Every year, on the fourth Thursday in November, throughout the United States Turkeys of every shape and size will meet their maker. Originally starting out as a ploy by the Pilgrims to spread syphilis among the native people, in order to make it feel more like home, Thanksgiving soon became an annual event. Killing and eating of the turkey became synonymous with Thanksgiving and in a fit of revenge the turkeys placed a curse on their would-be murderers. That curse would evolve into yet another tradition that carries on today, the tradition of Black Friday.

This tradition is characterized by rudeness, tramplings, and the ceremonial fist fight of the first two ladies with mullets to enter the store, known better as the “Battle of the Trailer Queens”. These two will duel each other over anything, much like wild animals over scraps of meat or a fresh kill. Be it a Tickle Me Elmo or the last can of potted meat, doesn’t matter. After all the products on sale are gone these modern day Vikings will move on to the next store, pillaging what they can with the few dollars they have.

Once the stores have all been laid bare, many Americans will divert their attention to local eateries, such as Bob Evans, IHOP, or the ever-ready Denny’s. Complaining that restaurants ought to offer sale prices on their meals during this day, many Americans will still order whatever isn’t nailed down. Not because they’re that hungry, mind you, but because you can’t let that bitch sitting at the table across from you have the last piece of pumpkin pie so help you God.

Once the feasting is over and the stores have all been emptied these warriors of the retail outlets head back to their homes where they will have Turkey leftovers for the next three months. Having wounded many and bought much they will curse their enemies while wrapping presents to give to their friends…most likely some of the people they crushed at the local Wal-Mart trying to get the last high-definition toilet scrubber on the shelf.

To all my fellow Americans, have a happy and safe Thanksgiving. To the rest of the world…happy Thursday?

I just got done Interviewing Chris Baty who founded National Novel Writing Month and I’ve gotta say he’s a really cool guy. Before and after we started the interview he was polite and kidding around, even shot the shit with me for a bit afterwards. I’m definitely impressed.

On a related note, I plan on making the South Bay NaNoWriMo Kick-Off Party tomorrow, hoping to ride up with Mike and meet some new people. Should be a lot of fun.

Recorded, edited, uploaded and wrote articles for two separate podcasts today, troubleshot some code, and a few other things all before 3:30. Not bad if I do say so myself. If I can just keep up this pace for the rest of my life I may actual amount to something.

Oh, must start looking for Christmas presents sometime soon as well. It’s less than two months away now. I also have to figure out what I’m going to do for Halloween. I could go as a huge dork I suppose, I’ve already got the costume for that and wear it everyday.

As many of you may already know, I do a podcast called Bomb Shelter Radio for my webcomic collective. It’s a good bit of work to find a compromising time to record with my co-host, come up with topics for the show, edit it, upload it, and write the show notes for each weekly show. I enjoy it a lot, but it’s a pain in the butt sometimes.

At any rate, I must be a masochist because I just started up another podcast for Way of the Geek. As some of you know I used to use my LiveJournal for something called the Week in Geek, that moved to Way of the Geek when it started. When I stopped doing it I was sad, but now it’s back as a podcast. We don’t give as many links as I used to, and it’s mostly about stuff we’ve covered on the site already, but it’s a lot of fun and pretty informative.

I’ve even managed to score an interview with Chris Baty, the guy who founded NaNoWriMo. I’ll be talking to him tomorrow night and I’ll hopefully have the audio from that added into next weeks podcast. Our little website has grown up so fast *sniffles*

Anyway, if podcasts are your thing, then I think you might like both of the ones I do. If not, no hard feelings, everyone has to have a hobby right?

I’ve been out of the loop for a while, I know, but I’m not dead. I’ve been crazy busy though. I’ve been painting the kitchen today, as well as hanging shelving for vertical storage. So that ate up most of my day. Prior to that, though, I’ve been working on some open source software that’s almost ready to launch and getting things set up for an annual event over at Bomb Shelter Comics.

Bit Artist is my answer to a lot of problems some of my webcomic friends had been bringing to me. It’s not completely done yet, but it’s getting pretty close to its first release and I’m getting kind of excited…and a little nervous. It’s been a lot of work, and it’s turning out pretty well, but I’ve still got a bit to do before I’m comfortable letting it out into the world.

Not to mention that this web application is all me, so I’ve got no one to blame if it sucks. I’ve done all the code myself, which means if it tanks it’s my fault. That’s a lot of pressure to put on someone. I’m sure at least a few people will enjoy it though…I hope.

So yeah, I’m not dead, just wicked busy. Thanks for being patient, I’m working on getting my butt back into the swing of things.

So Andrea and I were at the Chinese restaurant today and apparently our waitress had overheard us practicing our Chinese the last time we were in there. So, she starts rattling to Andrea in Chinese, thankfully one of us is proficient in it. I was mostly lost, although I did understand bits and pieces, which made me feel a little bit better about myself as I’m being self-taught at the moment.

All in all it was a little awkward, but nice to see the reactions of not only the waitress but the large party of nine sitting behind us. The lady was very nice and even came from the same hometown as Andrea’s Chinese instructor. So we got his favorite dish (not on the menu) and some good practice with a foreign language.

All in all we scored a free beer that we hadn’t tried before (I highly recommend Harbin Lager), a dish that isn’t offered to everyone, and a copy of the Sing Tao Daily sports page as a parting gift. Admittedly the strangest gift I’ve ever recieve, but it’s not everyday you get a Chinese lady giving you the sports page from a Chinese newspaper talking about how hot it is on the PGA tour.

The entire day has been a bit surreal, but it’s been a blast. Now if I could just manage to swing some of that heat over here I’d be set. These cold days are killing me.

Oh, and if any of you speak Chinese/read pinyin, please forgive my lack of tone marks. It’s very late, I’m very tired, and extremely lazy.