the meaning of thanksgiving

we had a lovely time in Spain, and while waiting in line in Barcelona, for what everyone said was a great restaurant (it SUCKED), we got to talking to the two english families behind us.

a girl of 13 or so asked me what thanksgiving was all about anyway.

"well, you europeans came over to america and killed a lot of native americans, but nonetheless some of them helped you to survive a winter so the europeans put up a big festival and invited the native americans along to thank them for that.

so, every fall, we give thanks for what we've got and eat a big meal, and then we go out and kill a few native americans."

alfa romeo sz

yes, there is a car called the SZ, and damnit if it doesn't look a bit like me.

freezing the kicker

does this ever work in the NFL? if that timeout is called every time, don't the kickers expect that they'll have an extra minute or two? perhaps it would be better to *not* "freeze them" and catch them off guard by letting them kick the first time they line up.

case in point, i just watched Jay Feely of the Jets make a 52-yarder with seconds left after missing the first. why did he get a second shot? the Raider's coach tried to "freeze him" by calling a timeout at the last second. He got it in in time, but the non-kick proceeded. Looks like "freezing the kicker" actually backfired here.

also, i want to see a team run the option.

update: well, the Raiders won in OT with a franchise-record 57 yard FG. the Jets did *not* freeze the kicker. then again, they were out of timeouts, so no mystery for the Raider's kicker there.

gordon ramsay's shirtless nightmares

why is every Kitchen Nightmares edited so that we're always "treated" to a shot of gordon without his shirt on? is this some kind of chef thing?

on a scale from 1 to 10

i've got an HILARIOUS joke that i play when someone asks me to rank something on a scale from 1 to 10. it goes like this:

them: on a scale of 1 to 10, how [whatever it is]
me: is one or ten high?
them: ten.
me: five.

see how hilarious that is? my answer is the same regardless of the orientation of the scale. HILARIOUS!

except: the middle of 1 and 10 is 5.5, not 5. but that's not as funny. not nearly as funny. am i indeed better served by making the arithmetically inaccurate but funnier answer, or should i strive for accuracy in joke-making?

a victory in comfortable and presentable shoes?

i bought two pairs of shoes yesterday, while out to replace my venerable and much-loved ecco walking shoes. first, i bought another pair of ecco's, more light-hiker-like than walking-shoe-like. so far, comfortable and i'm bullish on the longterm use.

i also ran across a pair of Simple Planetwalkers, which i'd never heard of. what I got can be seen here, and so far i'm quite impressed. it's rather difficult for me to find shoes that i can wear/walk-in all day long w/o suffering horrible foot pain. the aforementioned venerable ecco's are the 2nd best pair i've had in that regard. but these Planetwalkers are by far the most comfortable shoes i have that i can reasonably wear to a semi-fancy restaurant.

so i'm bullish on these, as well. and they're apparently quite eco-friendly. bamboo insoles! hurray!

euphemisms

i'm engaging in a social experiment where i start off by saying, "i'm gonna go..." and finish with a non-sense phrase. so long as it isn't anything i would typically say, IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT THE PHRASE IS: everyone assumes i'm going to take a dump.

"i'm gonna go try on a new hat"

"i'm gonna go level the playing field"

"i'm gonna go update my resume"

"i'm gonna go change a light bulb"

"i'm gonna go think about the playoffs"