Black Friday persists in 2010

No signs that the masses are catching on to the consumer sham that is Black Friday.



Then there's this perspective...



I like how she mentions football. Football is key to Black Friday's success. It preoccupies the men just long enough not to notice the damage being done until it's too late. In the future, every major holiday will revolve around spending sprees and football.

People seem to have yet to learn that Black Friday is just another way to dump the leftover inventory of stuff that everyone already has. This year, boys want Bey Blade and girls want Zoobles. Thanks to the maximum-hyped, forever ingrained in our culture clearance shopping spree known as Black Friday, they'll be getting Rise of Cobra and more Barbie, in what is becoming the new (corporate mandated) childhood tradition of "let-down" gifts. Move over, senile old aunt with the drug store toy aisle plastic, hello everyone else in the family with the Toy'R'Us two year old (two lifetimes already, by a child's recognition,)out of style, uncool "Door Buster"

On the other hand, why couldn't Black Friday be used as a convenient excuse for some urban camping? Obviously it's a heartier type doing this up north, but why couldn't some adventurous folk begin dismantling this whorish new tradition by actually using space in line as a legitimate campsite? There are probably some great uses for all the open space of a big box retailer parking lot whenever the store is closed. Just show up, set up your gear, interview with the news crew, then later, after hours, break out the booze. The next day the news crew is back to see you pack up and leave when everyone else is just starting to show up, and you've made an positive impression on the general populace, if not the corporations.

House (1977) vs. Deep Discount .com

I've seen a great many movies in my slowly diminishing life. I'm talking thousands of hours of film watching. Some great, some not so much. Some weird stuff, some shocking stuff, even some stuff that defies categorization.

Then there's "House"




"House" is the creation of Nobuhiko Obayashi, an art film guy from the sixties who was working in advertising when the offer came to direct a new kind of horror film. Boy did he ever! The movie is positively the most bizarre attempt at horror I've ever witnessed, utilizing virtually every known film making technique, and turning all horror cinema cliches inside out. It is so visually daring that keeping up with subtitles is next to impossible. So deranged is this film, that a synapses won't help much in describing it, suffice to say that it involves several 70's idols going to a haunted house and getting picked off one by one. Yet, that is is only a small part of what is going on in this film, which really must be seen to be appreciated or understood. It is so great, and Criterion did such a great job, that I hardly even mind that it took Deep Discount.Com over four weeks to ship it to me.

Seriously, Deep Discount, what is your problem? Everyone knows that shopping on said site can result in surprising shipping options, but who can complain when it's free? One week, two weeks, yes, that is all very much like it was expected in the twentieth century. But four and a half weeks? A scary (or completely bizarre) movie ordered a week before Halloween cannot rightly be expected in time for the party, but now it's almost Thanksgiving, and the horrific 'Ween sugar buzz has been replaced by frequent trips to the bike trail and bathroom scale. For the extra $4. it would've been worth going to amazon. You said it was in stock, Deep Discount!