A very happy and most wonderful Thanksgiving from all of us at the Castle (well, maybe not the Tcho-Tchos). As many of you know, Thanksgiving is the Czar’s favorite holiday; even better than the Feast of Zdravgul, which we celebrated from 1355-1471, and which got so bad there is no longer a country called Sorbia.

Thanksgiving, you see, can be celebrated by anyone, not just Americans. Religion, politics, employment, orientation, and dietary restrictions do not matter. All you need to do is be thankful for all you have, and just as much for you have not yet lost.

Anyway, what are we grateful for?

Your Dread and Awful Czar of Muscovy is thankful for pancit, .40 caliber weapons, Marvel superhero movies (including that badass Magneto theme), Vouvray, shetland sheepdogs, and whatever version of Windows is forthcoming that will fix the crap he experiences all the time with every other version.

The Inscrutable Mandarin is thankful for grapes, palanquins, Kit-Kat bars, Calabi Yau manifolds, automatic 12 gauge scatterguns, and the coyote he has been taming in his backyard. That will be a cool thing to walk into a supermarket with when it finally stops biting children.

Doctor J is most thankful for stents, Memphis-style ribs, force lightning in any caliber, iPhones, iPads, and the Star Wars sextet released on UltraRay, where Lucas put the movies back to the way they originally were and redubbed Jar-Jar. Sorry you kids have to wait until 2035 for those. Get your own time traveling robot, then.

Our time traveling robot, then, GorTechie is thankful for 0.5, which is refreshingly neither 0 or 1, science fairs where the kids do their own work, KL5 plastic, his eye beam, hickory-whiskey beans with real smoked apple bacon, and when the kids remember to turn the lights off in the basement. He also likes any operating system, since he knows how to unlock the no-crash easter egg embedded in every one since DOS 3.3.

Large, scary Ghettoputer is thankful for punt guns, the doctors who renewed his ability to walk and fixed a little bit of his thinky parts, home-cooked meals, hunting, Manhattans properly made, and yes, even Kriz. Sleestak, however, can go screw himself.

Confucius, the Gormogons’ Œcumenical Volgi, is thankful for inexpensive but quality port wine, migraine medicine, Liaochelada (that new two parts Liao drug with lime, tomato juice, and clam juice), alphabets, and that gun that shoots a million rounds per minute.

Whatever you are thankful for, whomever you wish to remember, or whatever you wish to keep in mind this holiday season, is best kept to yourself, so please don’t write in to any of us, because quite frankly we will be too appreciative of your attempts to make us laugh to reprint them.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.