Annihilation of the Spirit

We're deep into the Christmas frenzy. The girls are really getting into it this year. They've really taken to the original animated version of "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" (I saw the Jim Carrey movie once and it struck me as kinda creepy, and not in a good, Grinchy way). We've watched it a bunch of times on TV and they like hearing good ol' Boris Karloff narrating it on CD, and they especially love the classic song, "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," delivered by the immortal Thurl Ravenscroft. Also known as the original voice of Tony the Tiger in Frosted Flakes commercials, Ravenscroft's name was left off the credits for the Grinch special, leading many (including me) to originally believe Karloff did the song. It's a blast to hear Lily and Hannah sing the song, although like everything else they enjoy, they want to hear it over and over again.

The girls are disappointed we don't have a lot of snow, but I'm not. We got a dusting on Friday morning, along with some seriously frigid temps, but like everything else around here, it didn't last long. The forecast for this week calls for temps in the 40s and 50s. Maybe we'll get some snow by Christmas.

Meanwhile, back at the Hall of Justice:

• Holy crap, just when I think the Leafs can't get any worse, they go and get worse. Saturday night's loss to Detroit was their seventh straight. Just brutal. They're getting outhustled, outworked and just plain outplayed. They take stupid penalties at inopportune times, they don't capitalize o their own chances, and they consistently leave opponents open for good scoring chances. It's getting tough to watch.
• A so-called shout out to the UNH men's hockey team, which is unbeaten in 12 games and was ranked number 2 in the nation as of last week. The women's team is kicking butt, too, at 14-2-3 and ranked third in the nation.
• Only in America: If you're in Arizona, make sure you check out the Heart Attack Grill, where they offer the Quadruple Bypass Burger, an 8,000-calorie monstrosity. I've been known to throw back some mass quantities of food before, but that's just nasty.