From our "How To Do Everything" podcast:

Could the lifesaving technique in this Hyundai Super Bowl ad really work? We asked Dr. Peter Lechman of Chicago:

Probably not. First of all, the fact that it's a Hyundai really makes me discouraged that you'd be able to get enough power going to accomplish anything. But the starting and stopping is really ineffective because it's not compressing the chest wall enough to actually squeeze the heart to push blood around.

What you'd need is a rigid attachment on the underside of the seat belt to give the heart the pressure it needs. But could you, say, use jumper cables and a car battery as a defibrillator?

The Chevy Volt's got a lot of power, and no one is using them to drive, so maybe people could use those as portable defibrillators. And you could zap the guy, and either kill him or bring him back to life.

In case it's not clear, he's kidding.

You'd actually kill the guy.

Hyundai: Great value, not so great as a lifesaving device.

We had it on good authority that McDonald's would blend a Hot Apple Pie into a McFlurry, if you asked them to. We sent our intern Kate to order one (this way no senior staff would be hurt in the event the combination was combustible). Our local McD's wouldn't do it — when your local McDonald's is more concerned about your personal welfare than you are, watch out — so we bought the components and made our own.

Spoiler alert: it was amazing.

Robert: This is just like Mom's Apple Pie a la mode, if your mom is too drunk to get the separate ingredients onto the plate.

Eva: Yeah. Until now the only thing stopping me from eating more apple pie was I had to chew it.

 

Ian: Amazing! The apple pie makes it up through the straw.

Eva: I wish whenever I drank anything an apple pie would come up through the straw.

Eva: Thanks to cup holders, now I can drink my apple pie while driving.

Kate: The aftertaste is chemical-y. Like the dentists office. Or normal McDonald's food.

Mike: Nowadays, when people say something is "as American as apple pie," they just mean it's been drowned in a milkshake.

Robert: We could have had this much sooner if Johnny Appleseed hadn't been lactose intolerant.

Mike: Now we know why the McDonald's — "American Pie" movie tie-in never worked.

Peter: This is good because it combines 3 of the 4 major Horrible Things groups.

Ian: I just looked through the entire McDonald's menu in search of a food that wouldn't be improved with the addition of pie, and now my eyes are fat.

[The verdict: Surprisingly delicious. Really, it's just like the last little bits of apple pie a la mode left on your plate, now in an easily drinkable (which is not to say easily digestible) form. Worth the effort.]

Next weekend, the New York Giants meet the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. Here with a simulation match-up are the hot dog representatives from each team. First up: the Boston Dog. Wikipedia tells us:

Hot dogs in the Boston area are associated with Boston baked beans, though this is probably not unique to the region.

We cited that because we have no idea if it's actually true. Anyway, ours has bacon too. Representing New York, a traditional sauerkraut and mustard dirty water dog.

Ian: Technically the Giants play in New Jersey so it should be sauerkraut and mustard and hairspray.

Peter: The New Jersey hot dog is made entirely out of abdominal muscles.

 

Ian: I figured in honor of Tom Brady, the New England dog would be topped with long, lustrous hair.

Mike: Well, the New York dog does honor Eli Manning by coming with an older brother dog that's way better. It's a bratwurst.

Peter: Having spent a fair amount of time in Boston, I would say that a true Boston hot dog would have to have to be both snooty and vulgar. So, say, a French "boudin" sausage covered with pork rinds.

Ian: All I know about Boston comes from stereotypes. So I know the Boston Hot Dog wouldn't be able to pronounce its r's.

Kate: And it'd be wearing a tri-cornered hat.

Mike: Halfway through eating these, we should have to eat a Madonna Dog.

Eva: If you want a more interactive Super Bowl experience, these hot dogs will engage in full-contact battle in your belly.

Ian: You know, the little cocktail weenie version of the Boston Dog is called a Wes Welker.

[The verdict: the Boston Dog seemed to win out, but it had bacon on it, which is basically like bringing an extra player out onto the field. We predict overtime after the game is tied Delicious-Sick at the end of regulation.]

From our "How To Do Everything" podcast:

How does a bad joke get into the State of the Union address? James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic and former chief speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter, says there's only one way a joke like that gets in the speech:

The President must have wanted it to be there. [There are] an infinity of policy checks in the year before the State of the Union, but then the jokes have their own separate cadre of Hollywood experts. I can't imagine any Borscht Belt comedian or aspiring speechwriting talent who would try to push this joke on the President, unless President Obama either for high art reasons or low comedy reasons wanted to go with it.

Um, high art?

A year ago in his State of the Union speech, he had a similarly groan-out-loud joke about salmon. And so it's possible that he's doing a kind of performance art post-modern thing of, with a straight face, delivering one terrible joke per State of the Union address...I choose to think it was sort of a surrealist, absurdist moment, that he enjoyed the Simpsons-esque absurdity of it, as opposed to thinking it was funny.

Mr. Obama: The Andy Kaufman President.

In honor of Hostess declaring bankruptcy, this week we're eating a sandwich that is also morally bankrupt: The Twinkie Hot Dog. Turn the Twinkie upside down, slice it like a bun, slide a hot dog in there, and act as if you've done nothing wrong.

Robert: Is this like a pig in a blanket?

Mike: Nope. This is a pig in a fat suit.

 

Peter: This is like the kind of thing you hear about after a hurricane. "It was crazy! The hot dog went right through the Twinkie!"

Ian: Weird Al Yankovic made one of these in UHF. That's why he had to change his name from Nutritious Al Yankovic.

Peter: Not bad. Hostess could save the company by going around the country stuffing the current Twinkie stockpile with hot dogs.

Ian: One good thing, the creme really does hold the wiener in place. It's like Porkodent.

Ian: Taking something as bad as a Twinkie and making it worse is a real feat. It's like if they re-released Titanic in 3D. This April, more information available at http://www.titanicmovie.com.

Robert: I'd say this is like a poor man's corn dog, except a regular corn dog is a poor man's corn dog.

Eva: Something's wrong with my tastebuds. They're telling me this is delicious.

Mike: Yeah, it's like a sleazy corn dog. It knows it's no good and it doesn't care who knows.

[The verdict: surprisingly tasty. Many reported a corn-dog-like flavor. And someone said it was not unlike the Dunkin' Donuts Pancake Sausage Bites. If that's a comparison you ever find yourself capable of making, consider making some major life changes.]

From our How To Do Everything podcast:

If you've ever inhaled a slurpee too fast, you're likely familiar with sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia, which is another word for "ice cream headache," as well as an extremely impressive Scrabble play. Chicago pediatrician Dr. Peter Lechman told us why it happens:

The roof of your mouth gets cold, which causes immediate constriction of the blood vessels. As soon as those blood vessels constrict, your body reacts by trying to dilate them very quickly in order to get more warm blood to the area and heat it up. Pain receptors in the roof of your mouth send a message up to your brain telling you you've got something bad going on in the roof of your mouth. And it causes you to experience an intense headache in your forehead.

So, is an ice cream headache your body's way of protecting you from some terrible ice-cream-in-your-mouth-related mortal danger? Says Lechman:

No. [Your brain] is overreacting.

Assuming the occasional ice cream headache is an inevitability, how do you get rid of it? At this point, Dr. Lechman starts sounding a lot less like a medical professional.

Get the ice cream out of your cakehole, and drink a warm liquid or put your tongue at the roof of your mouth to heat up the area.

Problem solved. Go forth and enjoy that mid-January Choco Taco with gusto.

Don't show up to watch the BCS Championship Game tonight — or the Super Bowl in a few weeks — with your patented 7-layer bean dip. Odds are somebody else is going to show up with 8-layer dip, and you're going to look like a fool. Here's a recipe to make sure you win the Dip Arms Race.

32-Layer Bean Dip

Ingredients:

1 can refried beans

1 red onion

1 tomato

1 avocado

1 Hot Pocket

 

1/2 cup guacamole

1/4 cup barbecue sauce

1 tablespoon bread crumbs

1/4 cup roasted, salted peanuts

1/4 cup creamed corn

27 tater tots

2 frozen waffles

1/4 cup cheddar cheese, grated

1/4 cup Monterey Jack cheese, grated

1/4 cup mozzarella cheese, grated

1/4 cup taco cheese, grated (I don't know what this is but they had it at the store)

25 Cheez-Its

1/4 cup mashed potatoes

1/4 cup popcorn

8 Funyuns

20 Cheetos

9 potato chips

1/4 cup corn flakes

1 package 7-Layer Dip (this only counts as one layer)

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

1 tablespoon Sriracha

1 scrambled egg

1/4 cup marinara sauce

1 slice toast, toasted

1 tablespoon butter (not a layer, but dry toast would be gross)

1/2 cup macaroni and cheese

a pinch of salt

1/3 cup au gratin potatoes

Choose a large, clear bowl so everyone at the party can see what you're subjecting them to.

1. Prepare each individual ingredient according to its instructions. Tater tots should be baked, Hot Pocket should be microwaved, etc.

2. Spread the refried beans along the bottom of your bowl. After that, alternate between liquid and solid layers as best as possible.

3. Some layers will be uneven. Use leftover cheese to flatten them off, like Cheese Spackle.

4. Reconsider the creamed corn layer and add salsa instead.

5. Every 5 layers or so, use the bottom of a coffee mug to compress down all previous layers. Helpful hint: later, when you use this coffee mug again, try not to think about the 32-Layer Bean Dip or you'll get sick.

[The verdict: surprisingly tasty, though there is no tortilla chip long enough to scoop all 32 layers at once. It's also vegetarian, but keep in mind you may be creating a primordial soup from which future animals may emerge.]

"Wait, Wait" debuts on TV this Friday, December 23rd at 8/7c on BBC America. We were hoping our trailer would begin "In a world..." but this is pretty good too.

Various members of the Sandwich Monday team will be on vacation over the next couple weeks, so we're taking a little break to detox. We'll be back in 2012 assuming we live till then.

1.) A pro-Putin demonstrator at a rally in Moscow was interviewed by the Times and said he had taken to the streets because ...

A) "I just like the way the president looks without his shirt off."
B) "Takin' It To The Streets was not only his favorite Doobie Brothers song; it was also his hobby."
C) "I've looked the man in the eye. I was able to get a sense of his soul."
D) "I don't have a clue why I'm here. It's for television."

2.) The National Transportation Safety Board has recommended a nationwide ban on what?

A) Truck Nutz
B) Using a cellphone, in any way, while driving
C) The Pontiac Aztek
D) That thing where you hold your hand out the window and make little waves

3.) To create some fellowship and good feeling, the United States Senate held its first ever what?

A) Sleepover at Chuck Schumer's
B) Three-legged race
C) Drum circle
D) Secret Santa gift exchange

 

4.) According to the New York Post, Yankee superstar Derek Jeter gives all of his romantic partners what, as he bids them farewell?

A) Alex Rodriguez's cellphone number
B) Tips on their batting stance
C) A basket of signed sports memorabilia
D) A $25 Home Depot gift card

5.) The New York Times ran a feature this week about a crisis threatening to unravel the fabric of America ... what is it?

A) Faulty mothballs
B) A shortage of new reality shows
C) People bringing store-bought goods to bake sales
D) The deepening rift between Hoda Kotb and Kathy Lee Gifford

6.) It's been a big week in science. Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider say they may have found the so-called God particle, and one computer scientist came up with a new method of finding what?

A) Waldo
B) The meaning of life
C) Someone to kiss on New Year's Eve
D) His one missing sock

7.) Brazilian heroes have designed a device that prevents what from happening during a drunken night on the town?

A) Embarrassing photos
B) Embarrassing pickup lines
C) Embarrassing anecdotes
D) Embarrassing wedgies

8.) For nerdy parents of nerdy kids, a shop on Etsy is selling a line of dolls modeled after whom?

A) Famous writers
B) U.S. surgeons general
C) Popular YouTube cats
D) Hedge fund managers

9.) There's a hip new trend among American teenage girls ... according to researchers, they're deliberately giving themselves what?

A) Goiters
B) Speech impediments
C) Muffin tops
D) Pinkeye

1.) Answer, D: "I don't have a clue why I'm here. It's for television." Time magazine revised its cover story declaring "The Protester" the Person of the Year to say, "Except for that guy."

2.) Answer, B: Using a cellphone, in any way, while driving. They say any cellphone use, from texting to talking via a headset, is as dangerous as driving drunk. The drivers of America responded saying the only way the NTSB will get their phones is to pry them from their cold dead hands, which ironically, is how a lot of people get their new phones.

3.) Answer, D: Secret Santa gift exchange. Sixty-one senators participated, exchanging gifts worth $10 or less. With an odd number participating, one senator had to be left out, and of course it was once again Joe Lieberman.

4.) Answer, C: A basket of signed sports memorabilia. The Post was tipped off to the practice by a woman who spent a second night with Jeter and was offended to receive the same basket of signed swag. As a returning customer, she expected an upgrade.

5.) Answer, C: People bringing store-bought goods to bake sales. The food blogging community is all up in arms over people bringing snacks from the store to bake sales. It's mostly upscale parents who do it — because nothing says, "I'm too busy buying and selling people like you to bake you a damned snickerdoodle" like two dozen Hostess Sno Balls.

6.) Answer, A: Waldo. In a write-up on stackoverflow.com, a computer scientist used the imaging software Mathematica to come up with an algorithm that can find Waldo in any image. This development will have serious implications for U.S. surveillance ops if terrorists ever start wearing stripey sweaters and red stocking caps.

7.) Answer, B: Embarrassing pickup lines. The Norte Photoblocker is a beer cozy that doubles as photo deflector. Set it on a nearby surface and it detects camera flashes and fires back, flooding photos with a bright white light. Unfortunately, it does not serve as a "he'll do for tonight" blocker.

8.) Answer, A: Famous writers. Uneek Doll Designs, on Etsy.com, supplies craft dolls in the likeness of writers such as Joyce Carol Oates, Judy Blume and Sappho. Steer clear of the Sylvia Plath doll, however; she's great at first, but then she gets moody.

9.) Answer, B: Speech impediments. "Vocal Fry," as it's called, was considered a speech disorder until Kesha and Britney Spears popularized it in their music. Linguists describe it as a low creaky vibration that happens when you try to go lower than your natural range. Fathers describe it as "yet another reason why I can't understand a word my teenager is saying to me."

[Ed. note: Our big TV special airs Friday December 23^rd at 8/7c on BBC America. This is Peter's account of turning our radio show into TV.]

"When you're done tonight, find me," said Rebecca. "Otherwise you'll never get this stuff off."

Makeup artists are almost always attractive women; I'm not sure why this is, except the subliminal advertising it offers: "if you let me do my magic upon you, you can be as hot as I am." Rebecca, is, indeed, a very attractive and professional make-up artist, but I took in her vast array of creams, unguents, and tools spread across her work table, and thought that for her, I might be a face too far. Maybe she agreed. She took another look at me, and squeezed something like looked like liquid cement onto a cream base.

"It's a mixture I came up with myself," she said. "For circumstances like this."

 

"This" was the taping of the BBC America/WWDTM year end special. The Chase Bank Auditorium, our bland but comfortable home beneath a skyscraper in downtown Chicago, had been taken over by Set Builders and Camera Operators and Grips and Best Boys, television elves of every species, who had replaced our small cloth backdrop with an actual set, brought us new furniture, cut-outs that shined our logo onto the theater walls, brand new suits for Carl and myself, and of course Rebecca, in the fantastic hope that I could be made presentable to cable TV viewers.

I have done some TV in the past few years, and I find it uncomfortable at best. In addition to having a face (and hairline) made for radio, I'm a fidgeter, a face-maker, a nervous rambler around rooms. When I get involved in something, say, hosting a fast-paced radio quiz show, I tend to lose all awareness of how I'm behaving physically. I'll gesture wildly, scratch my nose, rock back and forth (what fellow Jews might call "davening"), tug on my eyebrows (yes), giggle girlishly. For the five hundred or so people who come see us every week at the Chase Bank Auditorium, it's, I hope, a humanizing look at the quirks of somebody they know. As for the three million radio listeners – well, what they don't know won't distress them.

But on TV, I am told by highly paid technicians, people can see you. And all the ways that people express themselves physically come into play – how you stand, how you smile, where you look as you think. For someone as self-conscious as I am to begin with, TV takes potential humiliation from 2D to 3D, with digital effects. But at the same time, the BBC executives and producers swore quite sincerely that they loved our radio show, and just wanted to televise it to their audience, with no effects, bells or whistles. In fact, Bob, the director said to me, "You can even daven... we don't care. We love it." The refusal to concede almost anything to the camera began to worry me... for example, when we tape the radio show, I wear bulky headphones, to isolate my high quality mic from the sound coming back to my ears. And so on the TV show, I'd be wearing the same headphones... no change, no reason to feel uncomfortable. "Great," I said to myself. "Now I'll look like a bald Princess Leia."

Carl Kasell, on the other hand, was the soul of calm. The man is 77 and he still has the sang-froid of an international jewel thief. You could throw Carl into the jungles of Guatemala with nothing but a knife and a mosquito net and he'd still give you a sly smile and intone the opening credits to our show exactly on cue. I realized I could do a lot worse than live up to his example. Then again, I've been trying to do that for fourteen years, and haven't quite gotten it yet.

I stood backstage, imagining that the makeup that poor Rebecca had caked onto my skull had started to crack, so I felt like [SPOILER ALERT!] Voldemort at the end of Harry Potter. The plan was to do the show, just like normal, and try to ignore the millions of people staring at us through their eerie robotic glass eyes.

You'll find out how we did on December 23^rd, when BBC America broadcasts our end of the year special. Let me know if you can see the cracks.

[Another Ed. Note, because the Ed. really thinks you should watch it:

our special airs Friday December 23^rd at 8/7c on BBC America.]

Often when people tell you to eat the local specialty, you go in and it's just you and a bunch of other tourists ordering it. Not so with Kentucky's "Hot Brown." Every table at Ramsey's in Lexington had at least one on it. One table had five, and that table later collapsed, injuring several diners.

A Hot Brown is an open-faced turkey sandwich, piled high with tomato, Mornay sauce, a cheese crust and a couple strips of bacon.

Mike: This is an open-faced sandwich that just barfed.

Ian: Guys, I think I just ate some plate.

 

Peter: There was a tomato in there? You're kidding me.

Ian: I assumed the tomato had wandered in accidentally.

Mike: It's like in a nature documentary when a young gazelle gets separated from the herd and the melted cheese and gravy surrounds it.

Eva: It's weird that the most delicious sandwiches are the ones you can't even tell are sandwiches.

Ian: This is great for people who can't decide between soup and sandwich.

Mike: This is the cosmic soup from which someday, a million years hence, the first sandwich will emerge.

Peter: Don't spill any. I just got some on my suit jacket and my suit died of a heart attack.

Eva: If you're a wrestler and need to make weight, this is a good way to start. You can eat it, or just staple it to your spandex.

Robert: I actually wrestled under the name "Hot Brown" for several years.

Robert: On the old pirate maps the bacon "X" meant "Here be diabetes."

Mike: Exactly. Dig here for a heart attack.

Ian: The crucifix of bacon is the least Jewish thing I have ever seen.

[The verdict: a sandwich that demands a knife and fork, and possibly a straw. Probably worth trying once, but its flavor did not live up to its spectacle.]