Wednesday. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Usually, our household goes non-traditional for the big feast, with reasonably good results (last year’s duck was excellent). This year, I was leaning toward something a little different – lamb or something; but the kids voiced their opinion for tradition. So, for the first time in years, I’m making a turkey.

But it’s a smoked turkey, so it’s still a little off the beaten path.

Took a little shopping trip this past weekend up to Northern Virginia; my semi-annual “I need some new jeans” trip – a couple of pairs of 501s (the only jeans that seem made to fit me – constructed the same way since the mid-19th century – I wonder what that says about my body type?) at the Levis outlet, some shoes for the kids, and a couple of assorted garments from Old Navy. Crowds weren’t nearly as bad as they’ll be this weekend. You’ll be hard-pressed to find me at the mall before the New Year now – I hate holiday shopping – that’s what the internet’s for!

Speaking of online shopping, I wanted to take a moment and commend the excellent customer service provided by author Wil Wheaton and Monolith Press when paypal and the US postal service conspired to screw up my order for Wil’s latest, The Happiest Days of Our Lives.

I’ll also say that the book itself is quite good – a collection of short stories dealing with fatherhood, growing up as a geek in the 70s and 80s, pet ownership, and illegal Southern California poker rooms. Love, Loss, Lando Calrissian action figures, and the joy of a well-rolled character sheet, all in one place. A fine, fine, read, lovingly crafted for someone just like me (and not just because Wil personalized and autographed my replacement copy when the USPS ate the first one!), a grown geek doing his best to pass on the knowledge and tradition on to the next generation.

Thanks, Wil

Work this week’s been a real drag for some reason; these short weeks (though especially the interrupted ones – I’m going to be holding down the fort in case it completely goes to entropy on Friday) always feel longer than they have any need to be, even if they’re actually twenty percent shorter temporally.

Especially when the whole week consists of validating every single damned field on a huge report output and catching bits of discouraging gossip.

Saw the movie Eragon this week. While the movie was infinitely more tolerable than the book, thanks in part to the really nice location shots and the lack of pages upon pages of poorly conceived prose, I still liked the whole business a lot more when it was called Star Wars. A note to the director – the “Luke looking wistfully at the twin suns of Tatooine” shot? Really? Where’s the subtlety?

Oh, and it looks like I’m soon going to have way more guppies than I know what to do with – anybody need some?