My brother is threatening us with disembowelment and mystery gifts unless we send him wish lists. Is it wrong that I'm kinda excited about the mystery gifts? My brother's humor is so weird, I'd expect tumor cell slides or used lab equipment or who knows what!

So far all I've come up with are impractical for having to bring home in luggage- ladder, rechargeable multi-speed drill/screwdriver (I have a drill, it's just not so good as a screwdriver.) Meh.

I think I've discovered the recipe for my department's white elephant / bakeoff - eggnog cake.

(ita, the recipe says the trick to a tender crumb here is whipping the eggnog into a foam before folding it in - might be the muffin fix you were looking for?)

might be the muffin fix you were looking for?

Not unless I use the cake method to make the muffins--I'm not creaming the shortening and aerating that way, I'm pouring wet onto dry and folding minimally. I don't know if the state of the wet affects the end result of the crumb.

I'm catching up on TV from last night, and was amused (and yet surprised it took so long) when on Scandal she said "I'm just feeling a little Sally Hemmings/Thomas Jefferson about all this!!"

Hah. The show is fun, though. And while I didn't like last night's episode of Grey's all that much (kinda boring, don't care about the new interns), I do still appreciate that I could point out to my roommate the many times it passed both the Bechdel test and whatever any sort of minority-Bechdel-test might be called.

I didn't care about the last crop of new interns, either, until I did! They did a good job of bringing some in. I just wish Shonda Rhimes knew how to write people out of shows without killing them off.

Jesse, she wrote Burke off, didn't she or did he die too?

Why do ombré sequined Ugg boots exist? Why? t /questions brought to you from Las Vegas

I thought he just left for another hospital after Christina didn't go through with the wedding? But lord knows, I've forgotten half the drama that happened the first several seasons. Bombs, shootings, brain tumors, etc etc.

Jesse, she wrote Burke off, didn't she or did he die too?

No, I don't think he did. Or Izzy, or Audra MacDonald on Private Practice. But still -- the number of people who die on those shows is extreme.

Izze didn't die (that's not how it's spelled is it?) either, I don't think.

I kind of like the sound of those, Jilli. I have what I'm sure is a shameful fondness for Uggs, and sparkly Uggs especially.