Black Friday

So tomorrow is "Black Friday" here in America, the day when stores get people to line up outside in the cold and rain for 12 hours before opening at 5:00am, lured by the chance to get one of the six combination beer cooler / battery chargers that the store has discounted at 30% off. Holy hell people, now you can enjoy a cool and tasty beer while you're watching your batteries recharge! And for 30% off!!! They're not messing around...and if store happens to sell out of the best deals before you even come close to getting inside, well, you've already put in all that effort so you may as well drop a few hundred bucks on other stuff that you don't really need or even want, right? Maybe someone will get you The Beercoolercharger for Christmas. Anyway, Black Friday is kind of like the Boxing Day sales in Canada except every year a few old/sick people get trampled to death and there's at least one shooting.

"Step off muthafucka, that be MY commemorative Lindsey Lohan action figure, fo shizzle!"

All of the forthcoming awesomeness got me to thinking, what would a thoughtful constituent pick up tomorrow for his or her probably-unseated Republican senator or congressman? I'd like to make the following suggestions, which are actual sale items for tomorrow. Happy shopping, red states!

1. Garth Brooks special edition DVD set - $15. Now your depressed former representative can find solace in catchy (and appropriate) tunes like "Friends in Low Places", "Unanswered Prayers", and "Why Ain't I Running?" Just keep Mark Foley away from "To Make You Feel My Love"...I think the underage male congressional pages would appreciate it.

2. Nerf Showtime! Hoops - $99.96. Remember when senior Republican officials commented that the case for Iraq having weapons of mass destruction was a "slam dunk?" Well now they can dream up all the imaginary slam dunks they want, Nerf style! As an added bonus, a fantasy-world Showtime! Hoops slam dunk won't result in the deployment of a single infantry division! Neat!

3. Magellan RoadMate 3000T GPS System - $399.99. So you lost your seat to the Democrats...luckily there are still PLENTY of inbred Confederate-flag-waving hillbilly slack-jawed yokels in this country who will vote for you, no matter how many laws you push that will keep them poor and stupid, because you've got the right "values" or whatever. But how do you find the states filled with people like this? With a GPS system for your Cadillac! That's right, now all of the Republicans from moderate states can easily navigate their way to Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas to prepare for the 2010 elections. And if the batteries in the GPS die, they can just follow the smell of fried Twinkies.

4. Ice Age: The Meltdown - $9.99. Need something to pass the time now that your days aren't filled with lowering taxes for the wealthiest 1% of the population? Watch this hilarious fictional cartoon! It's great because it's so unbelievable and not rooted in science! I mean, the idea that the climate could change, causing undpredictable effects and altering many aspects of life on the planet...that's the funniest and most obviously not real thing ever! Hahaha! Oil is awesome.

5. Girl Crush Lip Gloss Potion - $13.99. One major reason for the implosion of Republican support this year was a mass migration of female voters back to the Democrats...if only there were a way to win them back. Hmmm, what do women love...well, there's lip gloss...yeah, now if only there were a way to create your own lip gloss, designed to appeal to the female voting segment. If only there were...a POTION! Yes! This is it! The way to win back power. And for only $13.99 your local Republican could buy it for himself, even though he's probably lost all of his rich lobbyist friends by this point.

Anyone else have any ideas?

Good = Not Bad

There are some days when it seems like all is lost in the world. There are days when your milk has gone bad, even though it's 5 days before the expiry date, and you just need a little tiny bit to make scrambled eggs. There are days when the secretary and her gang of South Boston facilities friends make popcorn in the microwave and the whole office ends up smelling like chemical butter flavour. There are days when you realize that said chemical butter flavour causes lung cancer in chemical butter flavour factory employees, much like asbestos or smoking or living in Michigan. There are days when your lab head tells you to spend 10 hours machining a bunch of parts because "$40 is way too much to pay for them commercially." There are days when you want to put up signs in the washroom that say "if you can't figure out how to piss in the urinal or crap in the toiler or flush either of the above, maybe you shouldn't be at this school." There are even days, my friends, when you run out of tape in your labeller and can't label anything...ANYTHING. Imagine unlabelled lasers. The horror.

Today was not such a day.

Today the 2006 mid-term election in the United States of America officially concluded with the Republican incumbent senator from Virginia conceding defeat to his Democratic challenger. With this sad little whimper, six years of total domination by the right wing in this country has ended. There were no legal challenged (well, yet), no angry allegations of voter fraud, no backdoor maneuverings to stop recounts, no rejecting of ballots because someone kinda looked like they might have been a criminal once maybe. The Republicans knew that they were finished, that the public here has had enough, and that it's time to pay the piper.

Days like today can reaffirm your faith in people...you can believe that people do still think for themselves, that given enough time they will see through the lies, and that given enough suicide camel bombings they will question the policies they've been supporting since 2003. Maybe this is the start of something bigger...maybe people will wake up to the urgent need to address the ways that we produce energy. Maybe people will start questioning the wisdom of preaching tolerance and understanding for beliefs that go against all of the freedoms and liberties that Western culture has spent the past 500 years building up. Maybe people will start walking their dogs twice a day, because hey, dogs like it. Or maybe this is where it will end...either way, the world is a better place than it was 48 hours ago, and whenever you can say that you gotta grab the opportunity.