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.