We spread it across two Saturdays, but we got it done

The Christmas decorations, the indoor ones anyway, are up. Does my wife have too much? Yes. Is that going to be changing anytime soon? Not a chance. She’s worked hard over the years building up this collection.

We usually knock this out in a day and a half or so, but this year we didn’t have consecutive days in a half available to do it in. So we dragged it out over a couple of Saturdays and still managed to get them up before Thanksgiving, as is tradition.

The leaves are all blown into a giant pile for me to tackle and work off my Thanksgiving, then we’ll start worrying about the outdoor decorations which I’ve been told we are dialing down this year.

With a busy Saturday of knocking out the Christmas decorations, I had the multiview going, but didn’t get a chance to watch too much of the action.

I did see that Penn State put another one in the win column, handing Matt Rhule and Nebraska their fourth loss, which you really hate to see.

I also caught that No. 1 Ohio State allowed Rutgers to score 9 points on them. That has to be concerning heading into Saturday’s game against No. 18 Michigan with an undefeated record on the line.

Rutgers should have never crossed mid-field. And the Buckeyes only put up 42? I wouldn’t be too confident rolling into Ann Arbor next weekend.

No finger guns or nose wiping in the NFL

Use finger guns and nose wiping in the NFL at your own risk. We know how dangerous both of the celebrations are and during the offseason the league decided to crackdown on such behavior.

After all, what if little Billy saw that while watching a game? What if he then did that while playing in one of his youth wrapped in bubble wrap games? The NFL doesn’t want his mom blaming them.

You finger gun or nose wipe, flagged or not, and you’re parting ways with $15k. The NFL isn’t having it. You have that sort of fun on your own time when the children aren’t watching.

Dipping

– Jim T in San Diego writes:

I’m not much for wings, TBH. Most “Buffalo style” recipes I’ve had were all heat, no flavor.

But if you’re going to dip in bleu cheese, while Ken’s is fine (per reader Guy from Buffalo), Bob’s Big Boy still sells their salad dressings even though all but one of the original restaurants are gone – https://www.flavorofcalifornia.com/products

If you can find it at your grocery store, it beats Ken hands down.

SeanJo

Hey Jim, thanks for the recommendation. I am a garbage disposal and will eat just about anything, dip or not. If I have a choice between blue cheese and ranch, I go with blue cheese, and I’m not alone in that.

The poll I put up had 60 percent going with blue cheese.

216,206

– Jim in San Diego continues:

That’s the final odometer reading on our 2008 Toyota Sienna. Father Joe’s Villages, the local Catholic homeless program, is coming by the pick it up in a few minutes. I took it for a final spin last night to get a couple cheeseburgers.

I never thought I’d own a minivan – much less get sentimental over one. I mean, I had a ’67 Mustang fastback in college, along with a Yamaha SR 500 cafe racer and an RD200.

But 17 years ago, newly remarried and with a bonus baby on the way, the Taurus wagon blew a head gasket.

So we went to test drive a RAV-4 through the Costco fleet buying program (no haggling!). But the third-row seats were a joke – the seat fronts were so close to the seat backs of the 2nd row, nobody could possibly sit back there (we had 4 kids already, plus the one on the way). And it handled horribly. The salesman could see we weren’t going to buy the RAV4, so he said, “What if I could get you last-year’s model Sienna for the same price as this year’s RAV4?

There was zero chance I was buying a minivan, but my very preggers wife said we should at least test drive it while we were there.

Three Boy Scout summer camps, a cross-country trip to see family in Maryland, moving two kids to college, daily commutes to four different jobs later …

It made me realize that when I bought that ’67 Mustang from a neighbor in 1983, it was 16 years old – but seemed far older.

The Sienna is older now than the Mustang was when I bought it. And I definitely owned the longest of any car I’ve ever had.

Not sexy, not classic, not cool.

But it brought our youngest home from the hospital after she was born, got us to innumerable Scout meetings and youth sports games, carried cases of Girl Scout cookies and Boy Scout popcorn. One time, I got some 40 Costco pizzas in the back to feed volunteers at Scout Fair.

Couldn’t have done that in the Mustang.

SeanJo

That minivan had a hell of a run. We had a couple over the years when the two older kids were little, and they were great. We didn’t do 200,000 with one, but we were pleasantly surprised that we didn’t mind the minivan once we had one.

– Gene in the Rock writes:

Many years ago, the wife of one of my bosses told me at an office Christmas party, “It takes a great brain to be a great dumb blonde.”  She whispered it like a secret, but it wasn’t one for those of us who worked with her husband.  She was a perfect archetype, Marilyn Monroe looks (even at almost 50) disguising a mind like a Siberian bear trap.  Hubby plainly knew he had married a weapon and used her on clients and associates like a stiletto in a back pocket.  They had the most amazing rapport, and needless to say, it was often great fun to sit back and watch.  People who assumed they were dealing with a simple minded trophy wife were in for the rudest of surprises.

Kudos to all the not-so-dumb blondes out there, including Paris.  You go, girls.

– Jayson writes:

Chuck could have gotten Andrew to stand in and take the nipple shot . . . . . For the Team.

Bigfoot

– Gene writes:

So, in the age of cell phone cameras that EVERYONE carries, this guy couldn’t get a picture? C’mon, this is why Bigfoot is known as the Hide-and-Seek world champ.

SeanJo

It’s almost as if they don’t exist. Almost. I’ve never seen any evidence personally, and I’ve never had a chance to either not pull out my phone to document an encounter or snap a blurry picture of a shadow or bear either. Hopefully, one day I get that chance.

Smoked turkey

– Guy writes:

Early Thanksgiving dinner. 5 hour smoke.

SeanJo

It looks great, Guy. Thankfully, I am never stuck with the responsibility of preparing one. This year will be no different. We’re heading over to my brother’s house.

If you are the one that is responsible for preparing the turkey, be careful if you’re deep-frying that bad boy.

———

That’s all for this Sunday. It’s Thanksgiving week already. It’s hard to believe it’s here, but it is. We’ll be staring down Christmas in a few short days.

I’ll be back on Screencaps duty, I believe, on Wednesday. Until then, enjoy an NFL Sunday and a couple of hopefully light days of work.

Send your Thanksgiving Day menu. If you don’t have turkey, what do you have, and what are your go-to sides and desserts?

As always, I want to see you meat. Send it and anything else you’d like my way sean.joseph@outkick.com. Follow me on Twitter or over on Instagram.

Numbers from:

Stuff You Guys Sent In & Stuff I Like:

Livvy Dunne and Paul Skenes hit Hawaii for a Pittsburgh Pirates teammate’s wedding. While there, Dunne showed off her former LSU gymanstics skills while in a bikini jumping off a boat with an insane move.

Skenes is coming off his second season with the Pirates where he won his first Cy Young Award on a night where Dunne stole his thunder in a head-turning black dress.

The 23-year-old Dunne finished her fifth and final season of gymanstics at LSU and has been living the influencer life since. Skenes and her bought an apartment in New York City after losing out on Babe Ruth’s old one, and a new dream house in Jupiter, Florida, where they were seen struggling to put furniture together like most couples.

Livvy Dunne has cheesy Paul Skenes joke after Pirates pitcher wins Cy Young Award

They left that all behind to hit up pitcher Jared Jones and his fiancée Rylie Fox’s wedding in Kauai. Skenes was seen enjoying himself in the water where Dunne called her boyfriend a “merman.”

And Dunne was seen in her blue bikini on a boat.

Livvy Dunne flaunts new house in Tiger Woods’ neighborhood with pool selfie

That’s when she let her athletic gene take over for the crowd and decided to do a crazy twisting backflip off the side of the boat.

She just missed that landing, but it was a great effort.

Dunne has said she misses gymnastics while practicing some moves. For a minute she got to relive her athletic glory years while with Skenes and friends in Hawaii.

— Enjoy free dish of rich and fabulous players with The Athlete Lifestyle on SI —

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Tearjerker: Alex Vesia’s wife gets note from Dodgers WAG after devastating baby’s death

Zag WAG: Ohtani’s wife Mamiko has unique fit defying Dodgers WAGs for World Series

Tigers whimper: Lane Kiffin’s daughter Landry reveals LSU fit looking sad in ugly loss

BEIJING, Nov 22 (Reuters) – The U.S. and Chinese militaries this week held “frank and constructive” maritime security talks, the Chinese navy said on Saturday, as the two superpowers gradually restore military-to-military communications after several months of trade tensions.

The working-level meetings took place November 18-20 in Hawaii, according to a posting on the official social media account of the People’s Liberation Army Navy.

Sign up here.

“The two sides had frank and constructive exchanges … mainly exchanging views on the current maritime and air security situation between China and the U.S.,” China’s navy said in its posted statement.

China also criticised U.S. freedom-of-navigation operations in the statement. These are frequently carried out in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, international waters over which China claims sovereignty.

“China … resolutely opposes any infringement and provocation,” China’s navy said in its statement, referring to those maritime and overflight transits by U.S. forces.

Both sides also discussed “typical cases of naval and air encounters between the two militaries … to help the front-line naval and air forces of China and the U.S. interact more professionally and safely,” it said.

China has been steadily boosting air, naval and coast guard deployments around democratically-governed Taiwan, which it claims as its own. Taiwan’s government rejects China’s claims of sovereignty over the island.

The Pentagon has been pushing for improved communications with China over its military modernisation and regional posture, calling for greater transparency on its nuclear weapons build-up and more theatre-level discussions with military commanders.

The working group will have a follow-up meeting in 2026, the statement said.

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