This is why I blog: a beautiful woman has offered to cook a turducken for my birthday party in two weeks' time; with this assurance I made the $30 investment in the frozen meat-stuff (improbably labeled as having just 2 grams of fat per serving). So, wine, women, song, and turducken. And a good cheese platter. Perhaps some Thai food for vegetarian guests. It's been a good year.

Of course, Tyler Cowen had a better idea for Thanksgiving than I did; I just went to the Eden Center with a friend for Vietnamese food.

One of the reasons I miss Chicago is its tongue-in-cheek theater scene: Office Space: the musical (via Bonin).

Lockhart, Texas (via Cowen). As Tyler blogs more and more about BBQ as he writes his book, I'm going to have to stop reading his blog while I'm in Virginia.

A bright and beautiful woman once realized with embarrassment that, for our first date, she took me out for BBQ, the counterman exhibiting surprise at the unexpected sight of a woman paying for our platters at the register, rolls of paper towels on the tabletops, four-feet tall trophies in window, picking up the heavy glass of water with both hands because the nervous adrenaline rush made it impossible to lift with one shaky right hand. Our first kiss in the parking lot afterwards was sweet and tasted of brisket and it was easy to imagine being happy if it was the last first kiss I ever had. What's embarrassing and unromantic about that? Nothing, I say.