Happy belated Thanksgiving to all of our US members! I hope you all had a good time with friends and family. I also hope you didn't eat too much. It seems like overeating is as much a part of Thanksgiving as, well, being thankful. Anyway, we had a nice Thanksgiving here and are now enjoying the day after off. It was also my birthday yesterday. I was enjoying the whole thing so much I didn't even remember that it was Friday! I have been totally thrown off of what day of the week it is since I was in a conference over the weekend and it felt like work and with the holiday, it's been a little confusing.

So it's the day after Thanksgiving and here in the US it's a huge shopping day. Black Friday, as it has been come to be known, is sort of the first official day of Christmas shopping and the start of black days for retailers. Today is supposed to be a day of ridiculous sales too, with people lining up outside of certain stores as early as 3:00 am and in the case of some stores that opted to open right when it turned 11/24, midnight. It's crazy. Last year I got stupid and went out to line up outside of Circuit City at 3:00 am. It was dark, cold, and boring but something I felt like I needed to do. I didn't bother sleeping and just stayed up until I went to the store. There were some good deals and I did get a couple of things but this year there wasn't much out there. Last year the big thing was sub-$400 laptops and even though I was there at 3:00 am, they gave out vouchers and the 15 or so they had were gone very quickly. The stores usually have a few loss leaders just to get bodies in the store but the "sales" were not really sales. For instance, Best (Worst) Buy and Circuit City were advertising 4GB iPod nanos at $199 with a $25 gift card or some free iTunes. You can get a 4GB nano for $199 any day of the week and without lining up! Thus begins the silly season of so called sales and savings. After all, isn't that what Christmas is all about???

Last week "Comic Relief 2006" was held in Las Vegas to benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina. It's pretty amazing to think that "Comic Relief" is 20 years old. The show was over three hours long and featured some big name comedians. It was hosted by Robin "Sasquatch" Williams, Whoopi "Where Are My Eyebrows" Goldberg, and Billy "My Giant" Crystal. The wife and I were watching it and enjoying some of the comedians but we started to notice that the event wasn't really about raising money for Katrina victims. Of course it was also about publicity and exposure for celebs but it became disgustingly clear that the event should have been called "Comic Bush Bash 2006" instead. Many of the comedians and the hosts themselves spent an inordinate amount of time bashing President Bush, boasting about the recent election results, and generally railing against current administration. Okay, I understand that certain things are topical like the elections but when Billy Crystal did a 10 minute long monologue in the character of an elderly New Orleans jazz musician and the entire gist of it was blaming President Bush for the disaster, that was too much for me and I turned it off. Obviously my politics are right of center but it was offensive to me that an event that was intended to raise awareness and money for the victims of a natural disaster got turned into a platform for the likes of Rosie O'Donnell to go off on politics. I can't describe it but it was not "where there's laughter, there is hope" as they advertised. There was so much blaming and fingerpointing in place of comedy. Billy Crystal's monologue was just a rant about how President Bush failed New Orleans. I don't think that is the case but in any event, how is that productive now and how does playing the blame game help raise money and help the victims? To add insult to injury, the show wasn't even funny. Dane Cook was pretty funny though and he did not get into politics. The show is currently being replayed on HBO, for better or worse.

In honor of US Thanksgiving, a story about turkeys gettin' out of Dodge. I don't have a drinking problem your honor. I swear. Who says drunks aren't responsible? This guy was trying. Remember the "Public Enemy" song "911 is a joke"? Well the joke's on these morons. Speaking of morons, here are two for the price of one. You get another female teacher molesting a male student and lawyer talking out of his arse. For the men who like recliners, La-Z-Boys in particular, here's another reason to love them. This is so stupid it's frightening. Someone castrate this guy immediately. This guy's penis enlargement was the bomb. Finally, some X5 related news. Remember David Beckham getting his X5 stolen? (The first or second time, I can't tell.) They found it! You might want to check the Carfax on it though.

Have a great weekend everyone!

__________________