black friday

Even though I'm not much of a consumerist type, I do get excited about the concept of deep discounts on stuff that I need to buy anyways. So, this Friday, I drafted my game plan - Staples, then Harbor Freight, then IKEA.

Susan woke up an hour earlier than me and headed to Macy's. At 6AM, I dragged Daisuke, who's staying with us, to the first stop in our journey. Staples was surprisingly organized and well-staffed. I've had no problem finding a wireless keyboard at $70 off that I was planning to give to my dad, so much so that I was beginning to debate the wisdom of waking up early.

But, there was no time for regrets. We had to get over to Harbor Freight, a hardware/tools store in a town close to Rhode Island. After a heck of a drive, we showed up to find the store almost completely devoid of people. They didn't have the exact item that I wanted, but I still ended up buying a pneumatic nailer/stapler that I've been dreaming about for a while now, and a roofing nail gun for the inevitable project that I'll be starting this summer.

Our last destination was IKEA, even if we had to take a detour around some other miscellaneous stores while we were waiting for it to open. About 200 people gathered outside the doors, with half of them gunning specifically for the $99 MALM bed. Luckily, things were quite orderly, and nobody got trampled (as happened at Walmart). Daisuke and I even went for the free breakfast that IKEA offered. I then found a nice bureau and took care of some kitchen-related business while we were there. Good times!

(driving through Woburn)
Susan: Why are all the houses on this street so crappy?
Stan: I dunno… maybe because they’re so close together? How about this for a solution to the housing crisis – they should demolish all the crappy houses, and plant nice trees in their place. That way, there will be less houses on the market, and the prices will stabilize.
Susan: What about the people in the crappy houses? Where would they go?
Stan: Hmmm. Maybe they should start demolition without giving an advance warning?
Susan: What if they think that our house is crappy?
Stan: Uh-oh.

moving on

Anyone involved in the Obama campaign knows just how efficiently it was run. Not a day went by without an email explaining a certain point, highlighting a negative attack by those bastard Republicans, and, oh by the way, asking for donations in the nicest way possible. Some PACs joined in, most noticeably MoveOn.org. I still remember when MoveOn did an online survey to figure out which Democratic candidate to support. When Obama won the contest, I knew things were looking good.

Anyhoo, with the election over, there is a feeling that we should do *something*, anything to make things better - keep the momentum alive and all that. So, the other day I went to a MoveOn meeting in my town. About a dozen folks gathered from all walks of life: a couple of retirees, some people my age, and a young guy who apparently lived in every red state and had enough of it. MoveOn is doing a campaign that seems lame on the surface but fits perfectly well under the mantra of "doing something" - they're collecting thousands of photographs of ordinary people holding up signs like "I stand with Obama on Clean Energy", and sending them to the Senate, to encourage lawmakers to fall in line with Obama's progressive agenda. Oh yeah, the same pictures will be posted all over DC on the Inauguration Day, which makes me want to visit even more.

u win, pal

Congratulations, PayPal. In the last eBay transaction, you finally succeeded in making me go through the payment process without letting me change the payment type. I know perfectly well that I don't want to draw from my checking account - just as I know that you, Pal of Pay, don't want to be hit with the credit card fees.

It's always amusing to see the powers of UX be used for something evil. That "change payment type" button has been moving farther and farther away from our field of focus over the years, changing colors to become less noticeable, until finally it disappeared altogether. Somewhere out there in Silicon Valley, the UX team is looking at the results of their A/B testing, and probably celebrating.

Booo.

tanked!

For anyone who's played the Tank game on Wii Play, you know that it's more addicting than meth. Guess what:

Susan and I beat it! Yup, we made it to level 20, where we had to fight an *invisible* tank. And we killed it! Word up.

congrats!

My brother passed the Bar Exam - awesome!!!

I'm off to commit some crimes, now that I have my legal representation lined up.

back from NYC

Susan doesn't get too many days off - and when she does, they're typically not of the weekend variety. So, when she managed to string together Friday AND Saturday, we jumped on that chance, and headed off to New York.

First, of course, we stopped by the outlets. For two hours. Great start.

Still, despite the fashion-related delays, we made it to NYC by around 5PM, and got a chance to catch up with Chris and Anne - in front of whose apartment we conveniently parked. Saturday morning we got some grrreat soup dumplings, and ran (literally, because the streets were jammed with traffic) to the "Phantom of the Opera". Oh yeah, we also stopped by my brother's new apartment, and met his amazingly obedient and surprisingly sweet dog, Mark:


"Phantom" was pretty good, and left us with enough time to enjoy a BBQ place in Brooklyn (Fette Sau, close to the Bedford Ave stop) and Karim's party in Midtown. Here was the kicker, though - Susan had to get back to work by 11AM on Sunday.

Ah yes. We ended up leaving Brooklyn at 5AM on the dot. By 8:10, we were pulling into our driveway. Don't ask me how I didn't get any tickets, I just wanted to get home before I fell asleep behind the wheel.

It's good to be back.

woo! hoo?

I've kept a checking account from my dot-com days (yes, NET Legion all the way), leaving twenty bucks there just in case. My bank still insists on sending me statements every month, which I rarely open. It's just hard to get excited about making $0.02 in interest.

Today, I happened to read the statement, and saw that my balance grew by over $1600. First, I thought this was the result of a favorable bank error - very sweet. Then, I thought that Obama's economic policies have kicked in even before inauguration - all right!

After a few minutes of elation, I looked at the total, and realized that the bank clerk must've added my deposit to the wrong account - the ATM wasn't working the other day, so I had to go to a live teller to drop off some checks. Crap.

OK, I can exhale now

What a tremendous victory. What a humble speech. What a moment of pride. Thank you, Barack, for making me remember what makes this country great.

knocking on every piece of wood I can find

Ohio? Pennsylvania? Michigan? Growing more and more optimistic.

VOTE!

Voted first thing in the morning today; now it's finger-crossing time.

booo

Quite fittingly, I've decorated the inside of our house with McCain/Palin posters for Halloween - couldn't think of anything that would scare my friends more. Quite ironically, the mother of one of the kids trick-or-treating at my house noticed.

Her: Wow, a fellow Republican!
Me: Ummmmmm, actually, those are our Halloween decorations...
Her: [sound of deflating air]
Her husband: [laughing hysterically at the whole thing]

I just want tomorrow to be over, for the good guys to win, and for this country to go back to what it was when I came.

F1 is over - long live F1!

Congratulations to Lewis Hamilton for becoming the youngest driver yet to win the Formula 1 championship. But boy, did it come down to a nail biter on the last lap in Brazil!

Sadly, I must now count the days until the next season starts...