All Swine’s Day 2014

This is my yearly reminder to tell you about the official holiday of That F’ing Monkey, All Swine’s Day!  This will be the fourth year I’ve been celebrating All Swine’s so I’m pretty excited to see there are people already excited for it.  So when is it?  What is it?  All Swine’s Day is the first Sunday of the New Year; so this year it is on January 5^th.  It’s a celebration of friends who are close enough to be family and a send off of holiday gluttony. 

The holiday originated with me realizing that as I get older, family and work obligations make it harder to spend time with friends during the holidays.  I picked a day that was close to the holidays, but should be far enough removed that most people no longer have those other commitments.  Since so many people talk about dieting after the holidays I figured this would be one last indulgence before everyone starts trying to work off those holiday pounds.  Because it is a bit of a pig-out, the day picked up a porky name and menu.

I’ve served the same thing each year.  I make bacon taco shells in the oven and then have things like eggs, potatoes, ham, and sausage to fill the shells with.  Obviously if you choose to celebrate this wonderful day you can pick your own menu.  After everyone’s eaten we usually break out the Cards Against Humanity, but the important thing is you’re getting to spend time with people you may have been too busy to see.

All Swine’s Day has become one of my favorite days of the year, hopefully it will become one of yours too.

All Swines Aftermath

I talked up the F’ing Monkey’s holiday, All Swines’s Day before it actually happened but I still wanted to give one more mention now that everyone’s arteries have started moving again.

A quick recap, All Swine’s Day takes place on the first Sunday of the New Year. The above picture was one of the shots I took before I really started cooking. When making the bacon weaves I cut off about two inches from the bacon. This bacon tips are stockpiled in a bowl and used when cooking the other pork and in the potatoes.

I didn’t take a picture of the scrambled eggs or all of the burrito fixings (cheese, sour creme, etc). The closest pan is potatoes and bacon. The other pan is a mixture of diced ham, bacon, and sausage. The recommend way for eating the All Swine’ Day breakfast burrito is starting with a flour tortilla, then the bacon weave, then adding everything else.

Hangover Thursday: All Swine’s Day Explained

It’s Hangover Thursday, how’s your head? It’s been a few days since New Year ’s Eve so hopefully everyone has fully recovered by now. Today I want to talk about what is quickly becoming my favorite holiday, All Swine’s Day. All Swine’s Day was created three years ago on this very site. So what is it? When is it? What do you do to celebrate it?


All Swine’s Day takes place on the first Sunday of the New Year, so this year we’ll be celebrating on the 6th. The day is important, because it is after all the other holiday shenanigans. As I got older, I found myself obligated to more and more family functions during the holidays. It was great to see that much of my family, but I was missing out on celebrating with my friends. That’s why All Swines is so important to me. I know I’m going to get to spend the day with those friends that are so close that I think of them as family.

I think the Swine came about because I was thinking that the day could be one last pig out before everyone returned to their post-holiday diets, etc. That somehow led to me making bacon taco shells for breakfast tacos. In addition to the taco shells we cook up scrambled eggs, breakfast potatoes, and a mixture of ham, sausage, and bacon. Everyone eats too much, we drink a bit, and we play offensive card games. I honestly can’t think of many better ways to spend the day.

Really I encourage everyone to celebrate it. You don’t need fancy bacon weaves, just surround yourself with some of your favorite people and enjoy yourself. And if you can make something awesome out of bacon, it just makes the day better.

Cards Against Humanity Holiday Pack

I don’t buy my friends Christmas gifts anymore. When written like that I know it sounds pretty cold. Instead of gift buying I host an All Swine’s Day party. For those readers new to the site; the first Sunday of January I invite my friends over for bacon-shell breakfast tacos and Ever-beer. I love it because the holidays get crazier every year and a lot of times I don’t get to see my friends during them. Another thing we’ve started doing during All Swine’s Day is playing Cards Against Humanity.

I’ve been championing the Cards Against Humanity game since their first set went on sale. It’s a simple game. One player lays down a black card. That card has a question on it. The rest of the players then play a white card that has an answer on it. The player with the funniest answer is the winner of the round. It’s a simple enough game concept. Now imagine that every one of those cards is offensive, perverse, or demented. Yeah, it’s a lot of fun.

Since Cards Against Humanity’s release there have been two full expansions. Yesterday they announced their newest release, a 30 card Holiday pack. The best thing about it, is they’ve made it a gift. You can choose how much you pay for these additions to your game. Their website states it takes them 1 dollar to print and 2 dollars to ship, but again, you pay whatever you want. Get your Holiday Pack by clicking HERE, just don’t be a dick when picking your own price.

Hangover Thursday: All Swine's Day Reminder

It’s Hangover Thursday, how’s your head? I had some Winter Lager last night while doing some Christmas shopping but not enough to cause any serious damage. We are in the big holiday rush right now. New Years is just around the corner too. After that is the official holiday of That F’ing Monkey, All Swine's Day.

We invented All Swine's Day last year and I have to say it went fantastically. So today I’m talking about it so that everyone can enjoy the day. It is celebrated on the first Sunday of January. This year it happens to fall on New Year’s Day, but that really was just poor planning on my part. It’s a chance to relax with some friends; one last big meal before worrying about diets and exercise.

The perfect All Swine's Day gathering starts around 2 pm. No need to get up early. While your menu can vary, we went with a breakfast theme. Bacon weaved taco shells, bacon and pan fried potatoes, diced ham and sausage, scrambled eggs, cheese, and sour cream. This year I’ll also be making the F’ing Monkey drink of choice, Everbeer. I’ve already been told a few more people will be celebrating All Swine's outside of the people who are coming to my gathering. If you plan on celebrating, please send us pictures!

Weekend Recap! Hockey, Bacon, Bioware!

I have a bunch of things I want to discuss briefly, all of them happened this past weekend. So let’s jump right into it.


Winter Classic

Did you watch the Winter Classic? Someone besides me did. It was the most watched NHL regular season game ever with 4.5 million viewers. The weather seemed to be the big news, first the delay and then the rain. It was the first Winter Classic played at night. I enjoyed the game, but there seemed to be a lot less going on then in the other years. Less bands playing, other off ice things, etc. It seemed more like just another game then a giant hockey celebration. This will not be the only outdoor game this year. February 20th Montreal and Calgary will be playing at McMahon Stadium.

All Swine’s Day

The first official celebration of That F’ing Monkey’s made up holiday was a huge success. Bacon tacos were enjoyed by all. So were potatoes cooked with bacon, and a mixture of ham and sausage cooked with bacon. Throw in some scrambled eggs, hot sauce, salsa, cheese, and sour cream and you’ve got bliss. The point of the day is to cap off all that holiday over eating with one last hurrah. So for me personally I’ll no longer be buying coke/pop/soda, buying candy/chocolate, or eating at any place with a drive through for as long as possible. Back to the holiday, it is definitely happening again next year. The first Sunday of January, mark it on your calendars. For a few more pictures of All Swine's Day prep, check out our Facebook!


Mass Effect: Cerberus Daily News

The CDN is going off line. Here is the official message:

“OUT-OF-GAME NOTICE: The Cerberus Daily News will begin a hiatus on January 24th, finishing its run of one full year. Daily postings will cease except for three weeks in 2011: a week of posts will precede a downloadable content release, and two more weeks will lead up to the release of Mass Effect 3. The CDN team thanks fans for their attention, comments, and feedback (both in and out of character!). We are sorry to go, but we had fun -- we hope you did, too!”

This means two things. First, new DLC is coming!! Yay!! Second, the team responsible for the CDN put up messages every day for a year. To everyone on that team, thank you. Some times informative, some times funny, the CDN was awesome.


Dragon Age 2 Avatar items

The last thing I wanted to throw out there. Dragon Age 2 has Avatar items on the Xbox Live Market place. Now, the original game was way late to the party with Avatar stuff, only offering T-Shirts for a long time before realizing people would rather have Legion of the Dead armor. Now the pendulum shifted in the other direction. There are items for characters we don’t even know yet. Very strange.

New Year, New Monkey!

I’ve been dying to show this off.  That F’ing Monkey has a new mascot!   Designed by the amazing Caanan Grail we finally have a monkey to call our own.  Caanan does the web comic Max Over Reacts over at
occasionalcomics.com.  You should read it.  We’re going to talk more about his awesomeness later this month.

Anyway, the new monkey is named Punch and you’ll be seeing a lot of him around.  Where will you see him? How about Facebook?  That F’ing Monkey now has a page on Facebook.  You can like us and stuff…yeah I’m not so good with the Facebooks. Search That-Fing-Monkey.  If nothing else it’ll be an interesting train wreck, you should check it out!

The old smoking monkey will be missed, but that image was pulled from an episode of the Clerks cartoon.  Not something I could go on using forever.  Besides, Punch is fantastic.

Sunday also marks the first day of my new Holiday, All Swine’s Day. Think of it like Fat Tuesday.  With the Holidays behind us, it is one last day to shove food into my face without feeling guilty. Celebrated the first Sunday of the New Year, All Swine’s Day is a pork packed brunch with close friends.  We can start worrying about diets, workouts, etc after enjoying a day of breakfast excess.