OK, that's better. I'd have returned to a state of relative coherence earlier, except that I went back for more pie. Serious tactical mistake.

In any event, things turned out well. Even though my brother's family couldn't make it, we still had food for 20, so it looks like leftover surprise for the next week. If you're in the neighborhood and feeling peckish, let me know.

We did our American duty and watched both NFL games, as unwatchable as they may have been (in case you missed it, Detroit topped Green Bay in an ugly contest, while Miami unvaunted the Dallas defense). For now we're watching a little bit of the centennial Egg Bowl (Mississippi-Mississippi St.), but that was looking routish. So we've been flipping a bit, mostly between the Bond marathon on Spike (currently on The Living Daylights, so we've taken Spike out of the rotation for now) and the Fox Sports no-limit poker tournament, which is horrible. Bad commentators, poor graphics, players I've never heard of, and even a dealer who seems a little unclear on how to deal hold 'em. I think Rupert's boys took a face-plant into the tailgate of the poker bandwagon.

(Speaking of which, while doing health and safety checks this week I ran into no less than a dozen rooms with some sort of poker setup.)

And if you're looking for a late-night Thanksgiving tradition, tune in to Letterman to see him try to guess what sort of pies his mom baked for the family dinner in Indiana. This annual event has even spawned its own prediction game among the Usenet Letterman fans, though I missed the deadline to enter this year. I'm going with pumpkin and apple, though this may be a year where Dorothy goes off the board and makes a non-pie. Crazy!