Eggnog – Alcohol & raw eggs make the season bright

My father is a very clever man. Long ago, as a Christmas Eve was coming to a close and we were preparing to plate up our milk and cookie offering to Santa, my dad stopped us with a suggestion. Arguing that, because our name was near the end of the alphabet, we were going to be one of the last houses Santa visited. Therefore, the jolly old elf would be very cold and tired of milk. Instead, we should leave him some bourbon to warm him up. It didn’t take long for our young minds to realize that a warmed up and happy Santa was much more likely to leave us better loot. As it happened, Dad had some of Santa’s favorite bourbon (parents know these things), which by amazing coincidence was also my dad’s favorite. I would hazard to say that this was the creation of our family’s traditional Christmas drink: alcohol.

In the spirit (or spirits) of my family’s holiday tradition, this post is going to celebrate my personal favorite Christmasy holiday drink: eggnog. Continue reading “Eggnog – Alcohol & raw eggs make the season bright”

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farm antiobiotics

via Deborah Blum

soviet christmas
via Michele Banks

Pulp christmas
via Michele Banks

Pirates

Christmas shuffle

The Best of Christmas Last year our eldest daughter (then 3, now 4), The Frogger, fell in love with the song “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”. This year she is obsessed with “A Holly Jolly Christmas”. It is no coincidence that both songs are performed by Burl Ives in the Rankin/Bass classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Cut to me, in the car, frantically pushing buttons to cycle through CDs and play Burl Ives singing “A Holly Jolly Christmas” in order to fulfill the heartfelt request of my child. Experienced parents will know that there are a variety of potential motivations for such behavior beyond simply avoiding a tantrum, for example cutting short a half-hour of repeatedly yelling the same three lines of the song with 73.21% accuracy.

Having found the correct CD and as I pushed buttons to get to the right track, I began to wonder if I was taking the shortest route to my song of choice. There are three possible routes to any given track on my car’s CD player. Continue reading “Christmas shuffle”

The Art of Science: Bálint Bolygó’s Mesmerizing Mix

array

Bálint Bolygó, a Hungarian-born artist based in the UK, creates sculptures that explore the world using physics, particularly the bending of light and the movement of pendulums. One of his more recent pieces, ArRay (2011-2012) draws on his earlier work using optical physics and adds a new component – a material called nitinol, a nickel and titanium alloy. Continue reading “The Art of Science: Bálint Bolygó’s Mesmerizing Mix”

Suicide squeeze

I am an unapologetic fan of violent, contact sports. I have wonderful memories of being a participant in violent, contact sports. On the rugby teams I played for, I was usually the guy tasked with bringing both the violence and the contact to the other team. These sports are fun to play. They are fun to watch. But, predictably, that violence takes a toll on the human body.

The recent murder of Kasandra Perkins and subsequent suicide of her killer, NFL player Jovan Belcher has focused new attention on the risk of violent behavior/suicide in these athletes. So much so that Major League Baseball is reportedly working on a program to help identify troubled athletes and get them help before things go really wrong. This sounds like a good thing (provided it is executed well), but wait…did you say MLB? As in baseball? Continue reading “Suicide squeeze”