doodledee

It was a good weekend. Good food, good times, good deals. Except for the family wide stomach flu that took us all hostage on Sunday. That part sucked. Kottke, if you're reading this, please come to my house for a make-up concert when you get a free weekend. Thanks.

As I see it, the shopping frenzy that erupts every year the day after Thanskgiving neatly divides the nation into two groups of people. First there are the deal hunting maniacs who stay up all night reading fatwallet, building shopping lists, and waiting in ridiculously long pre-dawn lines in the hopes that they, too, may get a piece of The Doorbuster bonanza. Then there are the people who sit back and count the days until the "the doomsday economy, the marketing mind-games, and the frantic consumer-binge that's become our culture" finally does us all in. And that's it - those are the only two types of people.

Except for me. I fall kind of in the middle. For as much as I can get worked up about the gross-out consumerism that defines our very being as Americans, I also can't resist the cultural implications of missing out on the kind of scene where people are actually trampled in the name of a $24 DVD player. Which is why I don't get up at 2am to go wait in line, but I do go out at 7:30 and people watch and try and grab a few deals.

The crowds were big everywhere I went. Not monster huge, but plenty big. Also, perhaps non-related, like 80% of the cars in the parking lots had those 'support our troops' yellow ribbon magnets on them. Seriously, like 80%. When did that happen? I've noticed a few on the freeways in the mornings, but nothing like what I saw at Apache Mall and/or other various strip enterprises in Rochester.

All the ribbons got me to wonderin': Why on cars? Is it somehow better than putting a yellow ribbon on your shirt or jacket and parading your troop-love right next to your face? Maybe a little more anonymity means you can tell me how you really feel? Seems odd. And another thing: who out there is anti-troops? Is anybody? All this 'support our troops' stuff just feels like some sort of massive overcompensation by the Boomers for spitting on the baby killers coming back from Vietnam. Kudos on the effort, I guess, but it still feels creepy.

Ok, anyway, back to the shopping. Because I was hours behind the flashmobs, I pretty much got blanked on everything, but I did manage to pick up a couple of things on uber sale from Best Buy (file under: devil customer). When my rebates arrive in 8-12 weeks I'll be living large with super cheap reasonably high grade battery backup in the basement for my server. Until then, however, I'll be overpaying for a black box that I don't expect to use that much. Funny how that works.

Getting a drop on time to shop [strib]
Buy Nothing Day [adbusters] - but the deals man, the deals!

Work has been busy. Here's some stuff I've done, though.

• Watched an awesome Frontline. My fake Tivo screwed up and didn't record it so I had to watch all 90 minutes of it online via Windows Media Player. Yuck.
• Got in an argument with some conspiracy minded Deadhead buddies of mine about the ballot numbers from a county in Ohio. A couple of wacko websites had picked up on the numbers because the 'ballots cast' totals were way higher than the number of registered voters in each precinct. My buddies were convinced that 90,000 'mystery votes' had somehow been cast for Bush. Willing to think for myself, I just called the number on the county in question's website and asked Kathy the Election Lady to clear it up for me, which she totally did. She also took down my first name and the state I was calling from. She'd been getting lots of calls and was having fun keeping track of how far and fast the controversy was spreading. (Related: Vote Fraud Theories, Spread by Blogs, Are Quickly Buried [nyt])
• Lost a game of Scrabble to Libby. Like by 200 points. It's was horrible. She got a bingo (I-N-S-T-E-A-D) on like her second play. At one point I had 4 I's 2 U's and an E. Ouch.
• Refused to be sucked into LostEdinaDog-gate, a story that dominated both the front and letters pages of the Strib for the last week or so. Hey rubes, did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, the Strib runs a "rich prick from Edina loses expensive dog" story on the front page just to generate buzz? Because it seems pretty obvious to me. So spare me your Edina bashing and have a look in the mirror, because that's where the real joke is. (Related: $1,600 Edina dog returned to owners [duluthsup] Thanks for the follow up!)
• Ate two Tex-Mex breakfasts in less than 7 days. Ohhhh yeah. That'salotta harshbrowns.
• Started another season of soccer. I've pretty much atrophied in the 5 weeks since outdoor season ended so after our first game I had to walk very slowly to my car, focusing with all my might on trying not to barf. Then I had a bagel and I felt better.
• Relaxed at our dining room table, read the Sunday paper and watched the neighbor lady sweep her leaves into our yard. (She did it last year, too.) After watching her for 15 minutes I just got up and went outside and fiddled in the garage to guilt her into quitting. It worked, but seriously, who does that stuff?

• Grab your blades, bike, or sneakers and head over to informal celebration marking the opening of the latest leg of the Minneapolis Midtown Greenway. So much asphalt, so little time. Especially now that winter is basically here. Hmm. [Nov6]
• Stand in line for rush tickets and try and catch the Guthrie's production of Pygmalion. It's the final weekend for the show the Star Tribune called "deliciously splendid" and I called "a little too talky, but still pretty good." [thru Nov7]
• Go see local rock legend Paul Westerberg do his thing over three big nights at the Pantages Theater. That's right, three nights, coming only a week after the recent reunion of Husker Du . Attention trend watchers: mid-80's Minneapolis rockers are hot, hot, hizzle hot. [thru Nov7]
• I think it's legal to kill deer again for a while. Tally-ho.

Well, it's here. In 24 hours we'll only be 10 weeks of court cases and a couple of riots away from knowing who our next president will be. And let me be the first to say thank god it's over. I am so sick of the whining and the complaining and the "he's worse than Hitler"-ing. I'm sick of the doofs on bridges holding signs and waving and causing traffic to back up. I'm sick of the yard signs. I'm sick of the commercials and the junk mail and the phone calls. I'm sick of the celebrity endorsements and the same old stump speeches at rally after rally. I'm sick of pretty much all of it.

But don't get me wrong, I obviously kind of like it, too. Enough so that the scenario where the election ends in an electoral college tie - which, according to current estimates, would result in a Bush/Edwards White House come January – is something I'm not necessarily rooting against. On one had it'd freak a lot of people out, which would make for some good national drama, but on the other it might actually force the two parties to work together and save Democracy. At least until cable TV, talk radio and the internet finish their job of killing it off, that is.

So bring on the next chapter. I'm ready for the legal battles and the accusations of cheating and the overuse of the word 'disenfranchisement'. I'm ready for the recounts and the re-recounts. I'm ready for the lost ballots. I'm ready for the controversy. I'm ready for all of it.

Oh, and that sound you hear is the thunder of a million bloggers at a million keyboards frantically typing out a million last minute election-related entries full of not-so-intellectual observations and lame witticisms. They do this out of fear that come Wednesday they'll be back where they were in May, left with nothing to talk about except their cats and how boring their jobs are. I can't decide if that's better or worse than the uninspired political commentary we're subjected to now.

I gotta get a cat.

Find your polling place [mypollingplace]