Patrick J. Sauer Online

Yes, this represents the first ever mash-up of the seasons greetings with the official March Madness theme song; those mighty Marquette Warriors have me in a festive mood.

We'll table the hoop talk for after the holidays, but I did want to throw out a Christmas gift idea for the reader in your life, The Moment: Wild, Poignant, Life-Changing Stories From 125 Writers Famous & Obscure. 

The latest collection from Smith (the folks behind the great Six-Word Memoirs), it's chock full of tales about a specific moment in time that altered each writers life, for the better, or more likely, the worse. It's got a lot of names you know--Elizabeth Gilbert, Jennifer Egan, Dave Eggers, A.J. Jacobs, Craig A. Williams--many you don't, and it just might include yours truly waxing philosophically about the time The Daily Show didn't hire me. (No hard feelings, Mr. Stewart. I will wait by the phone.)

All the best to you and yours. Here's hoping y'all get one shining moment in 2012. Peace.

Back in the Molly's-on-the-way-days of August 2010, we were invited to an informal meet-and-greet dinner at Blue Hill at Stone Barns.

I can say with 92.6% certainty that, soup-to-nuts (or perhaps better to say snout-to-tail because Sweet Jesus that ham...droooooool) it was the best meal of my life. I never knew raw carrots could taste like a thing you might order as an entree.

The gentlemen who invited us were the owners of Sweetgreen, a chain of healthy "fast-casual" eateries, primarily in the D.C. area thus far.  The three recent Georgetown grads explained how they wanted to put on a yearly "Sweetlife" festival to build a brand that incorporated their shared serious love of music.

At Blue Hill, they were still thinking relatively small. By May 2011, the Strokes, Lupe Fiasco, Girl Talk and Cold War Kids hit the stage as the Sweetlife reached a whole new level. They shared their experiences with me for the November issue of Inc. 

Rock out with your Cobb out. 

Look at that beautiful 1,230 calorie three-patty burger. Good God, that's hideous.

You do know Herman Cain was a Burger King man before he was a Godfather's pizza guy. Seriously, if you were headed to the gallows and those were your last two meal choices the selection would be the rope, right? Hang me now, less the stench kill me first!

(Quick aside, I think the best thing that can be said about Herman Cain is that he's not that Papa's in the House! jackass. I have an unnatural hatred of that man.)

The great Fast Company asked me to ask some smarter folks about companies that need to take a big risk in 2012. Folks like culinary wizard Dave "ham whipped cream" Chang, Free Darko genius Bethlehem Shoals, Gigantic author Marc Nesbitt, Stephanie Anderson of the nerdiest bookstore-based basketball league ever, and the street food maven behind the highly entertaining web series What's This Food?! 

When Mr. Beller's Neighborhood contacted those who had written about 9/11--which I did back in October 2001--to write some sort of remembrance, I was apprehensive. It's been a long time and a lot of things happened because of it that I don't believe in. 

There was one story I never wrote up in detail though, and I have been thinking about the events of10/7 a lot since Seal Team Six sent the bastard to a watery grave.

I can understand if you have no desire to read any sort of post-post-9/11 piece, the media misery train and the co-opting of a tragedy by say Budweiser, makes it hard to remember to never forget. But the piece is out there, so do with it what you will. 

I would like to say to the young couple out there we found shivering in a doorway, I sincerely hope everything worked out. To the man in particular, here's a few words of the poet who kept you going, "What else could I write? I don't have the right."