MUSIC: "Breathless"

I almost hate myself for liking this song so much. I normally despise super sappy lyrics, falsetto-voiced male vocalists, and blue-eyed soul slow ballads, so together I would imagine my head exploding. Maybe it's the cute guy singing the song. Could I be that shallow?

Shayne Ward, the winner of the second season of Britain's American Idol-like show, X-Factor, sings this schmaltzy love song, "Breathless," off his 2007 album by the same name, with such honesty and sincerity that you want to believe every word he says. Even lyrics like "...if we had babies they would look like you," which would normally leave me in hacking fits on the floor, seem genuine.

It must be the holiday season if I'm feeling this ooey-gooey...

Buzzy

YOUTUBE: The Muppets' Bohemian Rhapsody

I have no idea where this awesomeness came from, what it was originally made for (surely not YouTube), or who was behind it, but it's definitely worthy of a ZONINO!

Combining the oft-imitated but always glorious campy Queen anthem, "Bohemian Rhapsody," everyone's beloved Muppets reinterpret the original video with their own signature style. Tell me Animal playing the drums doesn't make you smile? And Beaker? You can never have too much of the little guy!

After this, I might be ready to watch some holiday-inspired "A Muppet Christmas Carol" again.

Buzzy

RECIPE: Avocado Drink

I love avocados. I've made ordering decisions at restaurants based solely on whether a dish had the creamy green fruit in it or not. If you have any similar type of feeling, please do not crinkle your nose in disgust over the thought of this recipe before you try it. For avocado-lovers, this is an incredible addition to the already myriad uses of the fruit.

Ingredients:

2 avocadoes (4 if you are using the Mexican variety)
1/2 cup of honey
1 L of milk
1 orange
ice

What to do:

1) In a blender combine the avocados with the orange.
2) Once thoroughly blended, add the milk, honey, and ice.
3) Blend again.
4) Serve immediately so that it remains cold. Warm avocado is gross. Even I won't eat that.

Sergio del Limonar

YOUTUBE: Minesweeper

As a kid I used to get an unhealthy amount of anxiety playing video games. Dual mode on the James Bond inspired "GoldenEye" gave me veritable heart attacks and "Mario Cart" wasn't much better. Basically any game with a timing aspect stresses me out to the extreme.

If I play any type of electronic game, I prefer to keep it to Solitaire or Pinball on my computer at work. Even the fairly tame Minesweeper is out of the question, although I have tried my hand at it enough in the past to be convinced victory is more or less a combination of luck and if the PC likes you rather than skill.

Either way, this (oldie but goodie) video from College Humor is classic. Poking fun at Hollywood's attempts to make cinematic versions of video games, they have come up with a mock-trailer for "Minesweeper: The Movie".

Satirizing such a simple game might seem difficult but tie it into the obvious war-flick genre and the melodramatic possibilities are ripe. In the discussing strategy, the situational "8 Box" comes up, to which the response is "8...God help us all."

I just wish playing these games was as much fun as watching this video!

Sergio del Limonar

MOVIE: Still Bill

One of my favorite songs of all time is Bill Wither's "Grandma's Hands." If the name sounds familiar, you've surely heard "Ain't No Sunshine" and "Lean On Me." Will Smith even sampled a good portion of Withers's "Just The Two Of Us" back in 1998. But herein lies the problem. This talented musician and songwriter has somehow gone under appreciated in the minds of a vast majority of the music-listening pubic.

Hopefully, not for long. The documentary Still Bill, about the life, past and current, of 1970's singer-songwriter Bill Withers looks at the cultural phenomenon that is his tragic disappearance from the public consciousness.

In the trailer, Withers himself says that often times people don't believe them when he tells them who he is. This looks like an amazing documentary of the life on an incredible talent in the musical landscape of soul music and I can not wait to see it!

Sergio del Limonar

TV: d-CON ads

Sometimes the old adage of less being more is true. I am currently obsessed with the new set of advertisements by d-CON, makers of the snapping glue-filled mouse traps. It has been rumored that I cheer when they come on.

Whoever said you need to have millions of dollars for a successful ad campaign?

Sergio del Limonar

RECIPE: Wine Cake

Wine Cake. "If you serve this once, my friend Oneida says, "it will become 'Whine Cake' because everyone will be whining if you don't make it every time." This actually isn't her joke, but her mother's. Even with this tempered warning, however, Oni didn't learned and exposed more of us to its deliciousness over Thanksgiving.

I'm just here to pass on the same sage advice in hopes that you too do not follow it.

Ingredients:
1 box of yellow cake mix
2 small boxes of Jell-O vanilla pudding
1 cup oil
5 large eggs
3/4 cup sherry wine
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup sherry wine (yes, again)

What to do:

1) Preheat oven to 350

2) Take the first five ingredients and mix them together.

3) Bake in a greased bundt (I love that word) pan for ~50 minutes.

4) Time to glaze: Without popping the cake out, poke the exposed part (the bottom) with a fork. Pour the glaze over the holes until it soaks inside.

5) Wait until the glaze soaks in. Then, pop the cake out of the pan onto a serving dish

6) Repeat poking the rest of the cake, but for the top. Also repeat the glazing process.

7) Cool.

8) (Optional) If you want to have a thicker glaze on top, add more sugar to the glaze and pour some more on after the cake cools.

Buzzy