As a stereotypical government employee, I have Veterans day off. Actually, it's not completely inappropriate given the incredibly large-- about 25%-- portion of federal employees that are veterans. So, serious business first. From Breakfast of Champions:

I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.

Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not.

So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things.

What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.

And all music is.

Of course, the number of verified WWI vets still living has dwindled to three (four, if you count "era" vets) since BoC was published in '73. Vonnegut (a WWII veteran, lest we forget) himself has been gone for three and a half years.

In less SRS BZNS, I finally read the new issue of Bon Appetit and I have a confession to make. I really can't wait to actually host Thanksgiving. I mean, I know it would drive Le Père just fou (he prefers his Thanksgivings ubertraditional-- I've been banned from seasoning the stuffing in the past because I might put "weird shit" like rosemary in it... of course, then my mom turns around and puts it in when he's not looking). But seriously? It would be awesome. And I'd invite just about everyone that could possibly come, because I am incapable of cooking just a little for a holiday.

In even less SRS BZNS, how freaking bummed am I about Max Starks? I know that the core is getting older, but the injuries are just piling up. And I don't think the Pats are going to make the same mistakes they did last week against the Browns. This is going to be a rough week.