was consumed in Captain John Smith's 1607 Jamestown settlement.
Poinsettia plants are named after Joel R. Poinsett, an American minister to Mexico, who brought the red-and-green plant from Mexico to America in 1828.
The Salvation Army has been sending Santa Claus-clad donation collectors into the streets since the 1890s.
Rudolph, "the most famous reindeer of all," was the product of Robert L. May's imagination in 1939. The copywriter wrote a poem about the reindeer to help lure customers into the Montgomery Ward department store.
Construction workers started the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree tradition in 1931.
Found on History.com
Christmas Trees the Beginning
Long before the advent of Christianity, plants and trees that remained green all year had a special meaning for people in the winter. Just as people today decorate their homes during the festive season with pine, spruce, and fir trees, ancient peoples hung evergreen boughs over their doors and windows. In many countries it was believed that evergreens would keep away witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness.
In the Northern hemisphere, the shortest day and longest night of the year falls on December 21 or December 22 and is called the winter solstice. Many ancient people believed that the sun was a god and that winter came every year because the sun god had become sick and weak. They celebrated the solstice because it meant that at last the sun god would begin to get well. Evergreen boughs reminded them of all the green plants that would grow again when the sun god was strong and summer would return.
The ancient Egyptians worshipped a god called Ra, who had the head of a hawk and wore the sun as a blazing disk in his crown. At the solstice, when Ra began to recover from the illness, the Egyptians filled their homes with green palm rushes which symbolized for them the triumph of life over death.
Early Romans marked the solstice with a feast called the Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The Romans knew that the solstice meant that soon farms and orchards would be green and fruitful. To mark the occasion, they decorated their homes and temples with evergreen boughs. In Northern Europe the mysterious Druids, the priests of the ancient Celts, also decorated their temples with evergreen boughs as a symbol of everlasting life. The fierce Vikings in Scandinavia thought that evergreens were the special plant of the sun god, Balder.
Germany is credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition as we now know it in the 16th century when devout Christians brought decorated trees into their homes. Some built Christmas pyramids of wood and decorated them with evergreens and candles if wood was scarce. It is a widely held belief that Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant reformer, first added lighted candles to a tree. Walking toward his home one winter evening, composing a sermon, he was awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling amidst evergreens. To recapture the scene for his family, he erected a tree in the main room and wired its branches with lighted candles.
Most 19th-century Americans found Christmas trees an oddity. The first record of one being on display was in the 1830s by the German settlers of Pennsylvania, although trees had been a tradition in many German homes much earlier. The Pennsylvania German settlements had community trees as early as 1747. But, as late as the 1840s Christmas trees were seen as pagan symbols and not accepted by most Americans.
It is not surprising that, like many other festive Christmas customs, the tree was adopted so late in America. To the New England Puritans, Christmas was sacred. The pilgrims's second governor, William Bradford, wrote that he tried hard to stamp out "pagan mockery" of the observance, penalizing any frivolity. The influential Oliver Cromwell preached against "the heathen traditions" of Christmas carols, decorated trees, and any joyful expression that desecrated "that sacred event." In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted a law making any observance of December 25 (other than a church service) a penal offense; people were fined for hanging decorations. That stern solemnity continued until the 19th century, when the influx of German and Irish immigrants undermined the Puritan legacy.
In 1846, the popular royals, Queen Victoria and her German Prince, Albert, were sketched in the Illustrated London News standing with their children around a Christmas tree. Unlike the previous royal family, Victoria was very popular with her subjects, and what was done at court immediately became fashionable—not only in Britain, but with fashion-conscious East Coast American Society. The Christmas tree had arrived.
By the 1890s Christmas ornaments were arriving from Germany and Christmas tree popularity was on the rise around the U.S. It was noted that Europeans used small trees about four feet in height, while Americans liked their Christmas trees to reach from floor to ceiling.
The early 20th century saw Americans decorating their trees mainly with homemade ornaments, while the German-American sect continued to use apples, nuts, and marzipan cookies. Popcorn joined in after being dyed bright colors and interlaced with berries and nuts. Electricity brought about Christmas lights, making it possible for Christmas trees to glow for days on end. With this, Christmas trees began to appear in town squares across the country and having a Christmas tree in the home became an American tradition.
Found at History.com
Rudolph the Ninth Reindeer
Rudolph, "the most famous reindeer of all," was born over a hundred years after his eight flying counterparts. The red-nosed wonder was the creation of Robert L. May, a copywriter at the Montgomery Ward department store.
In 1939, May wrote a Christmas-themed story-poem to help bring holiday traffic into his store. Using a similar rhyme pattern to Moore's "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," May told the story of Rudolph, a young reindeer who was teased by the other deer because of his large, glowing, red nose. But, When Christmas Eve turned foggy and Santa worried that he wouldn't be able to deliver gifts that night, the former outcast saved Christmas by leading the sleigh by the light of his red nose. Rudolph's message—that given the opportunity, a liability can be turned into an asset—proved popular. Montgomery Ward sold almost two and a half million copies of the story in 1939. When it was reissued in 1946, the book sold over three and half million copies. Several years later, one of May's friends, Johnny Marks, wrote a short song based on Rudolph's story (1949). It was recorded by Gene Autry and sold over two million copies. Since then, the story has been translated into 25 languages and been made into a television movie, narrated by Burl Ives, which has charmed audiences every year since 1964.
Found @ History.com
The History of St Nicholas
The legend of Santa Claus can be traced back hundreds of years to a monk named St. Nicholas. It is believed that Nicholas was born sometime around 280 A.D. in Patara, near Myra in modern-day Turkey. Much admired for his piety and kindness, St. Nicholas became the subject of many legends. It is said that he gave away all of his inherited wealth and traveled the countryside helping the poor and sick. One of the best known of the St. Nicholas stories is that he saved three poor sisters from being sold into slavery or prostitution by their father by providing them with a dowry so that they could be married. Over the course of many years, Nicholas's popularity spread and he became known as the protector of children and sailors. His feast day is celebrated on the anniversary of his death, December 6. This was traditionally considered a lucky day to make large purchases or to get married. By the Renaissance, St. Nicholas was the most popular saint in Europe. Even after the Protestant Reformation, when the veneration of saints began to be discouraged, St. Nicholas maintained a positive reputation, especially in Holland.
Found on History.com
Found on History.com
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