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When Black Friday comes...

Okay, actually I'm going to deposit my paycheck (given to me Wednesday, but dated for today) and then Nick and I will be seeing Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which I've heard naught but good things about. (With the caveat, of course, that each review was from someone who wanted to go see a Harry Potter movie.)

Older son, Travis, is still up as we head for 4am (whereas I'd gotten several hours sleep, and will be heading back to bed shortly), playing games online. He tells me he knows he'll be dead asleep when we're getting ready to head out, so he'll not be attending Hogwort's today.

Black Friday, perhaps more than any other day of the holiday season (though the day after Christmas can be fairly horrible, too...) makes me happy that I left my last (so far) retail job behind in '88.

I've been an unofficial participant in Buy Nothing Day for years, but I can't claim it's through any political or social high-mindedness. I simply don't want anything out there so badly I'm willing to put up with the people. The Internet has happily made face-to-face shopping easier to avoid than ever.

To those stuck with dealing with customers today and throughout the holiday season, you have my sympathies. My best advice for dealing with it is to adopt the role of undercover anthropologist from an alien or future civilization. Sometimes keeping an emotional distance from the situation's the best tactic. One hundred years from now the bitches and bastards who task you today will be dead, and if it's any consolation some of them will have died horribly.

(The illo of seasonal angst at the top of the page was found in a collection of work by illustrator Steve Greenberg.)

Comments

Anonymous said…
CryptLeak and I saw the latest Harry Potter the day it came out. We went to an 11:00 a.m. show and the theater was nearly empty (just the way we like it).

While highly entertaining, in order to enjoy it you had to be familiar with the previous Harry Potter books/movies. And there were so many subplots it was a bit more shallow than previous movies in the series (but that's just my opinion). I know the book is just chock-full of plots/subplots/subsubplots that the movie just touches on them.

And I can't believe we got to a movie before you! That hasn't happened in a looooong time (if ever!).

Oh--the verification word was "jzabutt"; makes me think of "jazz butt" (kinda like jazz hands, just a little lower).
4:49 PM
Mike Norton said…
This wasn't the best timing for seeing it, of course, as the theater was close to packed with family groups and some parents who apparently drew the short straws on their block.

The movie was enjoyable and nearly transparent. I'd seen the earlier movies though my interest in the novels waned before reaching this one, but there was little to nothing enigmatic by movie's end. I'll write something up about it separately.
7:44 PM
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