Yahoo! Answers

Photo by ilmungo
It’s nearly Thanksgiving again, and in our house Thanksgiving is an indicator that my birthday is rapidly approaching. Last year I wrote about my deep-seated hatred of turkey. While I maintain my position on that particularly foul fowl, I’m also not particularly fond of the lengthy preparation time associated with it. While some people enjoy this part of Thanksgiving-that is, getting up early and spending all day slaving away in the kitchen-I do not.  Since my birthday generally falls the day before or on Thanksgiving, or on Black Friday, spending all day cooking is an especially unappealing prospect. (On my birthday, doing anything that isn’t the hedonistic equivalent of sitting around in my pajamas eating ice cream is lumped into that category of “especially unappealing.”) Since my family combined the two celebrations last year, we decided as a family that we were ready for a change in tradition.

We decided to go to one of my favorite restaurants and celebrate there. Their menu is limited to three tasting menus with wine pairings, and it’s fantastic. Everyone enjoys tasty, top-notch food, we drink excellent wine, and then we go home. No mess, no fuss, and we get to enjoy each others’ company all day. That’s my favorite part of Thanksgiving: good food, good company, good conversation. These are the memories that I treasure. When we go home afterwards, there are no dishes to clean up, no leftovers that need distributing, and best of all, no turkey! (Imagine a fantastic, maniacal, villainous laugh here.)

As for Black Friday, while the rest of America is out pounding the pavement for the post-holiday sales, you’ll find me at home, doing what I normally do. I’ll be spending the day avoiding the crowds, watching “Heroes” on DVD, and doing my holiday shopping online and a little light baking. We’ll also pull out our fake tree, adorn it with our vintage Star Trek ornaments, and fill the house with our favorite Christmas carols. (Trans-Siberian Orchestra, anyone?)

What are your non-traditional traditions?

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Hello, everyone:

On Friday, November 21, Leonardo DiCaprio’s latest movie, “Body of Lies,” will be released internationally. Yahoo! Movies is scheduled to interview the three-time Academy Award-nominated actor this coming Friday. One of our sister sites, Yahoo! Answers UK & Ireland, has a slot for one of your questions. If you had one question for Leo, what would it be?

For more details and to submit your question, check out the site’s blog.

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Photo by ~jjjohn~
I love a good movie. Actually, that’s entirely untrue. I love a whole bunch of horrendous movies. The “good” part is how they make me feel. The same way that smells bring back memories, movies that I’ve watched obsessively during specific periods of my life make me feel that age again. It’s completely uncanny. (I guess they’re called “feel-good” movies for a reason, right?) The “Ghostbusters” movies remind me of being a little kid-pretending (with my baby brother) that we were wearing proton packs, busting ghosts, and wisecracking. Even now, we can’t resist the urge to say the lines along with the movie, or answer the question, “Who ya gonna call?”

“Grease” takes me back to middle school: sleepovers and singalongs with my friends and eating enough pizza that-in retrospect-my parents should have invested in Pizza Hut stock. It really highlights all the best parts (and feelings) of being a tween, without any of the unpleasantness that goes with the beginnings of adolescence. Both “Grease” and “Batman Forever” cause a crazy regression that leads me into uncontrollable fits of giggles-the trademark teenage-girl experience.

Our family has “tradition” movies-movies we watch to get in the holiday spirit. Halloween isn’t Halloween without a showing of “Hocus Pocus,” and Christmas Eve wouldn’t be the same without “The Muppet Christmas Carol.” We like to gather together, queue up the movie and-once everyone has gotten comfortable-enjoy the fun all over again.

A few months back, my brother and I were cleaning out our parents’ garage. We cleared out what felt like a million VHS tapes. I made a mental note to pick up some of these family classics the next time I was out buying DVDs. Because I occasionally forget my own whims, my brother has given me our favorite childhood-and-adolescence movies on DVD for the last dozen gift-giving occasions. We rip open the (often annoyingly secure) cellophane wrap and turn back the hands of time for a few hours.

Which movies stir up your nostalgic side?

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Play online now!

We’re proud to announce that Yahoo! Answers has teamed up with the the British Red Cross to bring you one of the first-ever charity online alternate reality games (ARG).

Traces of Hope, an innovative online game, is the story of Joseph, a sixteen-year-old boy, caught up in the aftermath of the Ugandan civil war. He’s been separated from his family and is now left alone in a camp overflowing with thousands who were forced to flee and are always on the lookout for food. Joseph is desperately seeking his mother. But he needs your help …

(click image to play video)

When we told the British Red Cross we had a dedicated community of passionate experts on Answers ready to make themselves available to Joseph, they were delighted and relieved: The hunt can start!

Set in northern Uganda, Traces of Hope combines storytelling, detective work, and technology in a hunt across the Internet to reunite Joseph with his mother.

“While it is involving and exciting, Traces of Hope also has a serious point,” says says Dorothea Arndt, new media manager for the British Red Cross. “There are thousands of people like Joseph all around the world whose lives are shattered by conflict. But all around the world, wherever you find people like Joseph, you’ll also find the Red Cross, reconnecting families and rebuilding lives.”

Joseph is alone in Uganda but you have the Internet and the Answers community. With this support you should be able to help Joseph, but time is running out. Visit the Traces of Hope website and dive into the experience. Once you are signed up, the adventure will begin.

If you make any progress with the game, why not share with the community what you thought about it or any tips you might have? Leave your comments here to help others!

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Photo by karl17
Fall is my favorite time of year. The weather cools down a bit, and if you live in an area with actual changes in weather, the leaves are turning beautiful shades of brown and gold. I’ve mentioned before that I’m an obsessive knitter, and in the fall I remember all those huge projects that I squirreled away. I go on an annual project-finishing binge, resulting in completed wooly garments to keep me cozy in cold weather.

I’m also a big fan of fall foods. I pull out my cookbooks and experiment with different soup recipes. Some are successes, some are spectacular failures, but they all at the very least warm the house up and give it that fantastic “someone’s-been-cooking” aroma. (As a side note, last year’s winning soups were the chicken soup with a zing - the zing being jalapeno, ginger, and garlic - and a gluten-free beer cheddar soup.) On the subject of seasonal foods, I love pumpkin lattes, muffins, and pie. What is it about the gourd family served sweet that makes it so irresistible?

Speaking of gourds, driving around town and seeing all of those pumpkin patches leads me to the high point of fall in our house: Halloween. It’s my favorite holiday, and I love going almost too far with decorations, costumes, and candy. Whether we’re setting up our entryway as a dungeon, crime scene, or scaffolding complete with a guillotine, the neighborhood kids get a kick out of the décor. They come for the gore, but they tell their friends about the full-sized candy bars.

We try to do fun, creative costumes, and it’s sometime challenging to gauge whether a costume will be weather-appropriate, given the fickle nature of fall weather. Let’s face it: No matter how awesome a couple’s costumes might be, the most convincing Captain Kirk costume won’t keep his Orion slave girl warm on a chilly Halloween.

What’s your favorite thing about fall?

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