Do you know who lives in every house in your parents' neighborhood? Do they?

Even if they do, they might not know that their neighbor is a convicted felon. Yikes!

Felonspy.com enables you to input an address and then produces a map with names and crimes of the convicted felons in your vicinity. I'm not sure how accurate it is; when I put in my New York address, two convicts showed up in the Hudson River. Are they on house boats? What does it mean??

Still, it's worth a gander. My parents and I are going on a drive later today to look at holiday lights and I intend to point out houses.

And when the new year is said and done and I head back to NYC, I intend to stay away from the river!

I remember it clearly -- I was five or six years old and my dad set a couple of child-sized chairs at the top of the driveway. He then proceeded to set off fireworks on the sidewalk while my brothers and I watched. I was terrified. Then it got worse. I spent the entire night hiding under my bedclothes convinced that each boom I heard signaled the explosion that would burn our house to the ground with us in it.

Since then, of course, I've come to love fireworks, from the littlest sparklers to the big professional displays. My son, however, has a real problem with loud noises. So this New Year's Eve, we're going to stay well indoors where, hopefully, the noise will be muffled enough to be drowned out by a bit of festive music.

We'll probably head over to my in-laws so the kids will be further distracted by playing with Pa John and won't notice the explosions coming from the beach and downtown. Even better would be if they simply fell asleep before the festivities got fully underway. And we won't be lighting any fireworks in the driveway, that's for sure.

The New York Times reported that the most iconic icon of New Year's Eve, the Times Square ball o' light, is getting a green makeover. The ball has already been fitted with energy-efficient LEDs last year for the 100th anniversary of the ball drop (pictured), but this year it is doubling in size to a 12-foot diameter.

So how, pray tell, is a bigger ball with more lights going to be more efficient than last year's? We're not too clear on that (or any science, for that matter), but according to Philips, the company who rigs up the light ball, it will in fact be 20 percent more efficient than last year.

What makes even less sense about this plan is that the new ball will remain on display and lit all year round. We're really unsure how green that last part of the plan is, as was the author of the New York Times article.

New Years Resolutions are often of an intangible nature, whether it be losing that 10 pounds, or trying not to sleep in on the weekends. But often, they're also tangible, or come along with something tangible -- that neverending reminder that you're weak, that you can't even follow through with a simple resolution. It taunts you year after year with a "nah nahnah nah nah nah" every time you lay eyes on it.

Who needs that? Instead of making new resolutions that will only make you feel like a failure after a week or two, which is a truly crappy way to start off the new year, resolve to rid yourself of old resolutions. Force the memory of old resolutions out of your mind. Trash that picture of the skinny, bikini-clad girl who rests on the fridge and chastises you every time you eat. Get rid of that journal that you only filled 4 pages of. Burn any residual papers listing old resolutions.

Now isn't that a much more refreshing way to ring in 2009?

It's been a long Season of Schwag. Holi and Dash are about ready to crawl into a champagne bottle and celebrate a job well done, but they have one last task: to announce the Grandest of Prizes Winner!

Drum roll...the winner is: Laurie, who left this comment, which was randomly chosen from all of the Season of Schwag entries: My favorite book was the Grover Sesame Street "The Monster at the end of this book".

Laurie gets a ridiculously wonderful prize pack, worth over $3k that includes:

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Let's face it, the most important element of a raging New Year's party is not watching a huge ball drop in Times Square. Instead, the success of a NYE party almost invariably rests on another highly important activity: heavy drinking.

But this year providing guests with a fantastic spread of hard liquor may not really fit into your downsized recession budget. Well, don't panic, because I have extensive experience in the world of plastic bottle liquors.

Sure, no one likes to think of themselves as a cheapskate, but times are tight. So just think of it as being thrifty yet hospitable. Not to mention, if you pick up a couple of the shining stars of the bottom shelf -- no one will ever be the wiser.

I am finding that the older I get, the more Monk-ish I am. No, not the Benedictine guys who rock the chants, but the television detective with a few quirks. Okay, a lot of quirks. While I'm not afraid of milk, there are a lot of things I can't deal with very well. Cheesecake, sour cream, and mustard all give me the heebie-jeebies big time and I'll skip the modeling clay, thank you very much.

And while I don't mind changing diapers per se, I'm not a fan of diaper rash. Actually, it's the cream used to soothe the rash that freaks me out. My wife Rachel puts some on her finger and carefully spreads it around the affected area; I couldn't do that. I basically stand back, point the tube, and squeeze large gobs at the kid's backside, then quickly fold up and seal the diaper to avoid any prolonged exposure or -- heaven forbid -- actual contact.

Now, I realize that this is not the ideal method for delivering Desitin, and so I resolve to do something about it in the upcoming year. I resolve that I will stop the wholesale carpet-bombing of my son's tuchus with diaper cream. Yes, I resolve to teach the kid to use the toilet.

Alongside my delicious vodka-soaked tomatoes, I always place some Prosciutto Bites. These are just about the easiest recipe you can make this New Years Eve, save just dumping chips into a bowl, and they're sure to be devoured pronto. In fact, you might want to make up a few batches so that later folks won't be left out of the deliciousness.

Prosciutto Bites are simply open-faced sandwiches. Slice a small but tasty fresh bread, apply a layer of chevre, some prosciutto, and a slice of toasted red pepper.

These can easily be adapted for vegetarians by leaving out the prosciutto, and gourmeted up even more if you roast the peppers yourself. Just make sure you don't use the pickled variety. That's the entirely wrong flavour for this sandwich. Also, a little chevre goes a long way, so a small package is sure to fill at least a platter of sandwiches.

Kissing at the stroke of midnight at New Year's is one of those sweet (and sometimes steamy) traditions that many longtime lovebirds and some surprise couples share. This year, the organizers of the Time Square New Year's Eve party teamed up with reps from Nivea Lip Care to plan one large group kiss as the Waterford crystal ball drops on Dec. 31.

To prepare for the New Year's Eve festivities, 50 couples gathered at Times Square on Dec. 26 to practice their kissing techniques. Kissing expert Andrea Demirjian, author of "Kissing - Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About One of Life's Sweetest Pleasures," was on hand to give tips to the couples on how to reach that perfect smooch.

"I always tell guys to let the kiss build slowly, that crescendo really makes it that much more juicy and fun and pleasurable," Demirjian said.

And just in case you're also getting ready for that midnight kiss, here are a few things to remember -- chapstick, breath mints and practice makes perfect.

It always happens the same way year after year -- someone gets invited to a party, they pick up a bottle of wine or case of beer, and then head off to the festivities. But forget all that bland habit. Don't be the person that brings something the host forgets about in the first few seconds.

Become an indispensable, perfect party guest by bringing something unique. If you lack liquor creativity, just bring a bottle of good booze. Don't pick up the super-cheap bottle of vodka. Get the decent one. The host will thank you. The guests will thank you. Your taste buds will thank you as you drink a much tastier boozey beverage. I mean, a martini isn't a martini when it's made with crappy vodka. You might even inspire partygoers to wear post-its reveling over your choice.

But if you have the inclination, pick up something a little more special. Grab a rare liquor, a special edition bottle, or even make a show of it -- pick up some cubes of sugar and a bottle of absinthe. The ears will hopefully stay on, but the inhibitions will float away!

Cheers!