Friday I was leading some visitors from Shanghai across campus (Robin, Kevin, and my man Pinocchio). We have a semi-annual art fair outside my office and I had to walk them through the art fair to get to campus.

"Uh..." said Robin.
"Yes?" I said.
"What is that?" He was pointing at someone dressed in a full-body Grinch costume.
"That's the Grinch. He, uh... he tries to steal Christmas."
There was some blinking going on. "He's from a children's story."
"Ohhhhhhh..." and they all ran off to take pictures of the Grinch.
"Uhhhhmmm..." they said as we walked along a little further.
"Yes?"
"Does nobody here work on Friday?"
"Uh..." I looked around. Who the heck ARE these people who aren't working on Friday afternoon? Sure, I saw a lot of retirees, but I also saw a lot of people who should have been at work. "I suppose maybe they... I'll be honest... I have no idea."
"What is...?"
"What is this for?"
"Yes."
"It's sort of an art fair. For Christmas."
They sort of stared at me.
"Christmas is a Holiday. It's, uhmm..." I looked at the 3-foot carved wooden rabbit statues for sale and tried to figure out how to tie the kernel corn, crappy street magic show and guy playing steel drums in a tent nearby to the birth of Christ.
"People exchange a lot of presents. It's a family holiday."
"Ah...."
"And, you know, the Grinch tries to steal all of that."
Anyway, I sort of miss Kevin, Robin and my man, Pinocchio. They were going to Vegas for the weekend, and all i could do to forewarn them was tell them to preset a spending limit. Hope they had fun.

Huzzah!

The Phoenix Suns are looking like they're going to be a lot of fun again this season. It's taken me a bit, but I feel like I know who the current roster is (only to be scrubbed during trades later in the season), and I think Mike D'Antoni has put together a pretty darn good squad.

Consider: Amare and Leandro haven't been able to play and we were still up by as much as 32 points during tonight's contest with the insanely bad Atlanta Hawks (for Atlanta Leaguers, you have my synpathies). Also, Grant is out for a bit. Your Phoenix Suns are as strong off the bench as they were off the bench last season, if not more so.

I was sad for Joe Johnson and the Hawks who seem like they need a great deal of team counseling. Good GOD, man, is that a team in disarray. Joe was one of our starters here last year, and he's still got a place in my heart. Sadly, the $70 million the Hawks offered Joe had a big place in HIS heart, so we lost him.

Anyhoo, Go SUNS.

Further, anyone watch the Big 12 Championship Game?

I'll be honest, The League is a bit of a "glass is half-empty" sort of guy. I dropped Judy off at the airport on Saturday and went shopping for Christmas decorations rather than watching the first half of the game. I just couldn't take it. I just want for UT to get to the Rose Bowl, but if we were going to blow the Big 12 Championship, I couldn't stand to bear witness.

Luckily, not so much a problem. What was the score? 70 to 3?

I don't care if you don't care about sports. 70 TO 3. And that was with NO points in the 4th quarter from UT.

Wow.

We did go and get some decorations and League HQ is now a Holiday Wonderland! Our tree is lovely and red. We have red glass ornaments, red bead garland and a big red star atop the tree (Jamie is a devout Maoist). Superman, Spidey and the gang have all found spots among the branches, and, heck, Leaguers, it's all pretty festive. And let me tell you, Jamie deserves some festiveness right now.

I think I'll take a few photos and see what ya'll think.

Hi Leaguers - Mrs. League here, back from el hospital. Am typing one handed so this will be short - just wanted to thank everyone for their support and good wishes! It's good to be home and I hope this time I can stay home.

Looks like I got out of the GPS business too early:

"Turn left in 500 feet....fool!"

December 1st is World AIDS Day.

Read more here.

Good news and Bad News here at The League

Good news first:

Want to have the World's Greatest Superheroes deliver your mail for you?

Well, DC has teamed with the US Postal Service in order to create 20 stamps of 10 of DC's greatest superheroes (that's 2 stamps of 10 separate heroes for those of you unwilling to try the math).

Read up on this bold move by the US Postal Service here.

Now the BAD news:

Leaguers in the Central Texas area may be subjected to the incontinence-inducing tunes of Austin-based rock and roll combination: CRACK.

Crack features not one, but TWO Loyal Leaguers and Nanostalgia contributors: the aptly named CrackBass and the shame of the Family Steans, Cleveland Steanso. Unskilled attorneys by day, incompetent rock gods by night.

CrackBass writes:

crack (featuring special friend Gary Meyer) will be performing its annual spectacle this Friday, December 2, 2005 at Ruta Maya, 3601 South Congress (http://rutamaya.net/hours-location.html) crack comes on promptly at 9:00, off at 9:45, so arrive accordingly. Real bands to follow, so stick around!

Doug sent this along...

It seems to be a music video for a song about Superman.

Normally songs about Superman kind of wear me out (Jimmy Olsen's Blues, whatever that song is by Three Doors Down). In fact, aside from "I am Superman" performed by (but not originally by) REM, I try to ignore most Superman pop and rock songs.

But I kind of dig this. Just make sure you put on your headphones or watch this at home as it gets kind of loud.

Superman short film.

Normally I don't point to The Onion or The Onion AV Club as I assume you all know that The Onion is required reading for all Loyal Leaguers.

But this struck me as particularly funny. Follow the link. And make sure you go on thru to the MetLife website in question.

Poor ol' Charlie Brown.

I am happy to report that Jamie has returned home.

I am also happy to report that Judy gifted me this evening with a giant inflatable snow globe for the front yard. That thing is just HUMMING, man. It's pretty darn awesome.

What's even more awesome is that we don't have any other decorations up yet, so there's just the giant snowglobe in the front yard.

Jamie is very tired, but she's in really good spirits. Hopefully she'll continue to feel well. Right now she's going through some post-surgery stuff with surgical sites being sore, but aside from that, I think she's doing okay. Just sort of pokey and slow moving.

Also, I received two new CDs in the mail this week, completely unsolicited.

Ace of Base
and
Digital Underground's "Sex Packets"

Truly, the season of giving is upon us.