Bean there, done that.

I'm done with these little fiends.

Yes, beans. After all I've done for them. Making chili, bean dip, bean soups, beanie weenies, cassoulet... I even dedicated an episode of this blog to an old Goya bean cookbook.

But we're not friends anymore, beans.

At least not the dry beans.

All I want to know is... why?

WHY?

WWWHHHHYYUUYUUAAARRRRRGH

Why can't I ever get these freaking dry beans soft?

I soaked them for 12 hours or more. I used salt. I stopped using salt. I boiled the crap out of them. I slow-cooked them. I soaked them 12 hours, put them in the slow cooker 12 hours, and then baked them 4 more hours. And they still came out like little bullets.

Screw you, dry beans, you bastards.

Some exceptions: split peas are okay. I've made split-pea soup that cooked for hours and hours and came out fine. (My wife's not a fan of soup for dinner.) I've made black-eyed peas in hopping john that came out all right. (My wife dislikes black-eyed peas.) Lentils have not been a problem. (My wife hates lentils.) My wife likes most beans, but all the ones she likes--red kidney, black, pintos, cannellini, navy, marrow, great northern... all these beans stubbornly remain about as soft as brass when I try to cook them from a dry state.

The only thing I haven't tried is grinding them up in the food processor before soaking and boiling. Bean mush.

I don't know what the problem is. Maybe it's this New York water. Makes us all tough.

The last time, when soaking and boiling did nothing, I resorted to trying to find recipes for baked beans. And you know what most recipes started with? Canned pork 'n beans. Even Paula Deen's started with canned pork 'n beans.

The hell with it. I'm through with dry beans. Sticking to the cans from now on. You can't get all the varieties of heirloom beans that way, but you can get beans you can eat, which is more than I have been able to make at home.

Can it, beans.

Don't get cocky, kid.

Enough with the drumming.

We made it! It's the twelfth day of Christmas!

Pace Bob and Doug, the song traditionally mentions twelve drummers drumming as the gift for this day. We know there was the Little Drummer Boy on Christmas Eve, and now we're up another eleven drummers. How do they keep getting in?

Tomorrow is Epiphany, after which even we die-hards will be taking down the lights (although the actual day of Epiphany is celebrated in the American Catholic church on the following Sunday). I have time to squeeze in one more bit on decorations.

Star Wars stuff was very popular this year. I didn't get a picture of the ones I saw with R2D2, C3PO, and Chewie, or the inflatable BB-8, but here are their sales photos:

I did get shots of these:

Now, first off, we know from important sources that the Star Wars worlds, existing a long time ago in a distant galaxy, do not appear to have Christmas. Merely a Wookie holiday called Life Day. So the connection to out holiday is strange and tenuous.

What else do we see here? Yoda is at least trying to show the proper spirit, putting on the Santa outfit, as are the others. Darth Vader shows contempt for Christmas, as he does for all that is right and good. "I shall not celebrate this Christmas. And I shall not wear any stocking caps on my helmet!" So... how is Darth a Christmas decoration, exactly?

One thing it does remind me of, though, as do all the other Star Wars-themed objects -- that movie was absolutely brilliant in having so many nonhuman and masked stars. Lucas, and now Disney, has now made approximately half the money on Earth selling stuff made in the likeness of something other than the humans who actually appear in the movies. Actors own their own faces and can expect royalties.

Enough of that; it's been a great Christmas season, and I hate the way it peters out. But it kind of peters in, too. We didn't all slap up our decorations on the day after Thanksgiving; we're not taking them all down on the same day either.

The cheerful lights are a little sad, now, with the kids back at school and the adults back at work and two months of solid winter still grinning at us. But the days are getting longer already. The Light that doesn't fade will still be with us, too.

What shall we fight about in 2017?

The old battles of 2016 are now behind us. Trump/Clinton, Kanye/Taylor, the Rock/Diesel, Kelly/Michael, Putin/Entire World -- we need to let these things go. But what will be the big fights that threaten to tear us to pieces in 2017?

Here are my predictions.

1. Hazelnut vs. Real Coffee

Gonna be a rumble tonight

People like hazelnut coffee. Well, some people do. I mean, some people must. Someone's buying it, right? It wouldn't exist otherwise. And who else has money besides people? Leftover Neanderthals? Martians? Kardashians? Okay, Kardashians have money but they can't be drinking it all.

But the rest of us really dislike hazelnut coffee, even if we like actual hazelnuts, and recoil from it like a stressed vampire on Easter morning. Anyone who ever got a snootful of an old, burned Mr. Coffee pot with a hazelnut grease slick in the bottom of the decanter can remember that smell and recall it in horror.

I think this is the year it all goes violent.

The hazelnutters are far outnumbered on this one, but to keep sucking down the hazelnut coffee in the face of universal disappropriation they must be fanatical in their devotion and willing to put up a strong fight. Watch for this one to break out in March, after a winter of being stuck inside offices with the food and coffee choices of our coworkers reeking (har!) havoc.

2. Underwear vs. Commando 

The fatter and older we get as a nation, the more skin we seem to want to show. This may be considered an error as well as an attack on modesty, not to mention prudence. And this is the year that the commando look becomes a big deal.

What does it matter if others want to run around without underwear? For one thing, we know from the experience of nude beaches that the people who go nudist are almost always the people one would least want to ever, ever see nude. Same here. Those loudest about their lack of underwear will be those whom you would most want to put on extra clothes, just in case the clothing they have on rips. Then you realize you just shook hands with one of them.

Hygiene will be the proper and adequate club used to fight back against the scourge of underwearlessness, but in a world where drunk people make permanent ink-stained errors on their own flesh and pay real money for the privilege, it's still going to be hard sell.

This fight will begin in summer, when people start sweating in earnest.

3. Fluoride vs. No Fluoride

Those Truthers who blamed Bush and Cheney for the 9/11 attacks have gone rather quiet since the man they backed has failed to disclose evidence of such conspiracy after eight years in the White House. Others, who just assume Obama is now in on it, may be getting tired of the topic and want something new to write placards about.

Just gets to be the same ol' same ol' after a while

So what good conspiracy theory can get people brawling? Contrails vs. Chemtrails? Too complicated. Vaxx vs. Anti-Vaxx? Meh, measles is coming back. Fluoride vs. No Fluoride? Hey...

Sure, the American Dental Association claims fluoride in the water supply saves teeth, but they didn't even bother to prove that flossing is good for you. So what does fluoride really do? Makes you docile and easy to control. That's why revolutionary small companies like Tom's of Maine make a fluoride-free toothpaste -- they're helping us break free!

This should start a good screaming match later in the year, especially as reason and evidence only proves to guys like the man shown above that you're part of the conspiracy. (My check is late, by the way, Mr. Illuminati....)

4. Marvel vs. DC

The all-time classic nerd battle, spilling out into the streets this year. In the 1960s, Marvel stole a march on DC by writing comics for more mature kids; in the 1980s, DC struck back; now Marvel has the more successful movies, but DC has the more mature movies and more successful TV shows. With eight DC and Marvel movies coming out this year, expect the geek-out freakout to begin around the release of Justice League in November. Also enjoy the internecine side fights (TV Flash vs. movie Flash, Holland vs. Maguire vs. Garfield as the webhead, etc.).

Well, those are my predictions for this year's big throwdowns. I'm sure we'll find a lot more to argue about, since when you put any two of us in a room you can get a fight.

Don't mova muscle.

Is 2017 going to be my year of pet peeves on this blog? Oh, yes, it sure looks that way so far.

What's wrong with this headline?

If you said the single quotes around 'Open for Business,' you wouldn't be exactly wrong. U.S. usage insists on double quotes for quotations. But newspapers have always fought for ways to squeeze more words on the page, and this is one of their tricks. We let them pass on that. The real problem is the stationary.

Stationary means the state of being still. Stationery is froufrou paper products. A stationery store sells monogrammed paper, sealing wax, and fancy pens. A stationary store does not move around.

I see this error all the time, and it irks me. Irk, irk, irk, all day long.

The following was from an e-book I was reading, which I cannot identify since I know people who work for the publisher and it would embarrass them:

That got past at least two editors and two copy editors.

Come on, people! Even your local CVS can get this right!

I know this is one of those frustrating things, words most of us don't use every day that are almost spelled identically but mean completely different things. It's the kind of error spellcheck will not catch. How can we remember which is which?

If you notice, I provided a mnemonic in the header; mova muscle gives you the A in stationary. Then again, move would normally be spelled with an E, so maybe that mnemonic sucks. How about this?

If stationery has an E
Writing letters you will be
If stationary has an A
Surely you will sit and stay

What? Don't give me that face. I'm an editor, not an SAT coach.

Try to find something that works for you. And I'll try to find a mnemonic to remind us all that the first M in mnemonic is silent. How about:

Pneumonia has a silent P
Mnemonic has its M
Take it out upon the Greeks
Who stuck us all with 'em

Ugh. I guess I'd better not wait for that call from Khan Academy.

It's Easter in January!

No, seriously. I was in the supermarket yesterday (the first day of January, if you're keeping score) and I braced myself to see all the Valentine's Day candy in the seasonal aisle.

I was not prepared for this:

It is January 2. Easter is April 16. Three and a half months away. Have some Easter candy!

Why stop there, supermarket? Why not bring out the dadblasted Halloween candy again? Why not just bring out next year's Christmas candy RIGHT THE HELL NOW?

You know what keeps a society together? It's not the laws or the billion rules made by petty bureaucrats in distant places. It's the unspoken agreements, the things we learn in childhood, most of which come from greater rules for living, some from obvious rational thought, and some from respect that members of healthy societies have for one another.

Don't steal.

Don't lie.

Don't cheat.

Help someone out who's in trouble.

Offer a square deal.

If you throw at the batter's head, expect one of your batters to get it next time.

And don't put holiday themed candy on the shelves three and a half months out!

Haven't people always lied, cheated, put out candy too early? Yes, yes, and no. Of course we know bad behavior exists wherever there are people. But the more we weaken our commonsense rules of civility -- you may call it pushing the envelope or thinking outside the box or being independent -- the more we have to make laws and petty bureaucrat rules and even take up arms to maintain order.

Does that mean putting out Easter candy on January 1 mean chaos is just around the corner? No, but it's a symptom of the same kind of thinking that leads down that path.

Plus, it's just stupid. Anyone seriously want to tell me that a Reese's egg tastes better than a Reese's heart? Because I'm not buying it.

The other side of midnight.