Finally, the Things Which Are Awesome edition.

• Anyone who owns and loves their cast-iron cookware (like I do), should bone up on their seasoning technique.
• Still on the cooking front, my friend Tim Newsome wires up an Arduino control for his Alton Brown smoker.
• I just love idea of Cold War spies collecting jokes as intelligence.
• McSweeney's offers Seven Rejected Improv Troupe Scenarios, which are made so much better than the usual bad suggestions we get by the inclusion of additional, unnecessary clauses.
• You've probably seen this already, but I desperately want to perform Two Gentlemen of Lebowski.

Creativity and Innovation edition (and, yes, I have a backlog to work through).

• Merlin Mann reminds us to make the clackity noise as often as possible.
• Practitioners of allegedly unlike disciplines can learn a lot from each other, as these surgeons and F1 pit crews demonstrated.
• Chip and Dan Heath take that idea a little further in A Problem-Solver's Guide to Copycatting.
• Lynn Cherny glosses some of Ed Catmull's ideas about creativity and innovation at Pixar.
• And, Doyce Testerman should have called this "What I've learned from bowling."

And welcome to a special all-video edition of the round-up!

• Matt Mulholland seems to be one of more active (and talented) participants in the YouTube multi-track scene. His a cappella cover of the Ghostbusters theme made me smile.
• The Ambassadors of Harmony, on the other hand, made me miss barbershop singing. There wasn't quite this much choreography when I was doing it, though.
• Looking for a crazy hobby? How about launching anvils into the air?
• Lin-Manuel Miranda raps about Alexander Hamilton. At the White House.
• And finally, the answer to that age-old question, "How do monks who have taken a vow of silence sing Handel's Hallelujah Chorus?"

Gwen has posted some beautiful pictures from the week we spent in Mexico with my family. Playa del Carmen was great fun, and we hope to head back there some day.

I've been overwhelmed by the number of positive mentions of Penny I've seen recently:

• Jim Crocker, manager of Modern Myths in Northampton, MA, calls A Penny For My Thoughts one of his favorite games of the year. I know Jim doesn't praise things lightly, so this means a lot to me.
• The Ogres over at OgreCave found room for Penny on their annual Christmas Gift Guide, in the Stocking Stuffer (i.e. less than $25) section. For the last seven or so Christmases, I've looked foward to this list. Finding my own game on it is an unexpected present.
• There was at least one game of Penny at MACE in High Point, NC, that sounds like it was both gonzo and fun. Later on in that thread, Andy Kitkowksi talks thoughfully about his experience of the game, using words that make me happy.
• And finally, the day before Thanksgiving, my mother called me and asked me to send her a PDF because she'd forgotten her copy at home. My parents were visiting friends in Plainview, TX, and on Thanksgiving Day they played Penny together and had a great time. This is pretty much the definition of win.