Crazy Friday!

 I wasn’t crazy enough to go to any store the morning of Black Friday. I just don’t have the fortitude necessary to wake up that early and buy something. It’s dark for a reason. Of course, the lack of sunlight didn’t stop some people. I’ve read about people fighting over Timberland shoes and even people getting punched in the face trying to get INTO the stores, but this video really takes the cake. I’ve had the luck to have only been awake early enough for one Black Friday (last year when I was looking for a Wii) and even it wasn’t like this, I mean, come on people! Opening a door and walking into the mall civilized-like isn’t rocket science, there’s no need to act like cattle to get inside the mall and find your favorite store. The deals are there all morning and if you can’t find it between the hours of 6AM and 11AM then you can probably find it online somewhere just as cheap. Well, at least JCPenney gave away free Disney Snow Globes even though my mother-in-law didn’t get one because she got there 2 hours late.

 Mrs Fireshaper is a bit peeved at me today. She’s been wanting a Christmas tree since we moved in to the apartment and I’ve been putting it off because we haven’t had the money and I didn’t think we had the room to put it anywhere. Well today we went to Home Depot and they had a nice looking tree for $130, so after getting all the trimmings we made it out of the store and got home. I love to open boxes so when we got home I opened the tree and Mrs Fireshaper said she couldn’t believe how I always say we can’t do anything then we do it and I’m the first to start messing with whatever it is. I can’t help it, I’m a geek.

 [image is a still from the video, courtesy of the-consumerist]

23

Mrs Fireshaper and I watched a few movies this weekend but one of them really caught our attention and held it the entire time — The Number 23. I can’t say I’ve seen any movie where Jim Carrey is as crazy in the head as this one, but it was very entertaining and kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. Definitely two thumbs up from me and the missus.

As I was looking through Jim Carrey’s IMBd page I came across a movie in production that he will star in called “Yes Man.” The plot is simple, it’s a man who decides to say yes to everything and everyone, and it is based on the book by the same name. The author of the book is none other than Danny Wallace who also wrote “Join Me,” the story of how he put a simple ad in a London newspaper and what became of it.

I don’t think that “Yes Man” will be a “Sweeny Todd,” but it should definitely entertain.

Second Chance Offer?

How long do you wait to get paid for an item on eBay? I sold an item on Thursday night and still have yet to receive payment for it. Do you give them a few days, a week, over a week? I really don’t want to have to take away the item from the guy and send a Second Chance Offer out if he just doesn’t have access to a computer right now but I really need the money from the auction. I’ve already sent him an invoice and sent him a message through eBay. What do you guys do when you have an eBayer who doesn’t pay right away? 

Rockin’ out!!!

Well last night I talked Mrs Fireshaper into letting me get Guitar Hero 3 for my Wii, of course I had to promise that I would play it every day to get our $90 out of it but that is a small price to pay for the fun I will be having with it. We grabbed the last copy that Target had. We got home with the game and I immediately put it in and dove in head-first, not knowing a thing about Guitar Hero except that when the colors come falling down the fret you have to press a button and then “strum.” I’m no beginner when it comes to guitars, I’ve been playing for about 10 years now, so it was almost second nature and I had a short learning curve before I was singing along to Slow Ride and dancing to my wife’s lack of enjoyment.

Of course, Mrs Fireshaper got into it after a while and was singing and watching the dancers and rockers on stage with my character, and after I finished playing she took my guitar from me and proceeded to put the stickers that came in the box on it.

I had one problem with the guitar and I am currently doing some research on it, but when I try to use the joystick on the guitar the pointer on the screen just goes straight up, off the screen, and I can’t find it again. I had to take the remote out of the guitar to choose the game from the main menu and once it started I put it back in. I don’t know if the guitar is messed up or what, I hope it’s just a glitch that will fix itself.

And since I am a nut for open source apps, I already knew about Frets on Fire but I wanted to get a guitar for it instead of using the keyboard. Now that I have GH3 for the Wii I have the guitar and Honkey Kong has posted a GlovePIE script on his blog to use the Wii’s guitar on Frets on Fire! Now if someone would get a script for DarwiinRemote for the Mac…

Totino’s Pizzas

Throw away any Totino’s frozen pepperoni pizzas you have in your freezer or are heating up now. General Mills is recalling more than 120 million pizzas that have been distributed since July 2007 that were produced at their Wellston, Ohio plant. If you have any of the following items, dispose of them immediately and do NOT eat them:

*Totino’s Original Crisp Crust Party Pizza, Pepperoni, 10.2 oz.
*Totino’s Original Crisp Crust Party Pizza, Classic Pepperoni, 10.2 oz.
*Totino’s Original Crisp Crust Party Pizza, Pepperoni Trio, 10.2 oz.
*Totino’s Original Crisp Crust Party Pizza, Three Meat Sausage, Canadian Style Bacon & Pepperoni, 10.5 oz.
*Totino’s Original Crisp Crust Party Pizza, Combination Sausage & Pepperoni, 10.7 oz.
*Totino’s Original Crisp Crust Party Pizza, Supreme Sausage & Pepperoni with Green Peppers & Onions, 10.9 oz.
*Jeno’s Crisp ‘n Tasty Pizza, Pepperoni, 6.8 oz.
*Jeno’s Crisp ‘n Tasty Pizza, Combination Sausage and Pepperoni, 7.0 oz.
*Jeno’s Crisp ‘n Tasty Pizza, Supreme Sausage and Pepperoni With Green Peppers and Onion, 7.2 oz.

Consumers can contact Totino’s / Jeno’s for product replacement by clipping the UPC (bar code) symbol from each pizza box and sending their UPC’s, along with their name and address to:

Totino’s / Jeno’s
P.O. Box 200 – Pizza
Minneapolis, MN 55440-0200

The product itself should be thrown away. Consumers with additional questions about the recall should contact the company at (800) 949-9055.

If you would like more information about E. Coli, you can read about it at the CDC’s website or at Wikipedia.

The countdown to Thanksgi.. Christmas!

Happy November 1st! The post-Halloween sugar rush should be gone by now and it’s about time to crash.  I know this morning I didn’t want to wake up but I have to make the money somehow.

Mrs Fireshaper and I went grocery shopping last night and bought a bag of various candies to give out, not really know what to expect from the apartment complex in regards to kids going trick-or-treating, but we wanted to be prepared anyway. Everyone I spoke to about it said that there weren’t many kids and that they hadn’t ever had anyone coming to their door, but we were troopers. We poured the candy in a bowl, ate supper, and waited… and waited… and finally around 10 pm we decided that there would be no trick-or-treaters so we started eating the candy. Not one kid showed up.

But now that Halloween is over, it’s time to start getting ready for Thanksgiving! I love Thanksgiving — the food, the family, the friends, the food… yeah…. especially the food. Also I can’t wait for the excitement that the kids get when Thanksgiving comes and they are thinking about Christmas. Christmas is less than 2 months away after all, and before you know it we will be together again to celebrate with MORE FOOD!

Apparently, though, Wal-Mart has got their holidays messed up because they are going to have Black Friday tomorrow. That’s right, they put the ad online today and tomorrow the sale begins and ends. So far, no other stores have followed in Wal-Mart’s footsteps, and I don’t blame them. I wonder how many people will actually know Black Friday is tomorrow in the Wally World, and how good Wal-Mart will do, sales-wise.