Am I weird for going out at 6:30am on Black Friday to watch people claw over each other for shitty cheap televisions and vacuum cleaners? (Wal-Mart)
How about going to the one store just to marvel at the checkout line snaking to the back of the store, making a turn and meeting up with the other checkout line from the other side of the store? I have to admit that was impressive. (Kohl’s)
I didn’t buy a damn thing at the places I went to on Black Friday, and really didn’t have any intention to. I pretty much only went to see what dumbasses look like in their natural habitats.
The truth is, for as much as the economy supposedly sucks there sure as hell were A LOT of people not having any qualms over charging up a storm for bullshit merchandise, and many people had stuff piled up so high they needed ground guides to maneuver their buggies.
I wonder what’s going to happen when the bill comes due for all the shit they bought though. When you buy a bunch of a crap on credit during Black Friday because you think you’re getting a deal is it really anyone else’s fault when you realize you charged way more than you can afford when the bill comes due?
Who am I kidding? Of course it’s someone else’s fault. If Wal-Mart wouldn’t advertise their shit for such low prices you wouldn’t be enticed to go there at 5:00am to buy it, right? And trample over suckers to get at it.
There’s a guy I know who always does what he can to let you know he has nicer things than you, a prettier wife than you, smarter kids than you, more brains than you, a better job than you, etc. An always-gotta-be-the-smartest-guy-in-the-room type. And he does his passive aggressive looking down his nose at you in a way where you can tell he’s just trying to be humble or low-key and friendly, but you never not get the undertone that he just “knows” he’s better and has more advantages in life than you.
We were talking football and I told him that I have tickets to the 12/28 Ravens/Jaguars game. I’m taking my kid there for his birthday and I mentioned that I’m hopeful it’ll be a meaningful game (it may be for the Ravens but most likely not for the Jags). Dude said that he has tickets tot he 12/7 Ravens/Redskins game, and of course he had to let me know that game will most likely be a huge game for the Ravens and should be very exciting. He couldn’t let that go.
Turns out the Ravens/Redskins game is getting “flexed,” so instead of it being a 1:00pm game out in the sun it’s going to be an 8:15pm night game, where it’ll not only likely be nut-shrivelling cold sitting in the stands, but it’ll also be on a work night and he probably won’t get home until close to 1:00am.
He’s pissed and whining. I’m sitting back watching him lose his shit and smiling. Sucker.
Facebook is fucking me up. I’m not lying. There I was, with my 20 or so Facebook friends, of whom maybe 3 or 4 are actual, real-life friends, minding my own business when I got a friend request out of the blue. It was from a chick who was my neighbor until I was 17. Since 1987 I’ve talked to her exactly zero times. I haven’t seen her, don’t know anything about her, what she became, nothing. But there was that request.
I found myself suffering what I’ve coined the “Facebook Friend Paradox.” I was intrigued by the idea of getting to know this (now) stranger and making her my Facebook friend, but at the same time I don’t really know this chick from Adam (or Eve in this case), so why would I want to be Facebook friends with her? Maybe I’m too old to get to get the spirit of online social networking, but I generally like to think of my online friends translating to be real-life friends, which if this gal was really a friend she’d already be there because we’d have been in touch over the last 20 years.
At any rate, I approved her friend request and sent her a note to say hey. Never heard anything back from her about that. I have received a shitload of invitations to join stupid groups with her though.
However, she’s friends with an assload of people who I used to know in high school and such. They saw she became friends with me I guess and a bunch of them have sent me friend requests. It’s the weirdest goddamn thing ever. All these people I’ve been out of touch with forever are suddenly back in touch. And they mostly look older than fuck (I, on the other hand, look fantastic and young). But now I’m getting Facebook offering “People You May Know” friend suggestions and there are old girlfriends, girls I wish were my girlfriends, dudes I hated, fellas I got high with back in the day, everything popping up on my Facebook page.
I ran into a girl I knew from high school over the summer and she told me about the 20th reunion being organized and asked if I was interested in attending. I told her I wasn’t. But now it seems that Facebook has forced that reunion upon me.
Except without seeing that one nerd chick who turned into a whore get drunk and throw up all over everything. That would have been great.
Here are some fun facts, questions and observations of no significance:
I can’t decide whether Summer Heights High is brilliant or the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen (next to Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, which nothing can ever be stupider than). Realizing that Ja’mie and Mr. G. are basically the same character (I know they’re played by the same person… that’s not what I’m talking about) makes me lean toward the latter.
Whatever happened to Matt Leinart? Too much of this, I guess:
Stolen from Credit to some site somewhere… can’t remember which one.
But to lose your status as The Next Great Thing and Savior Of The Franchise to Kurt Freakin Warner, he of the jesus freakedness, washed upedness and psychotic wifeness, is really really telling of how much of a loser you turned out to be. He sure had it good while he was on top though, that’s for sure.
My right thigh is bigger than my left thigh. If we were talking about hands, wrists, and/or forearms it’d make sense than my right was larger than my left, but I have no idea how it happened to my leg.
I know Tom Cruise is even more scarily psychotic than Kurt Warner’s wife, and I can’t look at him — even as a character in a movie — and not think about what a nutjob Xenu believing, Katie Holmes zombifying maniac he is, but Valkyrie looks like a movie I’d want to see. It’s interesting how Valkyrie is being promoted though. The trailer goes to pains to explain the story is good, even if crazy Cruise is playing the lead.
My Christmas travel plans are thus: Drive to upstate New York on 12/23 (with a trip back down to NYC while I’m up there); come back to Baltimore the evening of 12/27, attend the Ravens/Jaguars game on 12/28 for my kid’s birthday (hopefully it’ll be a meaningful game); drive down to Williamsburg, VA on 12/29 to spend a few days (including New Year’s Eve) at the Great Wolf Lodge; come home. It boils down to at least 17 hours in a van with two kids (maybe three on the VA leg of the trip) who can’t sit still for 10 minutes. Should be fun and relaxing.
I am now able to fill the gas tank in my car (not the van) for under $20. I have no incentive to not drive my ass off. And with the flipping out OPEC nations promising to drop production by 1,000,000 barrels a day to try to jack the price of oil back up that just means there’ll be more oil to tap when the next crisis hits. Suck it enviro-freaks! And especially suck it Iran and Venezuela, who need $90/barrel oil prices to balance their budgets and support anti-USA activities.
