Phil: Well, Steve, it’s been a month or so since Halloween, that means we’re about seven months into “The Holidays,” as we so joyfully refer to them. Do you have your Christmas shopping done? If so, what did you get me?

Steve: Excuse me, but the last time I checked, I was a guy. As such, I will do my Christmas shopping th…

Phil: Steve, you surprised me by admitting you watched a baseball game. You further revealed that you were actually caught up in the game’s inherent drama. Quite a confession from an NFL-addled ADD Super Steelers Fan.

Steve: I admit I do dip in this time of year. You can’t be a real Amurrrrican if you don’t watch the Worl…

Phil: Bruce Springsteen turned 60 last Wednesday. Sixty. The Boss. The Big Six-Oh. For some reason, this little Yahoo News tidbit floored me. I’m old enough to remember buying Greetings From Asbury Park (Bruce and the E Street Band’s debut album) based on a review and ad I saw in Rolling Stone when I was but a mere sprout of 18. He…

Steve: Huzzah! The National Football League has returned to TV screens across this great land of ours, giving men like us a reason to bounce out of bed in the morning and move to the sofa. I’ve been dipping into the preseason games, and I’m pretty excited about my REIGNING WORLD CHAMPION Pittsburgh Steelers, but mostly I’…

Phil: OK, it may be coming down to it. I may have to venture into the garage. Not to finally retrieve that socket wrench from under the water heater, but to actually CLEAN IT OUT. (The garage, that is. I’m hoping the water heater is already clean inside. It’s full of water, right? That’s clean.) This is a masculine job in our h…

Phil:  The Cutting Board started as a masculine version of Doni and Kelly’s cyber-dialog The Dish. After reading last Friday’s installment of The Dish, I don’t know if either of us possesses the tact or sensitivity to take on a subject like (dare I say it aloud?) asparagus. I think they’ve posted the definitive ar…

Steve: Don’t know if our readers are aware of this, but Phil is one of the great music geeks of our time. He worked in the music industry, he’s got a gazillion recordings and he can tell you which night The Grateful Dead did the jumpin’-est version of “‘Shakedown Street” live on stage in Germany. I…

Phil: Steve, I see you have a new profile picture on your Facebook page. Wry grin, furrowed brow, cool shades. You look like a character from one of your books. That is, if you wrote books about assassins who drive minivans with a frappé in the cup holder.

Steve: I haven’t written that book yet, but it sounds like something I’d do. A…

Phil: I know you’re not much of a baseball fan (heretic! commie pinko rat!) but my favorite dreadlocked right-handed hitter is working himself back into playing shape from a 50-game suspension for violating baseball’s drug policy at the Dodgers’ Triple A affiliate in some godforsaken hole in the desert called Albuqu…

Phil: Steve, I don’t know what it is about televised sports, but I’m pretty sure those overtime NBA Finals games have not been good for my rapidly aging physique (yes, it’s a physique, a short round one, but it’s a physique). When my man, D-Fish, hit those three-pointers, I was more agitated than a Maytag on stilts…

Phil: I’m sorry about your Celtics, Steve. You’re probably in mourning and it would be very uncouth of me to gloat, so, being devoid of any couth, here it goes: The Lakers are still in it. Yeah, they barely got by the Yao-less Rockets, but they got by. Sort of like last year’s Celtics, who went to seven games with the Hawks bef…

Phil: So, how did you fare in your Scrabble Tournament? I have to hand it to you, you’ve managed to take a relatively innocuous board game, usually played only by retired English majors, and turn it into something akin to a bloodsport. That’s a pretty manly accomplishment.

Steve: I remain the Champion of the World after defeati…

Phil: Tell me if this sounds familiar to you, Steve. Has anyone in your household, anyone at all, recently made any purchases in excess of $500 for a variety of seeds, seedlings, mulch, fertilizers, soil additives, large spray bottles of pH balanced stuff, shovels, hoes, rakes, bulldozers, threshing machines, limb-severing combines, e…

Steve: I was moving the garbage bins and threw out my back.

Phil: Since you were already at the bins, you should’ve thrown out your front, too. No, seriously, nothing worse than a bad back.

Steve: Now I’m forced to sprawl on the sofa with an ice pack and watch televised sports. Tough duty. I believe you’ve also had a painful a…