Today is Cyber Monday. *puke*

So, it’s Christmas shopping season.  Whatever.  Don’t get me wrong, I like the holiday, the time off, and the whole gift-giving thing.  I understand the reason for the whole thing and can more or less appreciate it from top to bottom.  Every year, Christmas gives the economy a lil’ boost, and that’s something we need.

What irks me, though, is the lather we tend to get whipped into every year the Friday after Thanksgiving.  I refuse to call it “Black Friday,” primarily because that’s fucking stupid.  Too, there are connotations there that suggest there’s a terrible, dark underside to our consumerism.  True as that may be, is that something we really want to accept about ourselves?

Not that we have a choice.

The annual shopping stampede on Fuck You It’s My Toy Friday can be traced back to the Cabbage Patch Doll.  Go ahead and shudder right now.  If you’re old enough, it’s likely that you remember the various fistfights and rushes to BUY BUY BUY those things and essentially clean the shelves of any store that threatened to carry the dolls.  This provided Americans a few different things.

First of all, it gave the retail machine a nice, neat marketing blueprint for how to get people excited about a product.  It worked, and it’s worked to varying degrees year in, year out since 1984 (and probably before then, too, but you get the picture).  Second, it took away much of the creativity of gift-giving.  Gift cards, of course, closed the deal, but I’d argue that Cabbage Patch Kids opened the floodgates.  Finally, the fervor that the sweet, absolutely fucking satanic dolls made the aisles of the toy stores a bona fide warzone.  Which is what we want when it comes to society: the halls of commerce to be the place where we fight our wars.

So, yeah, the whole Christmas shopping gets to me a little bit.  As you might guess, I avoid it.  Part of that avoidance is to do pretty much all of my shopping (which is to say, the shopping I do for my wife’s gifts) online.  Today is apparently the busiest day of they year for folks (this guy) to do their online Christmas shopping.  Cyber Monday, they call it.  Whatever. Thanks for co-opting that, retail machine.  Jerks.

I’d like to just buy what I was going to buy anyway without a term of some variety attached to it.

The point to all this, I suppose, is less to complain than it is to say that if you’re going to buy in, it’s important to be a smart consumer.  Do your homework, know what you’re buying and spending, and try not to get caught up in the machine’s gears so much.  And for God’s sake, no fighting please.

Comic: If Vengeance Be My Destiny #28

If Vengeance Be My Destiny is TCM’s Sunday comic.  This is installment #28.  You can catch up on the story right here.

The Saturday Rock Box: Man or Astro-Man?

Every Saturday afternoon, The Cincinnati Man posts a little rock ‘n’ roll that you should know about.  This week: Man… or Astro-Man?

The Saturday Dump Festival

Every Saturday, TCM lists everything that was awesome on the Internet over the last week in the form of the greatest linkdump you’ll ever come across.  You can find past dump festivals right here.

–What if all your favorite comic book characters were emo?  No, like really emo.

–Atari.com now offers playable Atari games.  As if you needed another way to waste time at work.

–The original King Kong model is being auctioned off and is expected to bring roughly $200k.

–I know just what you can get me for Christmas: A Beer A Day looks like a wonderfully fun book.

–This video of the Muppets singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” made the rounds.

–If I were a betting man, this video of the biggest hitter in the 6-year-old bracket is fake.

–As if you needed another reason to hate the Steelers and their fans, here it is.

–Reasons to live: Mr. T and ET mashups.  Specifically, Mr. ET.

–This is one of the more creative cliched web pranks I’ve seen in quite some time.

–150 Things Men Should Know is another book you can buy me for Christmas.

–Roomba vs. snake: Triangle Roomba wins.

–I love little musical gadgets like this.  No idea what practical application it’d have in my house, since I don’t really do any kind of music these days.

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Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/emples/ / CC BY 2.0

Let’s Take a Break!

We’re taking the day off on account of the turkey shits.  We’ll be back tomorrow.

Thanksgiving Menu Power Rankings

I’m not even certain that this is up for debate, but Thanksgiving is the manliest of American holidays.  It’s a pretty simple equation: overeating, meat, football, the occasional beer and sleeping on couches.  What’s not to love?

We’ll get to that.

The best thing about Thanksgiving, unless you’re a Cowboys fan, is the food.  Lions fans need not apply, since the best thing about Thanksgiving is the ensuing Sunday, when they don’t have to watch their team play.

Anyhow, the food.  Let’s take a look at your favorite Thanksgiving dishes in the form of a Turkey Day Power Ranking.

1. Turkey- This is kind of a no-brainer.  Any food that’s made of meat and that you cut up with one of these deserves the top spot.  It doesn’t hurt that the whole day is named after the bird, either.  So, good ol’ Tom gets the top spot by a not-so-slim margin.

2. Stuffing- Some folks might say that stuffing ain’t much more than filler.  Those people HATE OUR FREEDOM.  Stuffing, especially when it’s jammed up the back end of #1, is among my list of 40 reasons to live.  You know, if I had such a list.

3. Mashed Potatoes- Starchy.  Endless.  Tasty.  Everyone loves mashed potatoes, and those who don’t are robots bent on destroying the planet.

4. Green Bean Casserole- GBC is totally underrated and generally forgotten about when it comes to the Thanksgiving menu.  You gotta eat your greens, and I can’t think of a better way to get at it than green bean casserole.

5. Pumpkin Pie- Duh.  Had to make the top 5.  No way around it.

6. Gravy- Oh, sweet gravy.  You drown our sorrows and make everything okay again.  I love you, gravy.

7. Specialty desserts- I’m thinking specifically about the pumpkin roll here.  If you’ve never had a pumpkin roll before, it’s time to get on the stick.  Seriously.  You’ll never be the same person.  And by that, I mean to say you’ll become a big fat pig.

8. Football- It’s the best way to pass the time on Thanksgiving.  It’s what a great percentage of our conversations are centered around, and we’re all okay with that.  You know, anything to avoid talking about your Aunt’s recent trips to jail.  Because some things should just be avoided.  Thanks, Detroit Lions!

9. Sweet Potatoes- Hey! Orange potatoes!

473. Cranberry sauce- There are two reasons for the existence of cranberry sauce.  The first reason is to make you understand the hardship of the pilgrims as they survived the harsh winters that the New World had to offer.  Because cranberry sauce is that bad.

The second is to teach you the power of deception.  How can something look so appetizing and taste so terrible?  It’s like eating potpourri, or the first time you licked your girlfriend’s chapstick.  What a mistake that was.  Never mind that you tried it again.  Later that day.

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Front pg. thumb: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xybermatthew/ / CC BY 2.0