Plagued With Guilt

The Ten Plagues of Egypt are an integral part of the story of Passover.

And no one makes them more fun to learn about than The Source for Everything Jewish.

You'll be amused for hours whether you prefer chocolate boils, locust finger puppets or bowling for dead cattle.

Yep, we Heebs sure know how to party.

And Nosh Some Hamentaschen

Purim falls on March 20th or 21st at sundown. (Two Jews, three opinions. Can't we ever agree on anything?)

For the uninitiated, Purim is another one of those Jewish holidays that's summed up like this:

They tried to kill us. We won. Let's eat.

And during Purim we eat hamentaschen (literally, Haman's pockets). Around 350 BCE, an evil advisor to King Ahasuerus of Persia, named Haman, hatched a plan to kill all the Jews. I hate to give away the ending, but the Jews survived and Haman was hanged.

The triangular-shaped cookies represent his three-cornered hat. I don't really get the pocket-hat relationship, but I do believe that the reason prune is the traditional hamentaschen flavor is to give us an excuse to kvetch about our irritable bowel syndrome.

Personally, I prefer apricot.

Pope Prius the First

The Vatican has updated the seven deadly sins to include abusing the environment.

So what does this mean for future Palm Sunday observances? Replacing thousands of freshly-cut palm fronds with replicas made from recycled plastic grocery bags?

And about those Christmas trees. . .

Dennis the Menace

That's right, Dennis Rodman is my homie. Two friends and I had a close encounter with him while we were having drinks in West Hollyweird last weekend.

When he plopped himself down next to me it was clear he was higher than the Wright brothers on a windy day. And our scintillating conversation? If only Dr. Seuss had been available to translate.

But the strangest part of the evening was when he groped my bazoom and then threw my friend Lauri onto his lap. Yep, that Dennis Rodman sure knows how to show a girl a good time.

Funnier Than a Ball of Yarn in a Water Cooler

According to The Onion, America's Finest News Source, there's a serious shortage of idioms in this country.

And that's scarier than a rabbi running a bacon-eating contest.

Shake Your Groove Thing

We homos get blamed for everything. Now an ultra-right wing member of the Israeli parliament is blaming recent earthquakes on Israel's tolerant attitude towards homosexuality.

In an article in Britain's Telegraph, Shlomo Benizri of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas party said this:

"Why do earthquakes happen? One of the reasons is the things to which the Knesset gives legitimacy, to sodomy," Benizri said during a parliamentary debate on earthquake preparedness.

"God says you shake your genitals where you are not supposed to and I will shake my world in order to wake you up," he added.

If we actually were capable of such phenomena I think we'd do something much more universally appealing, like rid the world of back hair.

Less Cringing, Fewer Dunderheads

So this morning I'm in the grocery store ready to check out, and something odd catches my eye. It's a sign that reads "Express Lane - 15 Items or Fewer."

Yes, Fewer! Not "15 Items or Less."

It appears that someone in the grocery industry finally took a damn grammar class.

Once You Go Mac. . .

If you're a Mac addict like me then you'll be rushing to the theater to see the new movie MacHeads, a documentary about the Macintosh Nation.

But I'm not wild about the title. Maybe they should've called it "Gone With the Windows."

Whiny the Poo and the Semi-Colonoscopy

I had my first colonoscopy today. The procedure wasn't bad. In fact, I don't remember much after they put in the IV.

The prep you have to go through the day before is nasty, so I won't go into detail. Just imagine yourself spending 12 hours on an overdose of laxatives.

Other than the Big Purge-a-Thon, my only real complaint is that I was sent home with a lovely parting gift - three very graphic photos of the inside of my colon. I was woozy enough from the anesthesia. This I didn't need to see.

Maybe it's because in my drugged stupor, I was probably asking over and over if they'd found my missing spare set of car keys.

Jewphoria!

I just found the coolest site with the best Yid toys everrr! (No, not those types of toys.) It's called Oy Toys and sells a series of plush dog toys with Yiddish nicknames.

Of course, my favorite is Shpilkes the Ant.

But Tuchis the Donkey and Schlep the Camel are close seconds. And then there's Lox the Fish. Oy, I feel like a kid in a halvah store. Too bad I didn't find this before Hanukkah.

Nasal Gazing

Why does this woman have a shofar coming out of her nose?

Okay, so it's not a shofar; it's a neti pot, an ancient Ayurvedic nasal cleansing device. The term jala neti means nasal cleansing in Sanskrit.

I've recently started using a neti pot because it's supposed to help prevent sinus problems caused by colds, allergies, poor air quality, etc.

And, as weird as this might sound, it's really fun to pour warm salt water in one nostril and watch it come out the other side.

Yeah, it's kind of gross, and it feels a little like being surprised by high tide while napping on the beach with your face in the sand, but every morning, after my neti has been thoroughly potted, I can really breathe.

And it makes me feel a little braver about facing my next invasive adventure - an upcoming (no pun intended) colonoscopy.

A New Year's Mikvah Mitzvah

So this morning, three friends and I celebrated the new year by jumping into the 55-degree waters off the coast of San Diego. It was freezing, invigorating, and the perfect way to start 2008.

Happy New Year!

(I'm the one on the far right.)

Chili Dog - Hold the Babushka

Looks like those demented elves got ahold of this little guy.

If it's Tuesday it Must Be Belgian

I love waffles but I hate it when I see the term "Belgium waffles" on an ad or listed on a menu. Belgium is a country. Belgian is an adjective used to describe people or things from Belgium.

You wouldn't say "France fries," "England breakfast tea," or "Spain omelette," would you?

Of course, you could always call them Flemish waffles, but I doubt they'd be big sellers.

Have Yourself a Tacky Little Christmas

Well, I'd take my head off, too, if I had to wear this thing. But creating holiday sweater styles is a very serious biz, according to the Style section of today's New York Times:

We may not remember that there are real, sophisticated people coming up with ideas for these things at companies like Coldwater Creek, Talbots, Marisa Christina, Quacker Factory and Berek every year, not some committee of demented elves pulling subjects at random from Santa’s bag of tricks — i.e., ice-skating penguins, fiber-optic candy canes, halls-decking bunnies and so on.

That's because the demented elves are too busy making tacky holiday outfits for dogs.

The Driving-Me-Nutscracker Suite

Why does every company in the universe use "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy" to sell its products during the holidays?

I've heard that tune so often lately that I'll bet even the sugarplum fairy is ready for a little Springsteen at this point.

Hooked on Jewphonics

Chanukah Chanukkah Chanukka Hanuka Hanukka Channukah Channukkah Hanukah Hanukkah
Chanuka Chanukka Hanuka Hanukka Channukah Channukkah Hannukah Hannukkah Channuka
Channukka Hannuka Hannukka Kannukah Kanukkah Kannuka Kanukka Ckannuka Ckanukka Ckannukah Ckanukkah.

Now we know why there are no Jewish spelling bees.

Happy Chanukah!

Where the Streets Have One Name

Hey street-namers, what's your frickin' problem? Is street-naming the new brain surgery? Is it really so hard to think of more than three or four names for the streets of one neighborhood?

Or do you get sadistic pleasure knowing that directionally challenged people like me hear the "Psycho" theme music whenever we drive in certain areas of town?

La Jolla, CA (a few miles north of San Diego) is a good example. Why is there an Executive Drive, Executive Way, and Executive Square all in the same block? Why does La Jolla Village Drive intersect with Villa La Jolla Drive? And why in heck does North Torrey Pines Road intersect with itself?

I feel like Sisyphus, except I'm pushing my rock up the same damn street every time.

If it's Kislev it Must be Tuesday

Everyone is saying that Hanukkah is early this year. But Hanukkah starts at sunset on the same day each year on the Jewish calendar, the 25th of Kislev, which, this year falls on the 4th of December on the Julian calendar.

Next year, Hanukkah will begin on a totally different day on the Julian calendar but will fall, as it always has, on the 25th of Kislev.

Huh?

This is because the Jewish calendar is based on the Earth's rotation on its axis, how it revolves around the sun, and how the moon revolves around the Earth. It's a big, complicated formula that, if I really thought about it, would keep me up at night.

Jewish months begin when the tiniest sliver of the new moon is visible. Some years have 12 months, others 13. And a year with 13 months is called a "Shanah Me'uberet" (pronounced shah-NAH meh-oo-BEH-reht), literally: a pregnant year.

Oy, and no wonder. With such a complex calendar who could keep track of their period? I'm surprised every year isn't pregnant.

Buffalo is Where it's at

University at Buffalo, the State University of New York. WTF?

That's the official name of what I grew up calling UB or SUNY Buffalo (not to be confused with sunny Buffalo, which refers to its three days of summer). Call me nitpicky, but I have a problem with long, convoluted names.

It sort of makes UB seem like the one and only school in the entire Empire State.

As a former Buffalonian (yeah I know, that sounds like a person with exemplary herding skills) I have enough trouble defending the honor of my birthplace. And I really hate what appears to be confusing and redundant branding for a very good school.

You gotta wonder, however, about their English department.