Basting went well, with only one tiny little burn on the arm. The interesting part was transferring the turkey into the Hollywood Hills to Sara's sister's place. I got to be the one with the turkey on my lap, but we had discovered it had a pinhole somewhere in the bottom, so we put on three layers of tinfoil, and then I had a towel on my lap. Of course, after 4 hours at 350 degrees, it was still fairly painful. But dinner was good, then we played a long game of Cranium (which I can't see doing again--though my team won).

Yesterday I had a second Thanksgiving at Frank's in Playa del Ray. Frank is my Steeler bar body, and he's a film editor at Fox. When I hang out with Frank and his friends and co-workers, I definitely feel at my most L.A. Whereas I have stories that start, "I was watching that new Norm McDonald show the other night...", they have stories that start, "A couple of years ago, Kato Kaelin started bringing Norm McDonald to our weekly pickup basketball games...". They're good guys, and I try not to be too self-conscious about our, um, socioeconomic disparity when I go over to the West Side. It was a great time, though--14 people, Frank's parents and brother, some Pittsburgh people, some Syracuse people, and some girlfriends of the above. All in all it was probably my best Thanksgiving away from home, even if it wasn't actually on Thanksgiving.

Finally, today is unquestionably the biggest game for Pitt since I've been following the team, which I date back to January 1, 1983, and the Pitt-SMU Cotton Bowl. We're playing for a BCS bowl, which would be our first "New Year's Day" bowl since, well, that Pitt-SMU Cotton Bowl. Not only that, with the disintegration of the Big East as a major football conference (at the expense of basketball--don't EVEN get me started), this could be the biggest Pitt football game for me ever. I'm already trying to come up with ways to keep my mind occupied until 5 p.m. other than the game itself and my annoyance that we're getting Notre Dame-Stanford locally because, well, because regional coverage is such a horrible stupid idea. OK, that's not the reason, but I'm annoyed. So I'm trying to find an appropriate venue. That may actually take up a good bit of the afternoon...