This is Madness!

So I'm not really a shopper. It doesn't matter what time of year it is, I don't do much of it. That said, when the price of an item drops to a ridiculous level, I do take notice. The item in question was an HD-DVD player and for those of you that don't know what that is, just take the detail of a typical DVD disc and multiply it exponentially and do the same for the sound quality. Not really a need, but at $100, ($300 off), the allure was strong.

After waking up at 3:00 and walking to the Futureshop, I arrived at the store at 4:00am and already there were 150 people in front of me. I was set to turn around and leave, as I automatically assumed all those people could only want an HD-DVD player, but logic got a hold of me and I decided to wait it out. The night before, realizing that I might be in line for a while, I loaded the first Harry Potter on my iPod and I'm glad I did, because it kept me sane and my mind occupied, so as not to think of how cold it was.

It finally hit 6:00am and when I got inside -keep in mind, this is 20 seconds after doors opened- they were all gone. I saw some people walking away with 2 and 3, so I pulled a staff member aside and asked if there wasn't a 'one per household' rule in effect. He asked someone else, who asked a dept. manager, who stopped one of the people and told them they couldn't have more than one, at which point I took an extra player right from their hands, as they could only sheepishly shrug and let me have it. I'm fairly sure the ass was going to put the second player on eBay, so it felt good to grab it from him.

Anyway, I can feel my extremities again and now it's time for bed, since I've been up since 3:00am.

Here are some links for you:

Challenging Cheney - Newsweek
Hillary's Hidden Hand - Newsweek
Mystery Mandarin Expert Is One of a Kind - MSNBC.com

and the follow-up:

'Mystery' Interpreter Reveals Disappearing Act - MSNBC.com