I just cleaned the litter box, and there was one particular piece of cat crap that looked sort of like a turkey. Now if that doesn’t put you in the holiday spirit, I don’t know what will. :)

But seriously, Happy Thanksgiving!

Kristy has some Thanksgiving thoughts over on the SHA girl blog. Hopefully she and V will post some pictures of their Thanksgiving together… hint, hint!

Becky and I are off to her parents’ house now, so barring CNN breaking-news alerts (which seem unlikely on Turkey Day), any blogging for the rest of the day will probably be in the form of cell-phone posts.

Now online: Videos of my annual Christmas season kickoff ceremonies from 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998!

1995


1996

The ‘95 and ‘96 ceremonies (pictured above) were both at my house in Newington. Both were pretty elaborate, and both went off without a hitch.

Then in ‘97 and ‘98, we visited my aunt, uncle, and cousins over Thanksgiving, so I staged scaled-down ceremonies at my their house in Syracuse, New York. In both cases, the ceremony did not quite go off flawlessly — the 1997 video is especially funny. (”Are you using a sundial timer”? –Uncle Scott)

All the videos can be downloaded here, and the best part is, they’re all a megabyte or less. (Thank you, QuickTime Pro.) So, even you dialup-Internet folks should be able to see them, if you’re just a wee bit patient. :) Just scroll down to the bottom of the page for a list of available clips.

NOTE: The videos are “MP4″ files, or MPEG-4. Windows Media Player may have issues with them, but the newest version of QuickTime should be able to play them, no problem.

Also there, of course, are my Christmas ceremonies at USC from 1999, 2000, and 2001. (Those video files, in AVI format, are rather larger.) Alas, the one video I don’t have online is last year’s ceremony — I left that tape in Newington, and my digitized copy appears to be corrupted!! I do hope to get it online eventually, but obviously that won’t be possible right away.

This year’s ceremony is Friday night at 7:00 PM Mountain time, and I will post information about a live webcast as soon as I have that arranged.

I know this is a bit early, since there are no games with implications for USC until Friday afternoon (GO RAZORBACKS!!!), but with Thanksgiving tomorrow and my Christmas lighting ceremony on Friday, I wanted to get my “homework” out of the way early. :) So here goes:

Welcome to my third weekly Trojan viewer guide! It seems these things are developing a bit of a following. I’ve gotten a number of compliments on them, and a couple of USC alumni in the Pacific Northwest mentioned that they’ve been printing them out and checking off the games one by one. To make that task easier, I have created a bare-bones version at the bottom of this post, with just the games and times, in chronological order.

But of course, the detailed version explains which games are the most important, and why… so, read on! All times Eastern; all games on Saturday unless noted; all rankings based on Rich Tellshow’s extended BCS; TV information courtesy of SI.com; “regional” links lead to ABC coverage maps, in PDF form.

Trojan fans root for the boldfaced teams.

THE ONE THAT WOULD SOLVE ALL OUR PROBLEMS

#24 Arkansas at #3 LSU, 2:30 PM Friday (CBS)
The Tigers are Trojans’ competition for the Sugar Bowl spot, so obviously, if they lose to the Razorbacks, our BCS problems are over, and all we need to do is beat Oregon State on Dec. 6. (Well, unless two-loss Michigan passes us somehow. Nothing surprises me in the BCS anymore, but I very much doubt this would happen.)

If Arkansas beats LSU, none of the other games listed below matter. So the rest of this analysis assumes that LSU wins. Here goes…

THE MESSY S.E.C., AND THOSE CRAZY QUALITY WINS

The best team LSU beat this season is Georgia. Presently, Georgia is ranked #7 in the BCS. If they win the rest of their game(s), they could finish as high as #5 or #6. This would give LSU a big BCS boost — big enough, quite possibly, to pass the Trojans in the standings. Thus, we need Georgia to lose a game, so that their ranking will fall and LSU’s QW bonus will be reduced or eliminated.

There are two ways this can happen: Georgia can lose on Saturday to Georgia Tech, or Georgia can reach the Southeastern Conference title game next week and lose to… LSU! However, winning on Saturday does not assure Georgia of reaching the SEC title game, and therein lies our problem. The worst-case scenario for USC is if Georgia beats Georgia Tech, but nevertheless fails to qualify for the SEC title game, and thus finishes its season at 10-2. That would guarantee LSU mucho QW points.

The situation in the SEC is emormously complicated, even by BCS standards. Presently there is a three-way tie atop the SEC East, and the extremely confusing tiebreaker system that will be used determine who goes to the SEC title game, if it remains a three-way tie, involves a combination of BCS standings, head-to-head results, and a partridge in a pear tree. :) Believe me, explaining the whole thing becomes way more trouble than it’s worth. Thus, I’ll just give you the bottom line, as it affects USC:

#8 Tennessee at #93 Kentucky, 12:30 PM
Barring a Georgia loss (see below), this one is absolutely essential for Trojan fans. A Kentucky win would send Florida to the SEC championship game (even if the Gators lose to Florida State!), and unless Georgia Tech upsets the Bulldogs, that means Georgia would be untarnished at 10-2, thus giving LSU the opportunity for a bunch of those deadly quality-win points.

#7 Georgia at #54 Georgia Tech, 1:00 PM (ABC - regional)
A loss here would very probably knock Georgia out of the SEC title game picture, but it doesn’t matter, because all USC needs is for the Bulldogs to lose a game — we don’t care whether it’s this week or next. Thus, if Georgia Tech wins, the rest of the SEC games, including Tennessee-Kentucky (above), are irrelevant to us. Well, not irrelevant, actually… some of them still impact our strength of schedule. More on that shortly. But the point is, a Georgia Tech upset of Georgia would solve our quality-win problem.

#9 Florida State at #11 Florida, 3:30 PM (CBS)
If Kentucky wins, the outcome of this game can’t help us, and if Georgia Tech wins, the outcome of this game can’t hurt us. (Well, again, except for strength of schedule; more on that shortly.) But if Tennessee and Georgia both win, a Florida win here could potentially allow the Gators to get into the SEC title game (instead of Georgia) through an SEC/BCS back door. Thus, a Seminoles win would be very nice, especially if the Vols and Bulldogs were both victorious earlier in the day.

#10 Miami at #25 Pittsburgh, 8:00 PM (ABC - regional)
It pains me to say this, because I really, really want the Big East traitors to lose the conference championship to a team that’s sticking around. But if Georgia and Tennessee and Florida all win, a Miami loss would help Florida’s cause and thus hurt ours. So we would need to root for the Hurricanes. But hopefully, things will have gone our way earlier in the day, and we’ll be able to root for Pittsburgh, both because a Pitt win helps USC’s “opponents’ opponents” record and in the strength-of-schedule derby, and also because a Miami loss (much like any New York Yankees loss) is good for humanity.

STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE

SOS DOUBLE-WHAMMY: MOST IMPORTANT
#60 Alabama at #69 Hawaii, 7:45 PM (ESPN)
Alabama is an opponent of LSU’s; Hawaii is an opponent of USC’s. This game could potentially swing the Trojans’ and Tigers’ final BCS totals by as much as a third of a point! GO WARRIORS!!!

DIRECT SOS HELP: QUITE IMPORTANT
#83 Arizona at #75 Arizona State, 3:00 PM Friday (FSN)
#7 Georgia at #53 Georgia Tech, 1:00 PM (ABC - regional) (see also above)
#93 Rice at #74 Louisiana Tech, 3:00 PM
#9 Florida State at #11 Florida, 3:30 PM (CBS) (see also above)

INDIRECT SOS HELP: SOMEWHAT LESS IMPORTANT
#23 Nebraska at #50 Colorado, 12:00 PM Friday (ABC)
#45 Toledo at #20 Bowling Green, 12:00 PM (ESPN)
#46 Notre Dame at #63 Stanford, 8:00 PM (ABC - regional)
#10 Miami at #25 Pittsburgh, 8:00 PM (ABC - regional) (SOS benefit is outweighed if Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida all win — in that case, root for Miami — see above)

In honor of Thanksgiving, SI.com has named its sports turkeys of the year. Two Red Sox made the list. Well, one Red Sock and one former Red Sock. Steve Bartman made it, too… poor guy.

More excitement in the cats’ world. :)

UPDATE: This could be interesting. :) But then again, we aren’t planning to decorate the indoor tree at all — we got a larger tree for our outdoor porch, which will be fully decorated and lit up during Friday evening’s Christmas lighting ceremony (more details on that if/when I get the webcast set up). So, hopefully the cats won’t cause too much havoc with the indoor tree (which Becky decided to get as an “experiment”).

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s a funny kitty Christmas story. And here’s a unique solution.

If you missed the lovely sight of Venus and the crescent Moon together in the sky yesterday evening at dusk, don’t despair — SpaceWeather.com says the two heavenly bodies will have a nearly identical conjunction on Christmas Day.