The color of the drink is a (very) significant improvement. I'll take your word for it on the taste.

Either way, I am a bit surprised.

I pictured you at Blog Central to be the type of imbiber like the characters from the old 50's movies. You know, the grizzled old "newspaper man" barking at your editor, "What do you mean rewrite? There's only 30 minutes until deadline for Chrisakes!" while hunched over an oversized Underwood, cigarette dangling from your mouth, running your fingers through an unkempt head of hair begging for it's 2 week over-due haircut and muttering, "Damn, why does this city hall beat give me the worst headaches?"

Reaching into the the top desk drawer for a bottle of Campari to mix with some some soda brought from home just doesn't seem to do it like a couple of gulped aspirins.

I actually did the cigarette and Underwood routine when I was in college. Lots of imbibers in that crowd, but no Campari.

I'm getting to the point where I'm contemplating a return to booze and drugs. The good news is I don't have to move to Amsterdam now - just to Vancouver.
If/when I fall off the wagon it will be my old reliable Bacardi rum and coke. Maybe go with some beers first (Beck's?) and a joint of Thai weed.

Merry Christmas, Jack and the Bog Blog tribe.

It's Monday a.m. and I don't have to write any comedy for a week. That feels like a high right there. Writing comedy every day can wear you down - the key is to keep your sense of humor about it.

Bill, don't move to Vancouver, in any sense of the word. We like you the way you are. Thought of you while reading this profile this morning. Merry Christmas to you and yours.

I hark back to the old days at city hall when the then-mayor would come into the pressroom to share a shot or two of Jack Daniels dropped into a glass of Blitz. Now, though, thank goodness for Beefeater. Merry Christmas. Take good care of your chilldren!

I read the Seinfeld profile and it was spot on. It was interesting reading that he compared himself doing comedy to baseball players and surfers. My analogy for writing jokes is the one-man bobsled, where you're trying to get to the finish line without nicking the sides of the track, and a few hundreds of a second can mean the difference between winning and losing.

He's not into the topical political stuff, except to provide a lens for looking at all life, but it is important to use comedy to try and change the world for the better. I'd like to hear him do 5 minutes on drones, for example. That could help, but it's not him. It was interesting to read that his inspiration was Robert Klein - someone I got to meet and chat with one time - because Klein can bring the topical politics in a big way.

This isn't a criticism - far from it. There's tremendous value in what Seinfeld does do, and I try to bring the fun observational stuff too. This past Thursday I had a joke on TV that had a Seinfeld vibe: "Do you know why eggnog is a holiday tradition? Because if we drank it year around, we'd all die."

This is not to compare myself as a writer to him. That one line in the article - “All fathers essentially dress in the clothing style of the last good year of their lives” - sets him apart from everybody else. I mean Woody Allen, and everybody. Something about it is uniquely Seinfeld, and it's genius.

Thanks Jack! And Bill, and everyone here.
Merry Christmas!

Bill - if Seinfield were a woman, the remark would have been about hairstyles (and hair color) that quit changing after women get married. The face and figure looking back at women in the mirror needs to resemble the pretty girl who could capture the heart of a young man - long after the words young and pretty were uttered in her presence.