The perfect Hanukkah gift

Why didn't I know about this until I read my sister's blog today?

Trip Report from the Philippines and China

So I just returned from a week in the Philippines, the 2nd of 3 business trips that also include last month's trip to Frankfurt and January's trip to South Africa. The trip went very well, but included a major delay coming home when my 4 hour layover in Beijing's airport turned into 20 hours when my plane, while taxiing to the runway, suddenly turned around and was escorted by fire engines to an isolated area of the airport. It turned out that the plane had a burning smell in the cabin, which was later diagnosed as an oil leak in the left engine. After four hours and an aborted bus ride back to the plane when they'd mistakenly thought they'd fixed the problem, United finally canceled the flight and put us up in a hotel overnight in downtown Beijing. It was quite the adventure! United wasn't very good at keeping us informed as to what was going on, and by the time we actually got to the hotel, it was 1:30am and nobody had eaten dinner. After a light dinner at 2am in the hotel's coffee shop, I finally got to bed at 2:30am. The hotel was decent though, and the next morning we discovered the hotel had a nice breakfast buffet and I was even able to take a quick cab ride to Tiannamen Square before the bus returned us to the airport. We finally landed at Dulles Saturday night after an uneventful 13 hour flight- a full 44 hours after my first flight had left Manila (from the time I left for the airport to the time I got home, it was nearly 50 hours of travel time).

The Prime Number Shitting Bear

I was chastised last night at the White Elephant party for knowing about this and not posting it on the blog. I had a moment of panic when I tried to find it and received an error message. But I did some detective work and managed to find the new site. So here it is. Enjoy.

Sinai Mountain Boys

For your Chanukah pleasure, some good Jewgrass music (look for December 4). Note: the music starts about 4 and a half minutes in. I hear they're looking for a fiddle player. Hmm.

Jones Hanukkah Pack Sodas

That's right, the company that brought you Turkey and Gravy soda for Thanksgiving now has Hanukkah sodas.

Your flavor options...

- Latke
- Apple Sauce
- Chocolate Coins
- Jelly Doughnut

They have a Christmas pack too which contains, among other flavors, Christmas Ham. Just like Bacon Salt, it's kosher.

Not those facts of life

"[Dmitri] Young sees himself as someone who could teach a younger player the facts of life, both on and off the field."
—from this story

Dear Kansas

We take it back! You won! Since evidently losing to Missouri and not playing in the Big 12 Championship was the ticket to a better bowl at a better time against a better team. (Yes, I know you have one loss and we have two. When you beat Oklahoma, a team you didn't play this season, in the Big 12 Bonus Championship Showdown—we'll call it "BCS" for short—by all means, make that argument.)

There are other options, too. The Big 12 could cancel its championship game and have Missouri lose to a team with 7 losses, since that gets you to a better bowl too.

Or Missouri could switch to a weak conference, play a weak nonconference schedule and go undefeated. Another effective method.

The Cotton Bowl? A non-BCS bowl at 11:30 New Year's morning against a team barely in the top 25? As one who takes pride in my sportsmanship, let me say this: I hope Missouri wins by 70.