A Very Sharpton Thanksgiving, Wesley Crusher Blogs, Sororities Are Mean, My Tummy Hurts, and Pandas Are Cute

"The Rev. Al Sharpton is a descendant of a slave owned by relatives of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond." Awkward! Thanksgiving cannot be a relaxing gathering for the Thurmond/Sharpton family. (Not that they actually celebrate holidays together, of course...lame joke.)

Former teen Star Trek star and uberblogger Wil Wheaton has written recaps of his own shows for TV Squad. That is super mega meta. The kid has been blogging since way back when, and I've always had a special place in my heart for him, owing to his sweet and touching performance in Stand By Me as well as his Star Trek role as Gene Roddenberry's own (widely hated by fans) Mary Sue, Wesley Crusher.

According to a paradigm-shifting report by the New York Times, sororities discriminate against girls on the basis of weight and attractiveness. Also, the sky, on clear days, is a lovely shade of blue.

Science Daily reports that overly anxious people are more prone to Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Duh. Being a nervous twit with IBS myself, I can attest to the amazingly efficient way that my body transforms anxiety into bellyaches that last as long as a day or two (not to complain - stomach pains are the very least of the range of symptoms for that condition, and I'm really quite lucky). On the flip side, my body also gives me unmistakeable cues when I hit on good ideas as well. Whenever I'm working on something creative (or romantic - why are those two things so bound together?), I wait until my hands and/or knees start shaking, and then I know I've identified a strong prospect. Sometimes it makes sense to me that that's how the Supreme Court works - they chat about rulings and constitutional issues until Scalia gets woozy and pukes on his judicial robe, and that's where they halt the conversation and write a new law. It's as likely as other explanations, no?

Apropos of the random, slapdash nature of this post, I'd just like to state for the record that I am not, in fact, the shortest person in Chicago comedy. Fay Canale is 5'3" and 2/3, giving me a height advantage of at least 1/4 of an inch (I'm not good with fractions) . And I haven't made Becky Garcia stand back to back with me, but girl is tiny. (Also, why, when we finally met Nate, and asked him about his first impressions of us, did he simply say that K-Rock was taller than he thought? Does that mean I come across short in my writing, and therefore when he met me, that was no surprise?)

And, finally, today's installment of "cute and hilarious." Have you ever heard a baby panda sneeze? And seen its mommy startle out of a sleepy chewing pleasure coma? You have now.