Talk about Doorbusters. Well, they trampled a guy at the old Wal-Mart today. I think the surreal video of this is the one where a victim is being wheeled away, as many more people are leaving with carts filled with these huge boxes. Gotta get in that "Blitz Line", I guess. Last night at 8:30 as I was taking my Dad home, our local Best Buy had the line already wrapped around a side of the building, as some folks are now constructing a Best Buyville with tents. Urban camping, indeed.

Seems a bit ridiculous. I didn't really notice any outstanding sales at the brick-and-mortars for Black Friday. GPS seems to be the biggest thing in the ads, but hard to tell if these are the newest models, as I haven't had a crying need to get one. Today is always the day to buy memory though, if you need it. Everyone has really good deals on that. I usually get Kingston memory cards. They are cheaper and perform just as well, I think. Online, it was the much the same. Although, I got a great deal on a Canon digital camera from Newegg and cut more off with a promo code and got free shipping. I think the only other really good deals were at Amazon. The Kindle 2 would have been a big holiday item for them but that doesn't arrive until 2009. I know Wal-Mart had a Blu-Ray DVD player (Magnavox, maybe?) for $125, but Amazon actually had a Sony for around $200. That was cheap. They also had the Flip Video HD that just came out for around that same price. Of course, we'll hear how great business was today and by Monday, I'm sure we'll hear how bad it actually was.

Here's a video of a long line of traffic to go to an outlet mall in Oahu last night. Do they realize they are in Hawaii? I would think that's a daily bargain.



Meal of Links

Did the Cartoon Network kill "Rickrolling"? This would have worked much better if Rick Astley didn't have an NBC mike and Matt Lauer hadn't warned us about a surprise. They should have done it as a complete work.

Fantastic meal at my Uncle's yesterday as his wife treated the Single Losers Club to Thanksgiving dinner. And "The Godfather" marathon was on, so that's always a kick. We had butternut squash soup again. I rarely eat that, but my God, is that a great thing or what? I think we also had turkey, cranberries, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, biscuits, salad with garbanzo beans, corn souffle, a vegetable medley and desserts including pumpkin pie and a grilled pineapple with chocolate and mascarpone. There was also a caramel apple pie that entered the fray and looked outstanding, but I think I had enough for my coma already.

But the day started with the annual Turkey Day trek to the cinema, where a huge a crowd of six saw "Australia". This is the Baz Luhrmann epic and has quasi Oscar-nomination potential, I think. Simply because there is nothing like it this year. This is sort of a post-"The Big One" lesson during a few years of Australian history. It's kind of a Western with World War Two thrown in there, along with a look at aboriginal racism. I think it works, but it's not the movie they are selling in the ads (cue the Midnight Oil song). Hugh Jackman as "The Drover" and Nicole Kidman work well together and the kid who plays "Nullah" is terrific. And you get older Aussies like Bryan Brown and Jack Thompson, too. And "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" (I am tired of that classic. We get actual film, harmonica, singing and whistling versions here to poke at me.) and Oz play a role. It's got a certain old-fashioned flavor and the old coots in the academy may go for it, at least for directing and movie. But there are flaws. It takes a while to get the whole thing moving, the accents can be a problem, if you hate kids as narrators or kids that might rub you the wrong way this may not work (I still recall rooting for the trucks to go faster in "Pet Semetary" to get rid of that kid), Kidman still calls him "The Drover" and not by his name after they are living together (it would be like Kirsten Dunst calling Tobey Maguire "Spider-Man" all the time when he's in his street clothes) and there's certain leaps of faith you have to take. For instance, the movie's big turn is addressed in about 10 seconds almost off-screen, it seems, and you must trust the mystical powers of the aborigine. But there's enough action, comedy, romance and movie-star stuff in it and if you can survive 2 hours and 45 minutes, it's probably worth a walkabout to the movies.

Saw the trailer for Clint's "Gran Torino". Looks like that and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" arrive around Christmas. "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Milk" get here in two weeks. All of them have Oscar buzz.

Speaking of walkabouts, I was outside earlier and sure enough, if you look up, you can see it. With the clear sky tonight you could see Venus and Jupiter doing their thing, getting closer together. On Monday, the moon gets involved.

Exercise Yard

Rookie running back. Plays on 1-10 team. Leads team in fumbles, but practices touchdown dance.

Visitor

22 Across: Electromagnetism pioneer (6 letters) Answer: Ampere