First off - Scott and I would just like to thank everyone for making the Holiday Party as fantabulous as it was. It was just a great thing to be a part of.

Some shout outs:

• Holly and Maiya for the idea / prompting
• Susannah for all the running around and cooking -- that was some fine barbecue!
• Max for being Light Guy
• Sarah C. for the White Elephant exchange
• Erica-B's Salads
• Will P's Cookies
• Holly's Cake
• Todd's Beer
• Maiya's Latkes & More
• Connie's Nuts
• Blaise for starting the feats of strength
• The Snuggie

And now, some Sunday Stuff...starting with an xkcd.com comic...

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/new_pet.png

I know this is more a Berkeley thing than a Davis thing, but geekery is geekery. Someone build a bio-tech version. Stat! Extra points for using Python. Yeah, Blaise, your head might explode, but s'ok, just:

import newHead

A few people saw my copy of the Gladwell book, What the Dog Saw, laying around the box and said they wanted to read it. Well, it's a fairly unnecessary purchase. Take a look at www.gladwell.com and, from what I can see, all the articles in the book are there and then some.

Here are a few Gladwell pieces that have some tie-ins to sports and performance -- a topic of great interest in CF Land:

• Game Theory: When it Comes to Athletic Prowess, Don't Believe Your Eyes
  • Click Here For .pdf
• Drugstore Athlete
  • Click Here for .pdf
• The Art of Failure: Why Some People Choke and Others Panic
  • Click Here for .pdf