Continuing my decline back into the world of Cable TV, I’ve been captivated by the Spike TV Bond Marathon. Comedy Central still rocks.

Thanks to that, I finally realized that John Goodman was the coach in The Revenge of the Nerds. I suppose it’s helpful to be watching the flick sober for possibly the first time.

(BTW- on the IMDB database, Goodman’s first film is Jailbait Babysitter If this isn’t an intriguing title, I don’t know what is…)

Our sports coverage has been a little slow lately, too much politickin’ goin’ on ovah here.

So not that anyone cares, I’ll just mention that my alma mater is a national champion again. In a real sport, one that the entire world plays, where men run both ends of the field for 90 minutes, instead of grunting for 15 seconds and resting for 30 for about 3 minutes, then sitting on the sidelines for 5 minutes or so.

So I was at Target to pick up paper towels and such, and they had a rack of 32 MB USB drives hanging by the checkout for $20. Floored me. I hadn’t realized they were so commodified yet, but hey…

I’d been tempted to grab one for a while; it’s a clearly useful product for moving work between the office and home. I’ve been using e-mail to do it ever since I got high-speed internet, but that’s kind of a pain, and what if I’m not going to hit the house? Floppies don’t work with the iBook, and burning a CD for each transfer seemed awfully damn wasteful. I did a quick price check when I got home, and while pretty much nobody is selling any USB flash drives smaller than 64 MB any more, all of those are $35 or more. Hardly impulse purchase material.

Small thing, but it made my day. Twenty bucks… Less than a case of beer…

After last week’s installation of the biggest welfare system in the last 10 years, the Republicans continue on their anti-Republican mission. Another biased news agency — In Theses Times — lays into the Bush adminstration for their plan to reduce the abilities of state governments to look into banking and securities fraud. What is going on?

The (admittedly impartial) CommonDreams.org — online home of Ralph Nader — hosts this story about MoveOn.org’s new Fox News Watch Group. The idea for “Justice for Judges Marathon” sprang from the mind of Fox News anchors Brit Hume and Tony Snow and was pitched to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on 10/26’s Fox News Sunday. So, MoveOn.org is organizing viewers to keep an eye on the new alternative to yellow journalism. Here’s a couple highlights from the timeline:

• May 19: The Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard publishes an editorial calling for “marathon, stay-up-all-night sessions like those of yesteryear” in response to Senate Democrats’ efforts to block Bush’s four most radical judicial nominees.
• October 26: Fox News anchors Hume and Snow, in an interview with Senator Frist, challenge the Senator’s repeated contention that an all-night protest session would be counterproductive. Snow prods, “Make people stay in all night. Make it the central political event in Washington. Why won’t you do it?”
• November 12: According to a leaked email, a producer for Hume’s evening news show, Special Report with Brit Hume, worked directly with a staffer for Senator Frist, in an effort to choreograph the launch of the Republican protest as a “live opening shot” for Hume’s November 12 newscast. As reported in The Hill, the leaked memo read: “It is important to double efforts to get your boss to S-230 on time … Fox News Channel is really excited about this marathon and Brit Hume at 6 would love to open with all our 51 senators walking onto the floor — the producer wants to know will we walk in exactly at 6:02 when the show starts so they get it live to open Brit Hume’s show? Or if not, can we give them an exact time for the walk-in start?”

Wow. Now I know how the public felt in the early day’s of Hearst’s exposure. We live in a scary time.

I just watched Battle Royale, an ultraviolent Japanese gore flick. It’s the shiz-nitt among film geeks as an import. The story line is that unemployment hit 15% in Japan and the kids started getting really unruly, so the adults instituted a rule that one class room of kids every year would be forcibly dragged to an island and made to kill each other off until only one kid is left standing. Not a very plausible premise, but it turns out to be a pretty cool kill fest as they each get different weapons and start killing each other off.

You could say that food is the center of a great Thanksgiving…

Becky’s pies are starting to meet Martha level quality… (Notice Mickey’s pathetic attempt at pumpkin pie hiding behind Becky’s oven-baked pride.)

Our Thanksgiving was damned fine, albeit more geographically-concentrated than Jank’s. We spent most of the day trying to keep to a tight oven schedule for turkey, two dressings, stuffed mushrooms, baked brie, two pies, plus the 4 casseroles that showed up later.

All told, 12 grown-ups, 2 dogs and a baby. Good time had by all.

Before:

After:

so i’m sitting in the middle of my sister’s living room last night trying to wake myself from the coma that was beginning to set due to massive amounts of turkey intake compounded by several long treks across shreveport to visit various relatives, when there i see it… a smiling billy jankowski in full uniform slowly fading onto the TV screen in the living room whose volume has been lowered in an effort to help my nephew get to sleep.

i dash over to the tv, turn up the volume, and there’s jank’s dad talking about his life in the military and how he would be ready to go to the middle east if called. he then tells the overly attentive news team – all with really big hair – that his son is in the reserves (fade to billy’s picture again) and who plans on remaining in the reserves for another “dozen years or so”… the story goes on and is followed by vignettes of military men and women wishing their families in the ark-la-tex a happy thanksgiving and hoping to be home soon.

so, billy, i’m not sure where you are these days, if you knew about the broadcast, or if your family even told you that they were going to be on the news, but i thought i’d let you know that i saw it. it made you sound like a hero. i’m sure families everywhere in the area breathed a simultaneous sigh as your dad effervesced over his son’s accomplishments in that dad sort of way. it was very sweet.

Spent Thanksgiving with a co-worker, Chris, and his steady, Amelia. In the increasingly odd connections occuring with the move back to New England, turns out that Amanda and I worked together when I was up at SubSchool.

When I mapquested Chris’ place, turned out that it was a little over a mile from my temporary digs (below)

so I set out on foot, bearing pie, CoolWhip, rolls, butter, and, most importantly, wine.

Say, how about another BpB photo derby?

I’m like, totally psyched about our impending Thanksgiving Day feast and will probably document some of it with the digicam.

So whether you’re cooking for 20 or having a turkey pot pie for one in front of the TV, capture a few Thanksgiving moments and share the love!

For many (most?) Texans “Rivalry Weekend” hasn’t even happened, yet. Friday the dismally bad Texas A&M Aggies (2-5 / 4-7) will play the easily dispirited University of Texas Longhorns(6-1 / 9-2), and it’s not as cut and dried as the numbers show. Even ignoring how easily the Texas game plan was disrupted during the loss to the Arkansas Razorbacks (and you just can’t count the loss to Oklahoma — there are several pro teams who couldn’t handle them), this game can be easily thrown by non-Athletic events. The tragic Aggie bonfire incident brought tears to the eyes of all Texans and fired up the Aggies to a win against the statistical odds in 1999. This year the Longhorns are facing second QB Mock considering transferring (second — not backup) even though he’s sure to be known historically as the Longhorn’s 2 minute QB if he stays. (Maybe Mack has figured out the right use for dual QBs?) Everyone on both sides of this rivalry will say “the stats don’t matter come Thanksgiving”, so here’s my log on the spirit fire.

Has anyone else noticed this entry? It may seem kinda boring and predictable, but the payoff comes about halfway down this page with this gem:

“MALL IN SHREVEPORT

In a nod to Louisiana’s two Democratic senators, the bill would even provide financing assistance for a mall in Shreveport that is to house, among other things, a Hooters restaurant.”

It makes me so proud to know that my tax dollars are going to support something on the order of South Park Mall.

He’s baaack…

Greg Easterbrook’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback has been picked up by NFL.com .

Congrats to Greg, and great news for football and good writing fans across the country…

The Republicans are taking their bows for passing their new Medicare Bill and the WPost is saying this is a big sign that the Democrats need to consolidate their “message”. I think it’s a pretty good sign of a couple things for the Republicans, too.