My Existence

This year was the first time I participated in the American tradition of “Black Friday.” BestBuy was advertising ATi 512MB x1600 Pro’s for $99.99, a drop in price of over $100.  Great deal.  They were also advertising Seagate 250GB HDDs for $59.99, a drop in price of over $70.  Another great deal.  I ended up picking up both.

When I originally got to the parking lot, it was of course an absolute mad house.  At 0525, when I first drove by the end of the line was from the main entrance to the corner of the building, but was moving forward slowly.  So I wouldn’t have been surprised to have seen it wrap around the building before the doors opened, the corner of the building was at least 70 feet away at this time.  It took me barely three minutes to find a parking spot.  I have such great luck with that, always have.  I can pull into the mall at any time during holiday season and have a parking spot in minutes.  Other people drive around for a lot longer before they get one.

So I get to the back of the line, which is now maybe 80 feet from the corner of the building and start inching towards the doors.  About five minutes later I am the second person in line and I can peek inside….you see nothing but one huge jumbled mass of bodies moving.  One BB employee is standing on the security counter( OSHA anyone? ) trying to guesstimate how many more people to let in.  He turns around to the door and says “Let another 20 people in, then no more for at least 10-15 minutes”  My luck was certainly going good today.

So as I am walking through the double door entrance, I am thinking to myself..they all gotta be gone, it is is just past 0530, they all gotta be gone.  I start walking towards the Computer section and see a table with a number of people around it.  On the table I see the video cards, both AGP and PCI-e.  Right next to the hard drivers.  A quite a number of everything.  My luck is still holding it seems.  I scamper on over, snatch up both a video card and a HDD, and start looking for the DVDs they had advertised.  100 pack of DVDs for 4.99.  Not in sight, so I glide on over to the media section, not five feet away and there are none left anywhere.  Annoyed, cause that was the best deal out of everything I wanted, I start towards the register knowing to get in line ASAP and bump into an employee who I know from being in there so much.  I ask him about the DVDs and he says they had 100 of them, but they went fast.  I asked if there was any limit on per person and he says nope, and I say “Ah.” and he was like “Yup.”

So a few people prolly bought like five or ten bundles at a time, what a bummer.  I know that while I was in line, I saw a few people carrying two or three of them.  Speaking of the line here is my quick drawing of it!  I got in line when it was only four or five lines deep.  By the time I reached the last straight away towards the beginning of it, the line was half-way down the length of the building, snaking through Appliances, Washers, Driers, and just reaching Car Audio.  It was a LONG line.  Took about 20 minutes for me to be checked out, and I was at work at 0607.

So, my first foray into the big bag beast of Black Friday, and I got almost all that I wanted.  Not complaining anyways, my car wasn’t hit, I wasn’t run over nor was I shot or stabbed…gotta call that a good day!  Anyways, off to install my new HDD and video card.  Was thinking of selling one or both items on ebay, but the HDD and card, just aren’t selling…can’t imagine why! 

I have a long standing rule of having never, and will never buy flowers - for anyone.  I can see picking them for a special someone, but I will not spent money on something that dies, or is FAKE!  My girlfriend knows this, and of course isn’t happy with it because she wants flowers.  Apparently, the single act of buying a female flowers means you love them.  So I could buy flowers, and while handing them to her say “I don’t love you.” and be all set, right?

My question:  Why?  What exactly do flowers do other than sit there, smell nice *only* when extremely close, and then die in a very short while?  I am told by many ladies, that it is the thought that counts.  Well, then how come I can’t just think it and be done with it?  Obviously, it is NOT just the thought that counts or I could very easily say “I thought about getting you flowers today.”

That of course, wouldn’t go over well, because it isn’t just the thought that counts.  I got flowers from work yesterday, anytime there is a destroy order on a package, it usually gets opened and if there is something inside people want, they are allowed to take it in most cases.  Well, yesterday one of those came through for an order of flowers.  I asked if I could have a few for my girlfriend, was told yes.  I won’t buy them, but I am not opposed to getting some free ones.

Bring them into her, and what do I get?  Not a thank you, or a hug, or anything showing appreciation or gratitude, but a “Where did you get those from, someone else?”  I stand there for a moment, sigh my famous sigh and simply say “You know, pretty soon you are going to be living on the streets.” I walk over to the sink, crush the flowers in my hand and let them sit in the sink.

A few minutes later I am in my room, I hear the sink turning on and she is doing some dishes and offering to make me dinner.  Funny how the need to threaten her gets her motivated into doing SOMETHING other than sitting there playing video games or watching movies.  I don’t mind supporting her, but when I come home I don’t want to be bothered by having to take out the trash or doing any dishes, or nothing.

And I certainly don’t want that kind of attitude or response from her when I do something nice for her.  At the rate I get accused of being with other ladies, I may as well be so I’m not missing out on any fun in the meantime.  Cause I sure as hell am not getting anything from her.

News release found http://yhbt.mine.nu/pr/13, in which Dattebayo( DB ) is refusing to release their latest subtitled episode of the hugely popular Naruto anime series unless another anime they sub reached 50,000 unique downloads, citing the need to improve end of quarter earnings.  So…they make money on downloading of their subtitled episodes…interesting fact a whole lot of people just learned about them.

I find it amusing though, that they would present their ultimatum in the fashion in which they did, because that’s just what it is..a damn ultimatum!  The anime series they want people to download, has only once reached a total of just over 33,000 downloads..adding in all the other episodes released by them will give you a number barely over 60,000!

How does DB believe 50K unique downloads are going to happen on an anime that sucks?  The only information I could find on it was in japanese of course, so why would any non-reading / speaking japanese person have any incentive to download it when they don’t even know what it is about?  And then, why would they want to download an episode of an anime they haven’t seen before, with said episode not the first?

I don’t know what DB thinks they are doing, but a lot of people are going to be upset about this( like myself ) and will just find alternate sources.  There use to be other groups that would sub Naruto when it came out, but DB was the best so the other groups kinda caved and just gave in…maybe some will start returning now.

I hope so anyways, cause I don’t want to have to wait a week to watch the latest Naruto episode, but I will…am not going to be forced into wasting my bandwidth downloading something I have no interest in, especially when my one unique download isn’t going to help at all their goal of reaching 50k!!!

If I could learn how to subtitle the available RAW episode of Naruto, I would do just that…but it would take me months to understand and learn japanese and by then groups who have done this in the past will have already started doing it again, hopefully!