We’ve just finished having Thanksgiving dinner with our friends. And, like many other families across America, we watched a bunch of TV during the day.

We started the afternoon with the Battle Turkey episode of Iron Chef. It started out innocently enough, with Chairman Kaga talking about how Americans eat turkey for holidays, including the wonderful line, “People of Japan, it is not too late for turkey with gravy.” But then they unveiled the turkeys — 12 gutted, and 12 not gutted. And then the battle began. For those of you who aren’t Iron Chef fans, perhaps one of the Iron Chef’s dishes would be sufficient to consider: turkey sashimi. I guess they don’t have salmonella in Japan (though they do have campylobacter, as I can testify from personal experience).

Our turkey was in the oven while we were watching, so after the show ended, we (which mostly means Diane) made all the side dishes and I carved the turkey (well, I attacked it with a knife. Next year, I’ll sharpen the knife first!), and we all ate a lot of good food with nice wine, then some pie for dessert.

I’d made a mistake last week and hadn’t recorded Iron Chef USA, but Sam had gotten it, so he brought the tape over, and we watched it after dinner. It was definitely the biggest turkey of the day; I’d been forewarned by the reviews in the paper and on the net, and so I wasn’t expecting much. But no amount of warning prepared me for just how over-the-top the show was, nor how silly the chefs would be while cooking, nor how little they’d take advantage of Shatner’s unique style. And I could definitely have done with less crowd noise and fewer crowd shots. On the bright side, though, the Playboy Playmate they had filling the actress slot on the judging panel had a voice and lines very reminiscent of the dubbed Japanese episodes — but she didn’t giggle enough.

So that was our Thanksgiving; I hope yours was as enjoyable. Tomorrow, I think I’m going to the Y.

I’ve spent part of this morning buying a replacement cellphone from AT&T Wireless. I get a special deal from them because I work for IBM, so I had to call their toll-free number to buy the phone. And, as they were doing the paperwork, they discovered that something was slightly weird about my account and that the “Foundation Account Number” would have to be changed.

The person I was talking to couldn’t make that change (of course). So she put me on hold and called the department there which could fix it. Five minutes later, she came back and said that there was a long wait — and then she offered to take care of it and call me back. I was amazed; I expected to be told to call that department myself and then come back and place the order.

So I accepted her offer and went on about my business. Later, I got a voicemail telling me that she was still trying; and just before lunch, she called back again, apologizing that she’d spent a long time on hold and couldn’t wait any longer (because the time she spends on hold is charged against her productivity).

But then she said she could sell me the new phone anyway, since the cost was the same whether the account number got changed or not. So I bought the phone.

I’m irritated at AT&T Wireless that their internal procedures are so bad that they affect paying customers — but I am quite pleased that this agent actually took ownership of the problem and figured out how to make me happy, and I’ll be sending a letter to AT&T Wireless to praise her. I just wish that having an agent actually fix the problem wasn’t so rare.

Not all uses of Flash are evil

I didn’t think I’d ever find a Flash site I could recommend, but I like this one.

Happy Thanksgiving!

If I’m smart, I won’t turn on the computer much, if at all, over the weekend. We’re having another family over for dinner tomorrow, so we’ll be busy cooking and eating; then we have our traditional Second Thanksgiving with friends from the Temple on Friday. And then I’m sure I’ll find something to do on Saturday and Sunday.

Speaking of free time, congratulations Andrea!

See ya!