Euroreader:

…overmuch, but my trips to Europe have in the main been to visit people I know and work with. No hotels, few restaurant trips (though the ones I've been to have all been chosen by the folks I've visited), so I stand by my conclusion…especially as it covers the parameters you yourself stipulated.

Of course, if you want to start comparing dining experiences between southern and northern Europe (will be visiting Spain before too long, in fact), doesn't that kind of stray from the premise of comparing American and European eating?

It took the better part of two decades for prostate/kidney cancer to finally end my father's life, and for him that time was a decidedly mixed blessing. Still, he was able to be fairly active, and even went on a Tiger Cruise with his grandson three months before the end - six weeks before he or anyone, including his doctors, knew the end was coming. His last days were at home under hospice care, by his and my stepmother's choice, and when I saw him on the last night of his life I knew beyond question that there would be no miracles, no amazing interventions, no "hacking" of the inevitability of death…just death, as it ever was and will likely always be.

It's said that death may one day be overcome by human ingenuity, that we will find a way to waylay it or even set it aside. How much more arrogant can we, as a species, get? As far as I can tell there remains a vast gulf between the speculations in this regard and the reality that death will still come to us all.

As a man who's cracked open his second half-century, I've seen a lotta stuff (to coin a phrase), and one thing I've decided is that every batch of young'uns (hey, might as well be as old as I am) should be given their chance to geek-out on something. Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins in Dark Shadows drew hordes of female fans back in the day, and lots of male fans as well. That character is my idea of a vampire and always will be, so the Twilight version just strikes me as ludicrous—yet there were legions of fans of vampires preceding me who thought Barnabas Collins was a joke. Eventually I learned that I didn't have to throw off my jacket and stand ready to duke it out with anyone who disparaged my particular hero, because if that's how I reacted then I was at least as muddle-headed as any of my seeming opponents.

I had my silly season(s), and wouldn't trade them for the world. I hope anyone who knows the joy and thrill of getting all caught up in something, be it Star Trek or Harry Potter or Twilight, can feel the same in later years.

To all of you who argue against family planning for reasons based on the Christian religion, kindly shake the tomb dust of Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas out of your heads before you sound off.

Thank you.

Oh, how I love all the self-righteous barking on all side of this ludicrous business. Look, people, for the past thirty-plus years very few of you have really given a rat's patoot about Polanski or his victim. His crime was ghastly, his fleeing inexcusable, but I don't recall any of you getting very worked up about it until you were handed a "media event" to hang your suddenly vital opinions on.

Me, I want the bastard brought to justice, but that's all I want. End of story.

Celebrities statistically zero out as segment of the human population, and that's exactly their worth in determining one's own lifestyle choices. Let Natalie Portman, or anyone in that segment, rant and posture; it comes to nothing.

Oh yes, I so envy these "investment bankers" and their miscreant cronies who stole a third of my retirement! Oh, I so envy them that they get to spend their riches on whatever pleases their bloated, Jesus-loves-me! appetites while I get to cross my fingers and hope against hope that some of my loses might be restored if I just sit quietly and let them keep doing what they've always been doing which is mainly screw me while I watch! These fucks subject me and so many like me to a fiscal version of "Saw" but by God I'd better just clam up about it because nothing bad actually happened to me! I'm just envious! Bad me! Bad, bad me!

Though it was made for TV, and suffered from one notable casting miscue, the 1984 version of "A Christmas Carol" starring George C. Scott remains a very personal favorite in our house. Scott might have been somewhat too physically robust to properly embody Ebenezer Scrooge in that way, but he nailed the character as a personality and gave complete credibility to the often disdained notion that a man can truly find his entire outlook on life transformed in a single night. A punched-up role for Scrooge's nephew helps greatly to bring this aspect forward, but it's Scott who sells it. We are left in no doubt at the end that this Scrooge does, for the rest of his life, "keep Christmas well."

And was there ever a more jolly, imposing and sinister a Ghost of Christmas Present than Edward Woodward? Not to my experience.