I have never really liked New Year’s Eve. I always seemed to have so much pressure on it that no party could live up to the expectations. Plus, the countdown itself leads us to expectations that can’t ever be fulfilled. The second after midnight feels like the second before midnight.

Plus, there is the minor factor that in all of my years, I haven’t had a person to kiss on new years eve. This year, I made a point to make a date and I had my new years smooch. Turns out a nice kiss when the clock turns over is just what I needed to make New Years Eve fun. Hope everybody had an equally great time.

I have been wanting to go to the Museum of Bad Art ever since I first heard of its existence. I think anybody can make good art, but it takes somebody special to reach beyond their means, way way beyond to make something awful. I think most people know their limitations - some can make a passable stick figure, other can do a real portrait. But to those who reach and fail, I salute you. (I may even be one of you, with this blog.)

Today my brother, his girlfriend and I went to the Museum of Bad Art in Dedham, MA. While it’s called a “museum” it is, in fact, more like a basement of a small movie theater. In fact, it is the basement of small movie theater, and it’s situated right outside of the men’s room. Once, after looking at a particularly bad painting, I turned my head to the right to accidentally look through the doorway to see a dude peeing. I quickly went back to the art.

Enclosed is a small sampling taken via my cameraphone. I recommend a visit for yourself.

I’ve never been a fan of the processed, tubed meat snacks. To me, if God had wanted us to eat meat in a tube, he would have made cows an inch thick and 20 feet long. Sausages, hot dogs, none of them appealed to me. I like to be able to tell exactly where on the body my meat came from.

But today I went to a Moreschi family party and I looked around fairly desperately for something new to do. And my eyes fell upon that staple of family parties everywhere: A crock pot with tiny “Little Smokeys” smoked sausages in some sort of heinous bubbling sauce. As the party progressed, I didn’t notice a single person eating the Little Smokeys. Yet slowly, the amount in the crock pot went down, and the pile of toothpicks next to it slowly built higher and higher.

So I decided to brave it, took a toothpick, and dove in. I wish I had a camera with me, but alas, it was not around. But I tried my first Little Smokey sausage.

I cannot tell you if the Little Smokey tasted good or bad. As far as I know, the Little Smokey was neutral in flavor. Because all I tasted was the sauce it was sitting in. It tasted somewhere between BBQ sauce and Ketchup, or some unholy combination of the two. It most certainly from a bottle. It was not tasty to me. But it was new.

I come from a family busted apart like a jigsaw puzzle in a hurricane. My mother and father both split when I was young, remarried, my mother had more children, and we all moved, quite literally, halfway around the world from one another. In various times I might be living in California, my brother in Switzerland, my mother in the Netherlands, my father in Connecticut, and a sister each in Boston and New York.

So it’s rare that I see any family member, rarer still that its more than one or two, and nearly unheard of that we’re all in one place. The last time it happened was years and years ago, at my sister’s wedding. But after the wedding came the children, and with the children come the grandparents. And so my mother and stepfather, father and stepmother, all put aside their differences to be with the little ones on Christmas day.

So my new thing today might not mean a lot to you, but to me it was pretty special: to have my family, all together, enjoying Christmas together. I can only hope your holiday was as good as mine.

My stepmother Noreen has come up with a charming tradition for Christmas Eve, and this year my all new thing was to participate. It’s called Reindeer oats, and it’s a gentle combination of glitter and oatmeal that Reindeer, apparently, find irresistible. So to my nieces, who were happy to toddle out into the snow of Boston to spread it on the ground for Santa’s helpers to gobble up. Cute doesn’t even begin to describe it.

My New Thing today wasn’t intentional but it was interesting - I had left a full bottle of water in my carryon bag as I flew back east for Christmas. The hard-working wage slaves at the TSA had me take off my shoes, remove my laptop, and even patted me down, but neglected to find the dangerous 12oz stash of H20 hidden deep within my backpack. I enjoyed its delicious bounty on my flight east with fervor.

Today I sent out my personalized Christmas cards, lovingly crafted by my friend Eric Cyree. They are great, he is great, and if you are reading this, so are you. Thanks for your continued support.

Merry Opusmas, one and all.

I was promised a relaxed, day-before-holidays day at work today. It was not so; we ended up working late once again to get scripts ready and out. But I was happy to have a new thing.

There was a joke in a script at one point that we all loved. But the network didn’t get it, and they were afraid that people at home wouldn’t get it either, and so eventually we were forced to scrap it. But we all loved the joke, and I was bummed it didn’t exist in some form somewhere. So I had sign made up for my boss to give him as a present, and making a full metal traffic-style sign was my New Thing of the day.

It was another late night at the office, but I am happy to report another fairly fun New Thing. There is an episode of the show I write for that never aired, and now it is being included on the DVD. So me and my boss Donick got together and recorded a little video intro to the episode, to explain what it was, why it was in a fairly primative state, and why it never aired.

Interested in all those details? Buy the DVD when it comes out. You can see my handsome mug (finally without mustache) on it too.