Merry Christmas! Wired's Foot-in-Mouth Awards

...and so St. Nick somehow managed to find our small little condo yet again, as evidenced by presents under the tree, stockings full of stocking stuff, and some bites taken out of the cookies we left out.

Ok, so we didn't leave out any cookies, but we still managed to start off what could have been one of the most stressful days of the year with an enjoyable exchange of gifts. Then both TLM and I went into full family-holiday-preparation mode, a process involving not only showering, shaving and getting ready to go out, but also preparing ourselves mentally for the socialization that lay ahead.

As opposed to what many of you many be inferring right now, this didn't have anything to do with mustering up enough patience to deal with an annoying relative or friend, but rather beating back the trepidation of us (ok, me) saying something stupid, incoherent, or (and this is my forté) entirely inappropriate to anyone during the course of the day. I think that save for a side conversation I had in front of my uncle's mother about a novelty book about "how to swear in every language", I did ok. Many others will not be able to say the same, I'm sure, before the day is done, and it is in recognition of such accomplishments of verbal tomfoolery that Wired has put out their 2007 Foot-in-Mouth Awards.

My personal runaway favorite from the list: James Watson of Watson and Crick DNA discovery fame:

James Watson, the co-discoverer of DNA, talked his way into retirement by telling a London newspaper that he feared for Africa because black people aren't as smart as whites.

Watson told The Sunday Times he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says, not really."

Why the foot-in-mouth award? After Watson resigned because of his comments, he went on to put online his fully sequenced genome (only the second person to do so). This genome was analyzed and, lo and behold, Mr. Watson was found to have 16 times the number of typically black genes than that of an average white European.

Whoops...apparently DNA = Did Not AskAboutHisGrandfather