[Hey Barge, you know what you were in the mood for?

I hope you said a history/Earth culture lesson, because that's what you're about to get.]

As I'm sure a good portion of you are aware, tomorrow is the fourth Thursday of November, which means some of us will be either celebrating or thinking of past celebrations of Thanksgiving.

[Stick with him, he'll explain for people who have never heard of this before.]

There's an interesting amount of misleading assumptions surrounding the tradition of Thanksgiving. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, [There are, after all, a lot of people who don't come from Earth as he knows it, and a decent amount of those weren't here last year.] it's a holiday that traditionally commemorates the celebration of a good harvest held by early English settlers and the native American Indians in 1621.

There's a popularly stated "fact" that Thanksgiving as many of us know it was first "invented" by the 16th President of the United States - Abraham Lincoln - after a woman wrote to him insisting that the feast between the English and American Indians be remembered with a national holiday, but in reality, people across the country had been and were celebrating long before he declared it a federal holiday in 1863. Several presidents before him - including George Washington and John Adams, the first and second president respectively - had declared a national day of thanksgiving, and the Continental Congress had done so before the United States had been officially separated from Great Britain. There's even well documented evidence that days of thanksgiving - which could include feasting - were held in Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America, years before the "first" thanksgiving was held in 1621.

I'd also like to point out that - to the best of what I can determine with the help of the library on board - that while tomorrow is Thanksgiving, tonight is the first night of Hanukkah. Jewish holidays rotate throughout the Julian calendar year because the Jewish calendar is lunar-solar, unlike the Muslim calendar which is almost entirely lunar, and the Christian calendar is almost entirely solar. I won't get into the math - I've probably already bored you all enough as is - but between that and the fact that the Jewish calendar doesn't account for a solar year being 365.25 days long instead of 365, this means that this particular combination won't happen again for several thousand years. Fascinating, isn't it?

[He is being 120% serious, don't hate.]

( Spam for Erik )

[So, it's the year anniversary of Charles and Erik being on the Barge. Clearly, the best way to celebrate? Is to get completely wasted.

It's pretty apparent that this is an accidental post: Charles seems to have elbowed the communicator off the table by accident and for a moment, you're getting a good view of the ceiling of the pub and can hear Charles and Erik laughing somewhere close by, but off screen.]

No, no, I'm serious! It works, you have to trust me- [Charles keeps laughing as he leans down and scoops up the communicator, not noticing that it's been turned on and deposits it back on the counter, so now you can see both of them, even if it's still kind of a weird angle. They are both pretty clearly drunk and getting silly, although definitely Charles more so than Erik.] It's, you have to- No I'm serious, Erik, don't make that face at me, just listen-

[Erik is totally making a face and you need to deal with it, he is rolling his eyes and everything.] Come on, Charles, nothing you say will convince me that you have actually found genetics pick up lines useful.

[It's kind of hard to see from this angle, but Charles is making a face back, even though he looks like he's about five seconds away from cracking up, anyway.] Well, I was already in England, so you can't blame the accent.

No, I used to comment on their hair or their eyes or something and say it's a very groovy mutation, and explain that "mutant" is a compliment because mutation took us from single celled organisms to the dominant form of reproductive life on the planet. [He shrugs, still grinning sort of smugly and takes another drink.] Women like an academic.

[It's Erik's turn to laugh and be silly, shaking his head on the edge of the screen.] Emphasis on reproductive life, no doubt. And that works?

[Charles nods and puts his glass down, obviously trying not to grin.] Want to hear another one? I promise it's worked, you should use it sometime.

[Erik just gestures expansively: GO ON. Which is really just making Charles try to hold back laughter again, trying to hold himself together long enough to tell it and more or less half succeeding.]

If I were an enzyme, I'd be a DNA helicase. That way, I could unzip your genes.

[And there is a loud, LOUD groan, and Erik is waving the hand holding his beer about, half threatening to spill it all over, while Charles has completely lost composure and started laughing as Erik responds.] You're joking. You've used that? You must have been slapped at least once!

[Charles shrugs again, still basically giggling.] It gets a laugh if nothing else.