Black Friday

It's that time of year again... time for the commercial Christmas engines to rev up and roll over anything and everything. The warm-up has been underway since Halloween, of course... but the day after Thanksgiving is traditionally the Super-Bowl of sales.

My friend Zar is a perfect example of this. For the last few years now, he's stood in line at Best Buy for their after-turkey turkey sale. He always has an impressive list of items he's purchased, and been happy to gloat over how much money he's saved by standing in line, waiting for the store to open on Friday. This year, he got in line around midnight. The store opens at 6AM.

I live in southwest Michigan, USA. The weather in November varies from year to year, but it's generally cold (around 25-35 degrees -- which is about -3C to 2C), and quite often has the unique phenomenon known as Lake Effect snow. This year, we got about 5 inches last night.

What comes to mind each year, for me, is just what would *I* be willing to stand outdoors, in freezing weather, for six hours, to get? There are a small number of things that come to mind. A million dollars would work. This year, I think a good secure job that I could expect to keep for ten years... that would be worth it. A blowjob? No, I wouldn't be able to feel it anyways. Perhaps an entire weekend of sexual antics would be enough, although with my luck I'd end up with a flu and have to postpone it a month.

Seriously though, down to brass tacks. At a normal job in my field (assuming I could get one), I'd be earning about $15/hour ($30k/year, 40 hr/week). I'd be sitting at a desk, in a warm office, with a bathroom not too far away, and a coffee maker nearby. I could leave my desk to stretch, or wander about every so often without penalty. So, six hours of work would be about $90. If you want me to endure six hours of freezing weather, no bathroom, no beverages, and not much to do but watch the cars drive by.... I'd want at least double, probably triple that much. $270. Call it $300 just to keep things simple.

So, if I had been planning to spend around $2000, going to Black Friday would probably save me around $300-$400. Unfortunately, with that whole unemployment thing... I wouldn't want to spend $200. I'm thinking the $50 I probably would spend would only get me about $15 off... I'd stand in line for 20 minutes then.

But hey, that's me. Other people enjoy the thrill of the hunt. So, game on folks!

Harry Potter and the Jingle of Coinage

So, Miss Billionare Rowling got another $6 from me yesterday, and I don't begrudger her a bit. The Goblet of Fire was a very long book, and they had to leave out quite a bit to make a movie that wouldn't require an intermission. Still, 157 minutes was enough to present an action-packed movie that kept your interest and made you wish you hadn't gotten the large soda.

I was surprised that the movie didn't feel all that "dark" to me though. I mean, pretty much every reviewer was muttering about how scary a movie it was, and how you'd not want to take your kids to see it. I found a great deal of humor, and only a small amount of scary stuff. I did wish Emma Watson had gotten a little more screen time.... her character was much more important in the book, and it's a shame they couldn't find a few more moments for her to shine.

While it's going to be almost impossible for ANY of the Harry Potter movies to come close to the amazing presentation of the first one, none of them have been bad movies... and I'd have to say this is one of the few sequal franchises that has held up beyond the first few installments.

Go see it, you'll be happy you spend a couple hours watching it instead of just killing more critters in WoW.