ENTERTAINMENT - Awwwww, I love Cookie Monster!

CULTURE/SOCIETY: 2012 - Optimists vs pessimists

ENTERTAINMENT: The most awesome way to make cookies!

CULTURE/SOCIETY: Britian's Great Cookie (Or Biscuit) Danger

I heard about this on NPR's Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me!. - OlderMusicGeek

Crumbs: half of Britons injured by their biscuits on coffee break, survey reveals

More than half of all Britons have been injured by biscuits ranging from scalding from hot tea or coffee while dunking or breaking a tooth eating during a morning tea break, a survey has revealed.

An estimated 25 million adults have been injured while eating during a tea or coffee break - with at least 500 landing themselves in hospital, the survey revealed.

The custard cream biscuit was found to be the worse offender to innocent drinkers.

It beat the cookie to top a table of 15 generic types of biccy whose potential dangers were calculated by The Biscuit Injury Threat Evaluation.

Hidden dangers included flying fragments and being hurt while dunking in scalding tea through to the more strange such as people poking themselves in the eye with a biscuit or fallen off a chair reaching for the tin.

One man even ended up stuck in wet concrete after wading in to pick up a stray biscuit.

Custard creams get a risk rating of 5.63, the highest of all.

This compared to 1.16 for Jaffa cakes, which was the safest biscuit of all in the evaluation.

Research company Mindlab International were commissioned by Rocky, a chocolate biscuit bar, to conduct the research.

It found almost a third of adults said they had been splashed or scalded by hot drinks while dunking or trying to fish the remnants of a collapsed digestive.

It also revealed 28 per cent had choked on crumbs while one in 10 had broken a tooth or filling biting a biscuit.

More unusually, three per cent had poked themselves in the eye with a biscuit and seven per cent bitten by a pet or "other wild animal" trying to get their biscuit.

Mindlab International director Dr David Lewis said: "We tested the physical properties of 15 popular types of biscuits, along with aspects of their consumption such as 'dunkability' and crumb dispersal.

Mike Driver, Marketing Director for Rocky said: "We commissioned this study after learning how many biscuit related injuries are treated by doctors each year."

I've used this clip before, but it fits here too! - OMGeek

ENTERTAINMENT: An NPR Interview with One of My Favorite TV Stars

Well, I got this off the NPR blog, In Character, which I strongly recommend that you check out. And it showed up on my NetVibes home page. - OlderMusicGeek

On Air: Cookie Monster

» Hear the 'All Things Considered' radio commentary

Elizabeth Blair led off this blog with a post that confessed her fondness for Cookie Monster. Now her magnificent obsession has made it to the radio -- and to the video.

As part of our In Character explorations, we convinced Cookie Monster to come to NPR's New York studios, where Elizabeth talked to him about the boundaries of his appetites -- and got him to answer a version of the Proust Questionnaire. The video is below, as well as on the story page.

Oh, and you'll definitely want to watch through to the end. Check the expression on Blair's face when Cookie pulls that [spoiler deleted] off the desk to eat it. If you're wondering what she's so alarmed about, I'm guessing it's whether she's going to have to pay for the replacement: Those things run thousands of dollars apiece.

--Trey Graham


A link to the original post

CULTURE/SOCIETY: Silly Adult - Christmas is for Kids

This is from a weekly supplement our newspaper puts out for 20- and 30-somethings. But I still read it anyway, just to keep up on what's going on. - OlderMusicGeek.

Silly Adult - Christmas is for Kids
by sarah dose
sarah@dmjuice.com

Yay, holidays.

Ahem.

YAY, HOLIDAYS.

Right?

Oh, &*#@%.

OK. It's not that I hate them. If I boil it down, I actually quite like the festivities that come with Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year's Eve.

Holiday cards. Holiday lights (although some houses think lights are to be used year-round and not just in December). Cookies. Candy. Family. More family. My mom's incredible caramels. Crab legs for Christmas dinner.

But there are the bad things, too. Shopping. Traffic. "Feliz Navidad" on repeat. Dividing your time to make sure you're spending enough time with each family member/friend/etc.

So I got to thinking the other day. When did I start making the turn to Scrooge-land?

When I was a kid, NOTHING was bad about Christmas. Presents! Candy! Cookies!

Then it hit me. Christmas is for kids. Think about it. Adults don't sit on Santa's lap. Adults don't throw hissy fits when they don't get enough presents. Adults don't display unbridled greed and candy-mongering. Adults don't make three-page Christmas lists. That kind of behavior is "frowned upon."

Yup, Christmas started going downhill when I found out Santa wasn't real. When you find that out, you're not an innocent kid anymore.

When I found out (from my older sister), I couldn't believe it. I couldn't fathom my Barbies being made anywhere but the North Pole. Suddenly, my Barbies were BORING. Then I thought, "My parents lied to me? I will pay them back by being a sullen teenager."

Christmas went downhill even more when I started making money. The novelty (and heartfelt thoughtfulness) of a macaroni necklace for mom just wasn't going to cut it anymore. I had to dish out cash for something she would actually wear in public. Welcome to adulthood.

But I digress ...

This year, I'm going to be a good little girl and not think about the bad parts of Christmas (no 31 year old gets a sack of candy when she leaves church on Christmas Eve).

Instead, I will focus on how lucky I am to be able to spend time with my family (but not too much) and that it's not about the getting, but the giving (even if the present I got my sister was WAY nicer than what she got me).

I will cozy up around the fireplace (or TV) with my family and sing carols (or yell at sportscasters) in coordinating sweaters.

In other words, all I want for Christmas is a little childish innocence (and candy).

A link to all my Christmas and holiday posts

Happy Christmas and/or Boxing Day and/or Kwanzaa and/or Hannakah and/or Bodhi Day and/or Sanghamitta Day and/or Shabe Cheleh and/or Makara Sankranti and/or Junkanoo and/or Dong Zhi and/or Toji and/or Soyal and/or Yule and/or Seva Zistane and/or Alban Arthan and/or Long Night and/or Mean Geimrech and/or Brumalia and/or Dies Natalis Solis Invicti and/or Saturnalia and/or Lenaea and/or Wren Day and/or Tekufah Tevet and/or Winter Solstice and/or ChriFSMas and/or any other December or winter solstice holidays I missed!

Oh, and Bah Humbug to those who don't celebrate the holidays! :)

HUMOR: Cookies, A Love Story

This is an old email sent to me long ago that I never got around to putting up here. Though I should have! It's from my ex, The Sassy Witch . :) - OlderMusicGeek


COOKIES, A LOVE STORY -- A Touching Story of Love and Marriage

An elderly man lay dying in his bed. In death's agony, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookies wafting up the stairs. He gathered his remaining strength, and lifted himself from the bed. Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom, and, with even greater effort, forced himself down the stairs, gripping the railing with both hands. With labored breath, he leaned against the door frame, gazing into the kitchen. Were it not for death's agony, he would have thought himself already in heaven. There, spread out upon newspapers on the kitchen table, were literally hundreds of his favorite chocolate chip cookies. Was it heaven? Or was it one final act of heroic love from his devoted wife, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?

Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself toward the table, landing on his knees in a rumpled posture. His parched lips parted; the wondrous taste of the cookie was already in his mouth; seemingly bringing him back to life. The aged and withered hand, shakingly made its way to a cookie at the edge of the table, when it was suddenly smacked with a spatula by his wife. "Stay out of those" she said, "they're for the funeral."