There’s no anesthetic like a good cocktail, so here’s the Top Ten Jewish Mixed Drinks, courtesy of bangitout.com:

10. Shirley Temple Emanuel
9. Babba Kamma-kazi
8. Blackhat Russian
7. Kahuna and Cream
6. Fuzzy Navel V’Kinor
5. Shomer-Sangria
4. Long Island Wisotsky Tea
3. Tefillah Slurrer
2. Purum and Joke
1. Shas on the Beach
And from their comments section: “Today I am a Man”-hattan

We’ve been a lil’ lushy ourselves:
Dirty Martinowitz (vodka, vermouth, kosher pickle juice)
Brandy Abraham (brandy, whipped cream, creme de cacao and a dash of Havdalah spices)
Flaming Manischewitz (151 Rum, wine, fire)

We’re still perfecting our secret hangover cure, but two aspirin crushed in a V-8 juice is a good stand-by. We’ll keep you posted.

We get fairly annoyed when someone assumes to wish us a “Merry Christmas”, so you’d think we’d love to hear that Christian students and their parents are having to fight back against “the growing campaign in America to remove any trace of Christmas from public life.” In Massachusetts, a small town mayor was forced to apologize for inviting people to a “Christmas party” instead of a general holiday gathering and a Kansas newspaper had to refer to a decorated arborial sacrifice as a “community tree.” In other words, it’s no longer politically correct to refer to December 25 as Jesus’ birthday party to avoid offending those of us who celebrate those other winter holidays like Chanukah, Kwanzaa and Solstice.
We appreciate the breathing room (really, nothing makes us more nauseous than some lady wearing blinky earrings going on about the baby Jesus,) but somehow it all smacks of social censorship in the worst way. Instead of removing all mention of the religious origins of all these holidays, wouldn’t educating children instead foster something like tolerance and understanding? The JPost ran this story about how a Chicago school is handling the “December Dilemma” by teaching a group of mixed-faith kids the truth about Christmas as well as Chanukah, which will have purists squirming in their seats. But if Jewish and other non-Christian parents so fear that any mention of Jesus will immediately brainwash their children into genuflecting, perhaps they’re not providing enough real information about their own religions.

We know we always get all mushy when Friday night comes around, but shutting down this electronic box and striking up some elemental light truly feels like a gift after six straight days of flourescent glow. When it comes to Jewish observance, we’re so far from perfect we can’t even remember the address, so we’re totally loving Aish’s Shabbat Site, which has yer basic Shabbos necessities as well as plenty of interesting personal and spiritual commentary.
For more Shabbat learning, there’s jewishgates.com, which also contains a wonderfully clear explanation of Havdalah so we can greet a new week without grumbling.
Enjoy your rest, homies!

In what has got to be the world’s stupidest attempt to bring nature home, five University of Detroit students were apprehended before the first night of Chanukah for hacking down three evergreens from a Jewish cemetery. The urban Bunyans professed no knowledge that the big, grassy place with all the headstones was a sacred resting place (der…we thought it was just a park, ocifer…) but admitted they had planned to take the pilfered pines back to their dorm rooms to use as Christmas trees. (The article has their full names– some of which might be Jewish. Such a shanda!)
No punishment has been handed down yet, but we propose that these young idiots be ordered to pay for and plant five trees for every one they murdered- and do it before Tu B’Shvat (the New Year for Trees) on January 25.

In a post about Seventeen magazine’s editor Aloosa Rubenstein’s disturbing advisory skills, our favorite celebrity scandal blogger confirms our suspicion that his “J” is our kind after all.

JPost reports that the Bush administration is courting Sen. Joseph Lieberman to fill the position of Secretary of Homeland Security, which is probably the most intelligent thing we’ve heard all year. His mission, should Hadassah decide to let him accept it, will be to freeze out terrorists with the calm effiency of Deputy Dawg– a seemingly feckless character who always gets his man.

12 year-old Julliard student Jay Greenberg is being touted as the next Mozart, having already composed five full-length symphonies by the time most of us have barely mastered middle C.
“We are talking about a prodigy of the level of the greatest prodigies in history when it comes to composition,” says Sam Zyman, a composer, Julliard professor and former child prodigy himself. “I am talking about the likes of Mozart, and Mendelssohn, and Saint-Sans…This is an absolute fact. This is objective. This is not a subjective opinion.”
His parents, a linguistic scholar and an Israeli-born painter, are not musicians, but thankfully they encouraged their son when he began “hearing music in his head” at the age of three. The article doesn’t mention whether “Bluejay” (his preferred nickname, as bluejays are “small and loud”) has found time to study for his bar mitzvah in between performing and composing, and we wonder if we will hear the influence of some of the great Jewish composers in his future work.
Go, Bluejay!

So Chanukah is officially over. We hope yours was full of warmth, greasy treats and glinty gold gelt. Ours was truly de*light*ful; we lit a menorah each night for every member of the household and had extras on hand for guests, which made last night’s full effect something of a fire hazard. Not to mention the melty mess to clean- dripless candles? Yeah, right.
Here’s a little tip we learned a few years ago to aid you in this blessed chore: Put your menorah in the freezer overnight before cleaning it. The wax will harden and be easier to chip off with a butter knife or other scraping tool. Polish your chanukiah with a clean rag and put it away someplace safe. You’ll be so happy when you pull it out next year, all shiny and ready to take on eight more nights of melted light.
Now, if anyone has any advice on what to about the multitude of tiny burns on our hands from our epic, spattering latke extravaganza, please post them.

We practically pee in our pants watching the half hour Da Ali G Show, so we figured his feature-length movie would have us soaking the coach. We were mistaken. Sure, Sacha Baron Cohen inhabits his grammatically-challenged, bling-lovin’ alterego like his own skin and there are some hilarious bits when he’s beatboxing with his lily-white posse, but the flim lands way too far into the realm of juvenile male humor for our taste (the opening scene contains a revolting animal-gratification act that grossed us out immediately.) The ridiculous plot revolves around Ali G trying to save his neighborhood community center when he is suddenly catapulted into the upper echelons of British politics; he must then save the world by ogling boobies and making beat-off jokes. We guess if you’re a 13-27 year old male it might be entertaining, but the gimmick works way better in television format.