Behold the power of lox.

I lied. You can disregard part of my post from this morning because I went to Costco after all. Sam looked exceptionally sad and pathetic after I told him the weather was too crappy for a fun-food outing, so I threw on three layers of clothing (seriously) and drove off into the late morning fog. Know what? It was worth the trip! Costco was crowded, which was no surprise on New Year’s Eve, but I found a great handicapped spot near the entrance (God bless handicapped spots) and there were plenty of open checkout lanes so it didn’t take very long to get everything on my weekend food-fest wish list. This included: two pounds of lox, a dozen bagels, a gigantic box of T.G.I. Fridays mozzarella sticks, a three-pack of Classico tomato basil pasta sauce, a dozen hand-made chicken tamales, salsa, three pounds of jumbo shrimp, fresh raspberries, chicken salad with pecans and cranberries, two pounds of shrimp salad, a dozen muffins, herb-crusted sliced turkey breast, pot roast, Tillamook pepper jack cheese, a tub of whole cashews, and last but not least ... THE  BIGGEST DAMN CHICKEN POT-PIE I’VE EVER SEEN, which is in the oven as I write this. No kidding, it’s bigger than my Epson scanner! (Marcycita’s South-of-the-Border Tamale Pie is officially postponed until a later date.)

And now ... it’s almost time for TCM’s New Year’s Eve “Thin Man” movie marathon, so happy new year to y’all (again) and I’ll be back with another post in 2010!

Out with the old, in with the new.

It’s New Year’s Eve. Actually, it’s New Year’s Eve MORNING if you want to get picky about it ... a gray, cold, drizzly day that’s not especially conducive to a fun-food junket to Costco, which is what I was hoping to do right about now. Nothing says “Happy New Year” quite like a dozen bagels and a two-pound package of lox! But a person with a cane and a handicapped tag shouldn’t be shlepping around in damp 42° weather, so tonight’s dinner will be Marcycita’s South-of-the-Border Tamale Pie. (I’ll share the recipe in a day or two; check back for my post.)

Sam and I wish all of you a happy and healthy new year. Personally, I’m awfully damn glad to see 2009 come to an end because I can’t EVER remember a year of such misery and drama for so many people. Think about it. Major bank failures, home foreclosures and double-digit unemployment, the tragic death of Billy Mays, Bernie Madoff screwing up the largest ponzi scheme in history, Linens ’n Things going bankrupt, war is still raging in the middle east, and then we discover that Tiger Woods is a lousy driver. Here’s hoping that 2010 is filled with better things for all of us! Shalom.

Most depressing restaurant in Mesquite.

Sam and I don’t really eat out that often. This is only because he works evenings during the week, and on weekends most popular restaurants around here are usually too crowded. So we tend to revisit the same spots over and over once we figure out the best time to show up without waiting. (We usually eat lunch at 10:45 and dinner at 4. I’m not joking about this.) Anyway, a few weeks ago we got curious and decided to try R & D’s Cafe, a neighborhood sandwich shop/dive/greasy spoon that’s changed names and owners four times in the past year. As we walk in we’re greeted by a very large and lazy manager who’s seated way in back at a corner table and yells at us to “sit anywhere.” We stay near the door in case we want to make a fast getaway.

The menu is cheap and uninspiring so we stick to familiar fare: I order a BLT club and Sam asks for the breakfast taco. If you assume that a restaurant couldn’t louse this up, you’d be dead wrong. My BLT club, which evokes the image of a triple-decker sandwich with ruffled toothpicks, isn’t even close ... I get two strips of cold bacon on white bread with chopped iceberg lettuce and an anemic slice of tomato. After one bite the entire tomato is hanging from my mouth and all the lettuce lands on my plate. And Sam’s breakfast taco? It’s just two scrambled eggs with a teeny cup of salsa. He asks the waitress why it’s called a taco on the menu, and she says, “Beats me. Y’all want me to ask the cook?” (We didn’t.) Lately we’re eating at home a lot more than we used to.  
RATING: D.

Illiteracy: a proud Dallas tradition.

According to a report released on December 29 by Central Connecticut State University, Dallas ranks 48th in the 2009 National Literate Cities Survey for metropolitan areas with populations of 250,000 or more. Ranking criteria included newspaper circulation, the number of available bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources.

The fact that Dallas is the sixth-largest city in the United States but 48th in literacy may be a shock and disappointment to the mayor and city council, but it’s certainly no surprise to ME. In my view there are only four things this city gets excited about: 1) guns; 2) ammo; 3) the Dallas Cowboys; and 4) making sure you can’t find a store that sells beer on Sundays. Bookstores and newspaper circulation are about as important here as cat poop, which explains why Dallas lags behind famously-intellectual cities like St. Louis, New Orleans, Wichita and Tulsa. This probably also explains why George Bush moved here. Thank you for reading this.

What Jewish people really do on Christmas.

Ahh, Christmas with Sam & Marcy ... it’s exactly what you’d expect. There’s no Santa, no tree and no presents, and the only thing stuffed in our stockings is FEET. We get up early and toast a couple of bagels, check email, sit around in bathrobes watching the World Poker Tour on TV, eat grapes and ravioli and eventually take a nap with The Bishop’s Wife on DVD. As the evening wears on we light the fireplace, and I enjoy a festive nightcap of high blood pressure medication with half a glass of Coke Zero while Sam eats ice cream sandwiches dipped in sprinkles. All in all, it’s a full day filled with treasured memories. Now shut up and pass the lox.

Twas two nights before Christmas ...

... and I’m sitting here in the middle of a thunderstorm eating Voortman’s Sugar-Free Shortbread Swirl cookies.

There are two things wrong with this scenario. First, we’re having damn peculiar weather for late December. It’s supposed to be ICE STORM season, not THUNDERSTORM season. Second, Voortman’s sugar-free cookies taste like drywall and absolutely SUCK. I wouldn’t be in the same room with them if I had any alternatives. (On the plus side, at least they’re cheap.)

In other news, the Howdygram is pleased to report that Richard and Mayumi Heene were both sentenced to jail today for their stupid weather balloon hoax back in October. Law enforcement officials, the media and the general public are still so outraged I’m surprised these idiots weren’t sentenced to the gallows and their children sent to foster homes. However, in a popularity poll they still ranked slightly higher than Tiger Woods. Merry Christmas, y’all.

Another tragic loss for the world of entertainment.

Actress Connie Hines, 79, died today in Los Angeles. She is best known for her pathetic role as Carol Post in 144 episodes of the “Mister Ed” TV series from 1961 to 1966, where her on-screen responsibilities included making coffee, serving lunch and answering the telephone. This was the highlight of her career aside from a 1970 guest shot on “Love, American Style.” Connie is survived by co-star Alan Young, 90. The horse that portrayed Mister Ed was euthanized in 1970 after enjoying several years of retirement at an assisted living center in Pacoima, California. He was buried at the Snodgrass Farm in Oklahoma.

Sam & Marcy load up for the holiday weekend.

I’m talking GROCERIES, people. And it was the biggest damn load of groceries we ever bought at one time, without a doubt. This morning Sam and I went to our Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market and blew $227 on just about everything in the store except tampons and Velveeta. It was a shopping excursion of epic proportions, designed to keep us rolling in crunchy things, food, toilet paper and Coke Zero until well into 2010. Plus, I’m planning several nice dinners for Sam and me during Christmas weekend, including Crockpot Chicken & Dumplings, Marcycita’s South-of-the-Border Tamale Pie and another tub of my world-famous Chicken Soup with Matzo Balls.

Our Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market was remodeled earlier this year. Now we’ve got nice wide aisles, more checkout lanes, better lighting, and they carry a lot of good brands in addition to being exceptionally cheap. My only complaint: the produce department is sort of a bare-bones experience. They stock the basics, but Wal-Mart is NOT the place to go if you want an exotic squash, more than two varieties of apples or adorable sweet potatoes. However, most of the time this doesn’t matter at all. Thank you.

Catfish with a side order of itemized deductions.

With this post I’m pleased to introduce Table For 2, the Howdygram’s new series of restaurant reviews. And our first featured establishment is Howard’s Christian Catfish and Taxes, a little cafe tucked inside the Conoco gas station at 4751 Belt Line Road in Mesquite, just two blocks from home. Howard’s offers a limited menu of deep-fried catfish, deep-fried okra and deep-fried hush puppies, either dine-in (bring Rolaids and a sense of humor) or to-go, along with assorted wall-mounted scriptures for inspiration and a convenient income tax service that operates from a vacant storage closet during the first fiscal quarter of the year. The Conoco station also sells gas, diesel, cigarettes, Slim-Jims, Slurpees and Hostess cupcakes. RATING: D. (Seriously ... who wants to eat dinner or get their taxes done in a gas station?)

Hey. Whatever happened to Christmas cards?

I’m trying to figure out if I missed the memo. When did everybody turn into a collective pile of scrooges and stop sending Christmas cards? I mailed ours two weeks ago: one to each of my business clients and about a dozen cards to friends. However, I’m sorry to report that as of today — the 21st of December — Sam and I have only received three. THREE. That’s not even enough to decorate the mantle of our fireplace! I totally understand “cutting back” during a recession, but I didn’t even get this year’s stupid molar in a Santa hat card from my dentist. Happy holidays to all of you Ebenezers from Sam and me.

Celebrating National Flashlight Day.

I doubt if Hallmark ever invented a card for this one, but December 21 is National Flashlight Day. To share the day appropriately with your friends and loved ones, the Howdygram recommends that you grab a pack of batteries and visit the following useful and fascinating websites that we just spent half the night researching for you.

Begin at Energizer.com with the history of flashlights dating back to 1890. Then shop for new flashlights and flashlight products at brightguy.com and coolflashlights.com. And finally, take a little cyber journey to The Flashlight Museum, where you’ll enjoy a trip down memory lane with the antique flashlight collections of Larry Charnes, Craig Smart, Tim Smith (Maglites in HUNDREDS OF COLORS!) and Jaangoo Meulenbeek. Meulenbeek’s antique flashlights from Germany probably illuminated Hitler’s bunker.

This post is a perfect example of what happens when a person is sleep-deprived. Shalom, y’all.

A small clarification about my previous post.

Okay, for those of you wondering why a movie junkie like me doesn’t already own titles like “The Maltese Falcon” and “Ben-Hur,” I actually do ... except they’re all VHS tapes, and we don’t have a VCR any more! We’ve got a high-definition Bose DVD player hooked up to our home theater system. For the last couple of years I’ve been trying to replace our old VHS titles whenever I can find them, but unfortunately many still haven’t been released on DVD. I’m talking about genuine classics like “Ali Baba Goes To Town” with Eddie Cantor and “The Prizefighter and the Lady” with Myrna Loy and Max Baer. (In case you care, the best place to search for what’s available on DVD is TCM.com’s movie database. The best place to BUY them is Amazon.com.)

It’s 5:30 in the morning, and I’m sitting at my computer with a teeny box of crackers. One of my clients sent me a huge all-food Christmas gift basket yesterday, but the only components I can eat include the aforesaid crackers, a package of cinnamon tea and a two-ounce bag of dried fruit. Everything else landed on Sam’s desk (three kinds of cookies, Werther’s caramels, Ghirardelli chocolates and a couple of candy canes) because I’m diabetic and he’s NOT. Gracias and happy holidays. Pass the Equal.

All I want for Christmas ...

... are a new lower partial (I’m not joking) and another batch of great old movies from Amazon.com! But because I don’t intend to visit my dentist any time in the foreseeable future, this morning I bought the following collection of classic films for my constantly-expanding DVD library:

• Pollyanna (Adolphe Menjou! HAYLEY MILLS!)
• Dodsworth (Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, Mary Astor)
• The Big Trail (an early talkie and John Wayne’s first feature film)
• Champagne for Caesar (Ronald Colman, Celeste Holm)
• Ben-Hur (ramming speed!)
• The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers)
• The Postman Always Rings Twice (John Garfield, Lana Turner)
• Christmas in Connecticut (Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan)
• The Maltese Falcon (Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor)
• The Big Sleep (Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall)
• Dial M for Murder (Grace Kelly, Ray Milland)
• Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (Doris Day, David Niven)

I’m so excited I can hardly stand it. With all these great new movies and enough Chinese food maybe I won’t have to leave the house for at least six months. Y’all are invited to come watch with me. (Bring your own egg rolls.)

Why I think Sam is sexy.

I’m not going to talk about his big green eyes, his smile or the little dent in the middle of his chin. What really makes Sam sexy is his UNPARALLELED FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY. Trust me ... at my age, this is a damn attractive quality.

First, Sam saves change. He’s got a frog bank stuffed with dimes, a six-inch square metal tray overflowing with quarters and nickels (no kidding, it weighs about 20 pounds) and an empty five-gallon Sparkletts bottle almost three-fourths full with coins of all kinds that you’d need a crane to move. (The last time he cashed in his Sparkletts bottle was 2002. It held $2,400.)

Sam also pays his bills on time. According to freecreditreport.com he has only one percent debt, owes no money on any credit cards, makes no car payments and has a credit score at 800+. He qualifies for auto loans with ZERO PERCENT INTEREST and kicks in enough extra principal each month on our mortgage to pay off our house in less than 10 years. (We bought it in 2007.) Sam also has $67,000 of available credit on two Mastercards and managed to grow our investments by 20 percent during the worst recession in 80 years.

All of this makes it very easy to sleep at night. And I consider myself damn lucky to be sleeping next to Sam. Thank you.

Bargains will keep me warm.

I’m expecting a delivery tomorrow from Overstock.com ... two fleece blankets and a set of 800 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets. Trust me on this one, everybody: do NOT buy your bedding anywhere else! The blankets were only $29.99 each (65% off retail) in any size and the sheets were $59.99 for a king set (78% off) with four pillowcases. I’m not joking: FOUR PILLOWCASES. I know I don’t have to tell you what sheets like this cost at full price. Walk around in Macy’s or Bed Bath and Beyond once in a while. You’d pay $59.99 for a pair of pillowcases, not a whole set of sheets! So the Howdygram recommends that you visit Overstock.com and go shopping. There’s no sales tax, and I think they’ve still got free shipping through Christmas. You can tell them Marcy sent you, but that probably won’t impress anybody. Thank you.

Sleepless in the saddle.

Okay, I’m not really in the saddle. I’m not anywhere near a horse at all. But I’m definitely sleepless. It’s almost 3:45 a.m. and I’ve been working on a never-ending list of graphic design projects for clients who want everything wrapped up before the first of the year. It’s fun and lucrative, but when I’m in a creative mode I absolutely can’t sleep. So here I am with a box of Tic Tacs to keep me company. I’d rather hang out with Sam, but he’s been in bed since midnight.

For the most part, it was a pretty boring weekend around here aside from continuous naps, eating the world’s largest pot of chicken soup and buying a new mouse for my computer. The mouse arrived Saturday via FedEx from MacMall in California ... a terrific Kensington Orbit Optical trackball (see image at right) that works like a charm. My old mouse died last week of natural causes. We held a private service on Saturday afternoon and will accept gifts and condolence cards through the end of the month. (Thank you in advance for your generosity.)

All those who think I should go to bed now, please raise your hands.

Things to do when you have a cold.

For me, the last thing I do before I collapse on the couch with a blanket, a box of kleenex and the remote is make a very large pot of my intensely therapeutic matzo ball soup. I am not embarrassed to tell you that mine is the best anywhere. It’s probably better than your mother’s (I know it’s better than MY mother’s), because I make the biggest, fluffiest matzo balls that ever walked the earth. They’re lighter than air and tend to fly out of the bowl unless you whack them with a spoon. And they only end up that way because I don’t follow a traditional matzo ball recipe: I double the cooking time.

So here’s how to make a massive batch of Marcy’s Famous Matzo Balls. The ingredients couldn’t be easier:

• 8 eggs
• 8 tablespoons oil
• salt, white pepper and dill (to taste)
  
• 2 cups matzo meal
• 6 quarts boiling salted water

Blend the eggs and oil in a large bowl, add seasonings and matzo meal and mix thoroughly with a fork. Place bowl in refrigerator for 25 minutes. Form matzo mixture into two-inch balls with slightly wet hands and drop them into boiling water. Cover the pot and simmer for 45 to 50 minutes, then turn off the heat and let them sit quietly for another 10 minutes. Remove matzo balls one at a time to a bowl. If you’ve made them in advance (before you’ve made the soup) they can be refrigerated.

Incidentally, this recipe yields enough matzo balls to feed the Israeli army so feel free to cut it in half. And if you have any soup left over you can attach it to an email and send it to me here with a couple of napkins. Shalom y’all.

Just in time for Hanukkah!

It’s official ... Chicago’s Tootsie Roll Corporation announced today that Tootsie Rolls and Dots candies have been certified as Kosher. Apparently this means that Orthodox Jewish children everywhere can now destroy their teeth without guilt. Mazel tov to y’all and congratulations to the Tootsie Roll Corporation for this monumental achievement. Oy.

Congratulations, Time Warner.

I’m pleased to announce that Time Warner Cable is the latest recipient of our prestigious Einstein Award in recognition of my middle-of-the-night telephone encounter with a tech support bozo named Mia. (It’s probably an alias.)

The Story
So here’s what happened. Last night after a 3 a.m. bathroom run I decide to sit at my desk for a few minutes to check email and discover that my cable modem is offline. I call Time Warner. First, let me tell you ... they have these extremely scary computerized androids who answer the phone and pretend they’re people. The message starts out with: “Welcome to Time Warner Cable. Please tell me why you’re calling today. You can say, ‘my cable service isn't working’ or ‘I can’t connect to the Internet.’” I wonder how many people actually say “I have hemorrhoids” and wait to see what happens. (Remind me to try that next time.)

The Highly-Trained Professional
I tell the android I can’t connect to the Internet so she transfers me to Mia Einstein, who asks for my home phone number. I’m figuring she’ll tell me there’s a local outage and I’ll just go back to bed. NO SUCH LUCK. Mia says she doesn’t see any outages, so to verify what the problem is could I please turn off my Mac, unplug the modem from the router, plug it directly into a port on the back of my computer, reboot the computer, stand on my head and sing the second verse from “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” (Just kidding about the last part.) Her instructions make me want to cry. Sam and I have two large Macintosh computer systems, an external back-up drive, stereo speakers, two telephone lines, two lamps, an Epson printer, a cable modem, a router, a credit card terminal and a fax machine, each with at least two cables and a power supply. THE BACK OF MY DESK IS A SNAKE PIT. I unplug the router but can’t figure out which line links back to my computer. While I put down the phone to wrestle with cords, Mia repeatedly tries to reset the cable modem. She insists she isn’t getting a signal so the problem has to be my router. She tells me to flip it over, do I see a Macintosh address or an IP address on the bottom, how old is the router, do I know its mother’s maiden name, is there a stand-by button, which lights are blinking and can I unplug it from the wall without rupturing my vertebrae.

The Upshot
After 40 minutes of this crap Mia finally says, “Let me try one more thing.” I hear her typing. Then she says, “I just wanted to check again for outages. Nope, I don’t see any outages in San Diego.” I say, “San Diego? I LIVE IN DALLAS.” There’s dead silence for a minute, then: “Mrs. Marks, please stop unplugging everything. There’s a widespread outage in your area.” I seriously consider killing her, but it’s after 4 a.m. and I’m definitely ready to go back to bed. I hang up and head down the hall when THE PHONE RINGS. It’s Mia, who says she forgot to thank me for calling Time Warner and is there anything else she can help me with. I say, “Yes. You can apologize to my husband for waking him up in the middle of the night.” Einstein.

Late-breaking news of huge importance.

Here’s a hot story from the police files in Dunnellon, Florida. A 53-year-old woman (see right) was arrested today for whacking a man in the face with a raw steak. According to the sheriff’s office report, the man told deputies that Elsie Egan repeatedly hit him with the uncooked meat and then slapped him when he refused to eat a piece of sliced bread. It’s a good thing he didn’t refuse the mashed potatoes, too, or she might have killed him!

Believe it or not, I can identify with this situation and know what it’s like to suffer from grocery abuse. When I was 14 my mother smacked me in the head with a frozen Jewish rye for scaring her half to death with the flash from my Instamatic camera. I’ve often considered starting a support group, but after 45 years I think I’ve pretty much recovered from the trauma. And now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to watch the big finale on “Top Chef.” Thank you.

I think they missed the bulls-eye on this one.

We have a new Super Target store in Mesquite that opened in mid-October. This was a big hoo-hah around here for a couple of reasons: 1) since the recession started a lot more stores have been closing rather than opening; and 2) Super Target replaced our old ordinary Target, which had to shut down for the overhaul about six months ago and everybody really missed it and kept driving by to watch the progress. Unfortunately, I finally had a chance to shop at the new store last week and it wasn’t exactly the experience I’d been hoping for. There were herds of brand new employees hanging around but nobody could tell me where the toothpaste was ... and most of them weren’t even close. (Customer service note: it’s not very nice to make a woman with a cane shlep all over the store on a wild goose chase.)

Other disappointments included insufficient handicapped parking spots, stale California rolls, tasteless wild rice salad, no Ball Park fat-free turkey hotdogs, overpriced Coke Zero, no Kosher food aisle and I couldn’t find any pretzel bread in the bakery department, which was the best reason for shopping there in the first place. And if that’s not enough, Sam tells me the blueberry muffins were nothing to write home about. (I don’t think he plans to do that, however.)

Bottom line: I’ll stick with my Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market, which is cheaper, a little closer and actually carries matzo meal. Thank you for reading this.

Remembering Pearl on December 7.

Most people tend to forget there are lots of significant Pearls to be remembered on December 7. The following information corresponds to the images above, from left to right. First, there’s the ever-popular Pearl Harbor with many sunken ships to its credit and also several great movies, such as From Here to Eternity starring Montgomery Clift. Other famous Pearls on my list include: actress and singer Pearl Bailey; missionary and Pulitzer prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck, also known as Sai Zhen Zhu, who spent the majority of her life in China and whose literary credits include “The Good Earth,” “Dragon Seed” and “Satan Never Sleeps”; and Pearl Fryar, a topiary artist who changed the landscape of Bishopville, South Carolina, by proving that blacks can keep their yards nice. Thank you for reading this.

A typically southern crockpot recipe.

I don’t cook much any more. Sam works evenings and is almost never home for dinner except on Saturday and Sunday, and those are my favorite days to order Chinese or go out. But once in a while I get to cook dinner, and here’s a no-brainer comfort food recipe that’s a real home run in my house: Crockpot Chicken & Dumplings. (Special note to all of our friends and relatives in southern California ... it’s a perfect choice for those nasty winter days when the temperature dips below 65° and the palm trees are making too much noise.) Just for the record, I don’t plan to turn the Howdygram into a recipe forum because Sam is usually happy with a turkey sandwich and a couple of cookies.

• 4 boneless chicken breasts cut into small chunks
• 1 cup water
• 1 small onion, diced
• 2 cans condensed cream of chicken soup
• 1 chicken bouillon cube
• 1 can Pillsbury Grands buttermilk biscuits

Combine all ingredients except biscuits in crockpot, cover, and cook on low for 5 to 6 hours. About 30 minutes before serving tear the raw biscuit dough into pieces, stir gently into crockpot, set heat to high and cook for an additional 30 minutes.

Don’t forget to invite me for dinner. I’m a neat guest with a great sense of humor and rarely use more than one napkin. You can send invitations here. Thank you. (Can Sam come, too?)

Tiger Woods is having a really crappy week.

This has to be one of the weirdest news stories EVER. It starts out as an ordinary middle-of-the-night fender-bender in front of Tiger Woods’ house and winds up with a never-ending stream of cocktail waitresses confessing to three years of extra-marital affairs. They’re producing witnesses, racy phone messages and emails, and I wouldn’t be surprised if book deals are in the works. Apparently waitress Rachel Uchitel has already hired publicity-grubbing lawyer Gloria Allred, although the reason for this is still unclear because I don’t think it’s illegal to get boob implants and brag about who you’re sleeping with.

I’ve always been a big Tiger Woods fan, so I’m more than a little pissed that he turned his perfect persona into a veritable train wreck. What an Einstein. He’s managed to bounce Lindsay Lohan and Jon & Kate + 8 off the front page of every tabloid in the nation. I think I need Chinese food to feel better. Thank you for reading this.

Welcome to the all-new Howdygram.

Effective almost immediately we’re replacing our popular website (www.samandmarcy.com) with this terrific new full-featured Howdygram blog. There are a bunch of reasons for this, but we’re making the change mostly because a blog is interactive and offers a lot more flexibility than a static website. You can subscribe to receive new posts by email, comment on a post, exchange messages with other readers, email posts to unsuspecting friends and relatives, and so on. I’m not a professional blogger yet, by any means, but it’s a format I love ... and I’m learning!

So ... welcome to the new and improved Howdygram. During the month of December I’ll be adding some of the most popular features from our website (photo galleries, classic movie reviews, etc.), which means you should plan to come back often and see what’s going on. Also feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. Is this fun, or what?