Black Friday: A day of morning

Not being a person inclined to like either mornings or shopping, I frequently make fun of people who get up before the crack of dawn to shop on the day after Thanksgiving -- the busiest shopping day of the year. The scenes of mobs inside stores are what I imagine a post-apocalyptic world to be like -- except that instead of a Thunderdome, we'll have a mall.

But I like to abide by the general principle that you shouldn't knock something until you've tried it. (Exceptions include smoking, doing drugs and burying bodies in shallow graves.) I also figure it's one of the things that a person should experience at least once -- kind of like camping out for tickets to something.

So this year, I decided to join a couple of friends who have a tradition of getting up and hitting the stores at 5 a.m. This is us:


That look sums up exactly how I feel about being at Kohl's at 5 a.m.

But here's how the day broke down:

4:15 a.m.: I wake up after about 3 hours of sleep because I worked the night before.

4:20: I regret not being a coffee drinker.

4:45: I start driving to meet my friends at Kohl's, the first store on their hit list and one of several businesses opening at 5 a.m. that day.

4:50: I drive past Toys "R" Us. The parking lot is totally full. Surrounding parking lots are totally full. There is a line from the front door stretching around the building and out of sight. It is at this moment that I realize I have totally underestimated the phenomenon of Black Friday.

4:55: I pass the Best Buy. Parking lots across the street from Best Buy are full and people are streaming across the eight-lane street in crowds I have only seen the likes of before major sporting events.
I am so in over my head it's not even funny.

5:00: I drive past a Sears and see two people almost get run over because they ran in front of a car in the parking lot on their way into the store. I'm not even five minutes into this shopping excursion and I'm already this close to seeing blood spilled. Not a good sign.

5:05: I'm a little late to Kohl's, so the line that apparently had formed outside the store had dissipated. Using cell phones, my friends and I manage to find each other. We synchronize watches and plan to meet back up in 40 minutes. I am unsure if this is wise -- safety in numbers and all -- but then again, maybe I have a better chance of survival if I'm on my own and able to sneak around unnoticed. I venture out into the void of Kohl's. Alone.

5:40: By this time, I have found a belt (that's reversible -- who knew such things existed?!? It's black or it's brown! How great is that?!), bought Cranium for myself because it was on sale and a couple of other games as gifts for other people. There are two checkout areas -- each has a line that winds halfway around the store. I pick the one that looks marginally shorter and the wait begins.

6:25: After waiting for 45 minutes, I make it to the register. It's there that, while trying to write a check, I discover I don't have my driver's license. In fact, I haven't had it all week. The bar where I often play pool has had it since Monday night when I went there and gave them my license in exchange for a pool table. Apparently, they never gave it back and I never noticed. Oops. I pay by credit card and show her a couple of other things in my wallet with my name on them. It will be a recurring theme during the course of the day.


6:45: With all of our purchases in hand, we load into one car and head to Target. On the way, we pass a McDonald's. The sign makes two significant announcements, but one of them is missing a rather important "f":
"MCRIB IS BACK"
and
"HIRING ALL SHITS"

At Target, we hit the cheap DVDs, but there's not much else of interest. I mostly end up buying stuff like Kleenex that I had planned on buying the next time I was at Target.

From there, I sort of lose track of time, but we head to one of the big malls in the area and I end up buying mostly clothes. As long as I have the help of two female friends, I figure I may as well make use of their fashion expertise. I get a number of nice shirts, among a few other things. They also try to convince me how good-looking a guy is with a nice blazer. That may be the case, but if $250 is the price of bringing sexy back, it can just stay wherever the hell it is now. I do get a fair amount of things on sale, though, and I get a free ski hat that's normally $20. So woohoo for that.

By far, though, the best purchase of the day comes from the sporting goods store (I had admittedly scoped this out the day before in the ads and it's what first got me thinking about going shopping). I get a set of 500 poker chips, with two decks of cards and dice in a nice, metal carrying case.
Normal price: $120
Black Friday price (with coupon): $20

Boo-yah, baby.

From the mall, we head to Bed, Bath and Beyond and Michael's, but those stores hold no interest for me. (I spend most of my time in Michael's making the plastic dinosaurs battle the polar bears and other animals while I wait.)

After that, it's a tasty lunch at a barbecue place and we're done by about 11:30. I head home and grab about an hour and a half of sleep before heading in to work.

Surprisingly, with the exception of Kohl's, the crowds weren't that bad. There was a long line when we first got to Target, but by the time we were ready to check out, it was normal. The mall was busy, but no more than your typical weekend for the most part. I figure that everyone gets geared up for the few stores that open by 5 a.m. and so there are huge crowds and lines at those places early on, but after the rest of the stores open around 7 or so, the masses spread out enough that it's not too big of a deal.

So all in all, I can't say I really understand the joy of getting up at an unnatural hour of the morning to compete with other shoppers as opposed to just waiting a few more hours and then going out, but I wasn't desperate to get some hot item. I can't say the experience was that bad either, though.

That didn't stop me, however, when anyone later in the day asked me how it went, from giving them a haunted look while saying, "You can't believe the things I've seen ... the horrors ... oh, God, the horrors! ... OH THE HUMANITY!!!!" And then breaking into sobs.

Good times.

A musical interlude

Sure, we've just been giving thanks for all the things we're happy about in our lives. But we've all got complaints. Wouldn't it be great to vent those ... in song???

Well, then this week's cool clip is for you. It's the Helsinki Complaints Choir. It's not in English, obviously, but it's subtitled and still pretty darn funny, not too mention rather well-composed. There's also one from Birmingham (England, not Alabama) that you can find here.

And nix on the wishing for more wishbones

The day before Thanksgiving was filled with a nor'easter that hit the area, bringing enough rain and flooding to make one seriously consider gathering gopher wood and pairs of animals. I spent much of the afternoon on the phone trying to help a friend navigate her way to work amid the maze of impassable intersections. It took me about twice as long to get to work as normal, but nothing too terrible.

Thanksgiving, however, was much better. Things were beginning to dry out and I got together with a bunch of friends who were also in town -- most of them also working later that day -- and we had an excellent potluck meal with way more food than we could consume. (I made candied sweet potatoes and a corn casserole.) Most people think it's kind of a lousy deal to have to work holidays like many of us in the newspaper business have to do, and it is a bummer not to be able to travel and spend time with family, but the truth is, it's not so horrible. We look out for each other and create our own semblance of a family. It's one of the many things for which I'm thankful around Thanksgiving and Christmas.

And this year's meal featured synthetic wishbones. I didn't even know they made such things, but lo and behold they do. So we all paired up, made our wishes and pulled. I won my first wish and there was an extra wishbone, so we decided to have a wish-off. I challenged a guy who had simultaneously won TWO wishes (we had an odd number of people) in the first round, so I knew going in that I was up against a heavy challenge. No one else who had gotten the bigger half of the wishbone wanted to put their first wish at risk, so I stepped up.

We both grabbed an end of the wishbone and when the countdown ended, I pulled and ...
it slipped right out of the other guy's hand.

I'm pretty sure holding an entire wishbone doesn't really count as winning, so we went again.

I lost.

He won his third wish in a row. That's genie stuff right there. Of course, maybe one of his initial wishes had been to win the second round of wishing. Damn cheater.

I still have to look at the replay footage and photos to examine what happened. Maybe the placement of my grip was off. Or the angle of my wrist. There are a dozen possibilities.

If my life were a movie, this is where we would cut to a training montage -- me doing finger stretches and strengthening exercises, flexing my wrists, doing push-ups and pull-ups to improve upper body strength, sparring with wishbone after wishbone ...

Mark my words ... next year, I'll get my wish.

Gobble, gobble

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

As always, I have much to be thankful for, especially all of you. So thank you and have a wonderful holiday.

An Inconvenient Truth

If you haven't seen "An Inconvenient Truth" yet, it comes out on DVD today. I hadn't seen it until yesterday when I reviewed the DVD for the paper. I can sum up my reaction in three words:

SEE. THIS. MOVIE.

Even though the idea that global warming is real has pretty much taken hold now, not much is being done about it. It's depressing to see what we've done to our planet and the effects that we don't normally ever think about or witness, but as Al Gore points out, the ramifications of our actions will become more and more apparent in our lifetimes. But there is hope: Much can be done to reverse this trend -- all we lack is the will to do it. And even if we have little control over Congress (though we do have some), we can all take steps in our ordinary lives to help out.

It's not a matter of your political persuasion. This is our planet -- everyone's home. And it's everyone's responsibility.

And Al Gore? Forget what you know about the guy. The stiff, lifeless caricature of a political candidate isn't in this movie. He's persuasive, well-spoken and -- believe it or not -- funny. He makes a frickin' lecture full of graphs and charts interesting, for pete's sake!

So rent the movie, buy it, steal it (OK, don't really steal it), just get your hands on a copy and watch it. And then share it with your friends.

And if you want more information, check out www.climatecrisis.net.

"You must be the change you want to see in the world." -- Mahatma Gandhi

There and back again: A homeowner's tale

Last week, I squared away the loan pre-approval and such to begin my quest for home ownership. Next week, I and my real estate agent will begin the journey.

It will take us through many foreign lands (other neighborhoods), and we may face many dangers (dogs, toys left in the yard or around the house). I have already sensed the forces of evil (competing home buyers) gathering to hunt us down and stop us (hey, it's a competitive market), but we will elude them. And I will overcome any obstacles that are put in my path with the help of my fellowship (agent, home inspector, attorney, dwarf).

We will not be defeated.

Mark my words, I will finish this journey into the land of Mortgage, so that I can destroy (er, pay) the one rent -- my final rent -- the one rent to rule them all.

Classing up the joint a bit

My purchases for myself at this pottery and glass store at the mall from last night's excursion:

A raku vase (raku being a type of firing process for pottery that results in flashes of color, making each piece unique).

A vase for the bookshelf in my bedroom.

And a couple of mugs.

Your friendly neighborhood recommendations

This is the latest Spider-Man 3 trailer -- and it's awesome.

Also on my list of things I'd recommend lately:

"The Prestige" -- a great movie (with Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale for you ladies and Scarlett Johansson for the dudes) about dueling magicians. How can that not be cool?!?

"Stranger Than Fiction" -- like Jim Carrey in "The Truman Show" and "The Majestic" (an undervalued film), I find Will Ferrell more likable when he dials it back a little. It's a pretty sweet (as in touching, not like sweeeeeeettttttt) movie, and Maggie Gyllenhaal is her usual charming self.

Hinder -- The group's album "Extreme Behavior" is worth a listen, particularly if you're a fan of Nickelback (I believe they're touring together actually). You've probably heard their song "Lips of an Angel" on the radio. The rest of the album is good stuff, too.

Otherwise, I've mostly been playing video games and working lately, so not much to share. Although I did get a jump on my Christmas shopping tonight because the mall was doing one of those things where they stay open late and stores offer discounts and part of the proceeds go to charity. My other option for the evening's entertainment was the Kevin Federline concert, so yeah, I chose the mall.

Whew

When you work in the newspaper business, election night is a roller coaster ride. It starts with the excitement and anticipation of a big night, with everyone hanging out (and usually eating pizza). Then there's the anxiety and impatience as you wait for results. And finally there's the adrenaline rush as stories fly and updates come in and controlled chaos ensues -- particularly when you live in a state with a race that's still too close to call at 2 a.m.

And at the end, you feel like you just got hit by a semi.

You gotta love it.

My apologies

If the cool clip was cutting off before the end when you viewed it before, I think that should be fixed now. I'm not sure why it was doing that.

Speaking of apologies, I have an idea for my Halloween costume for next year: I'm going to dress up in a tux with an "I'm sorry" sticker on me and go as a formal apology.

Vote or die!

For those that might have been wondering, I reused a Halloween costume from a couple of years ago for last week's party and went as the Karate Kid. Good times. And it was nice not to have to walk around with crutches and bubble wrap on my foot.

No matter what your political persuasion, don't forget to vote Tuesday. Despite the message of the clip, I'll be at the polls on Election Day.

How else am I going to get a "Kiss me, I voted" sticker?