Month: November 2005

If terrorists wanted to launch an attack on the United States, this would be the day.

Shoppers around the country are currently in a state of psychological stupor running from store to store grabbing merchandise off shelves. In some cases, they’re beating each other up.

Only in America can you find this form of mind control. It’s brilliant actually. Ala Pavlov, one can bring millions of people to their knees and it only takes a single word containing four letters.

S A L E

Hey, I believe in good ‘ol capitalism, and I love to see the cash register ring at my business, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll ever understand the effect this day has on people. The whole “day after Thanksgiving” shopping melee is a mystery to me. For the life of me, I don’t know why in the world would anyone want to wake up at four in the morning on the day after a holiday and line up at the local Wal-Mart People to buy the same low priced crap that you can get any other time of the year?

Want to know how insane this really is? Target made wake-up calls today to be sure shoppers were up in time to get ready and head to their stores. Wal-Mart had TWO MILLION customers in its first two hours of business. And why not? They had DVDs priced at $3.44 and new computers for $398.

Gimmicks and giveaways.

And you know what really gets me? Tomorrow, analysts will report lackluster sales and call the season dead, followed by a dozen news stories about how retailers are disappointed and depressed. Puhleeze.

As for me, I’m steering clear of any store today and celebrating my own version of Buy Nothing Day (minus the liberal psychobabble, of course).

UPDATE: Wal-Mart is happy.

Noriyuki “Pat” Morita is dead. He was 73 years old.

Morita died Thursday, November 24, 2005, at his home in Las Vegas, of natural causes. He’s to be buried at Palm Green Valley Mortuary and Cemetery. He is survived by his second wife, actress Evelyn Guerrero, and three daughters from his previous marriage to Yuki Morita-Scott.

He always played characters who had a heavy oriental accent. His wasn’t all that strong actually, and sometimes you could catch him in a TV series or in a movie of the week speaking in his natural voice.

While I’m sure the money was good, I wonder if Pat ever got tired of his agent calling and saying, “Hey, Pat, I’ve got a new role for you in an ABC sitcom. It’s going to be big. You play the part of a Chinese man with a heavy accent.”

As a gift, here’s an annoying animated turkey.

Remember this? (don’t miss the riot at 2:25 seconds in)

Well now, it’s this. People are punching each other out over Xbox 360 which was released today. 

From the AP via CNN – Melee Cancels Local Xbox Sale

A melee erupted among a crowd of shoppers in the rush for the new Xbox 360 video game console at a Wal-Mart Supercenter in northeast Maryland.

It took 10 police officers to restore order.

A crowd of about 300 people waited as much as 12 hours for the game, considered a must-have item this holiday season, to go on sale at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. But an announcement from a store manager that the Xboxes would be sold on a first-come, first-served basis, instead of using a number system devised by customers, triggered the mayhem.

“That’s when all hell broke loose,” said Ben DiSabatino IV, a 23-year-old Bear, Delaware, resident, who had been waiting in line since 4 p.m.

Some customers were knocked down and trampled, though there were no serious injuries, said Elkton Police Lt. Lawrence Waldridge.

Wal-Mart canceled the sale and police ordered everyone to leave.

Mentors, all of them. Teaching the young about what’s important in life. Can’t you just hear the kids talking to their friends when they go back to school on Monday?

“Hey man, yeah, my dad, like he was da bomb. Weez rollin into Walmart last week to pickup my Xbox 360 and people started cuttin in line, shovin and swearin. My dad popped a couple of other guys upside the head just to get inside. I was kickin the smaller kids, pushin ’em away. This other kid, his dad was big and mean. He pulled out his personal tech nine you know and started wavin that roscoe in the air threat’nin to cap anyone who got near his 360. Boo-Yaa!”

I weep for the future.

Fan Reports: What a fan will do for an Xbox | My Experience in Line at Walmart |

MORE Xbox 360 Violence: Ski-masked duo rob Florida man of new Xbox | Boy assaulted, robbed of new video game | Man steals Xbox 360s at gunpoint |

Other: X marks the spot for giddy gamers | Xbox 360 sells out quickly |

If you’ve ever had to fly somewhere the day before Thanksgiving, you know that the reports are true. Airports are jammed, flights are delayed, and believe me, people aren’t ‘giving thanks’. If you can manage it, my advice would be to fly two days before the holiday.

Arriving at Philadelphia International Airport yesterday around 1:00 PM, I walked right up to the Continental ticket counter and looked around at the other carriers – there just weren’t that many travellers. I waited in the security line for about 20 minutes, but that was due to the TSA only operating one metal detector. If they had a couple of others running, the wait would have been negligible.

My flight from Philly to Houston was full, and our departure was only about 30 minutes late. Given the difficult weather in the Tri-State area, I was expecting to sit at the gate longer. I landed in Houston around 6:30 or so, and the travel load at Bush International was light. My flight to Seattle had empty seats all over the plane, and I was lucky enough to snag an exit row seat. The extra leg room made the 4 hour flight seem like 2.

The only problem in Seattle was fog. Not the hazy, “I can still see pretty well” kind, but the pea soup kind. It’s incredible how precise airline navigation systems are these days. Descending into Seattle was an eerie experience. The lights of city glowed through the thick blanket of cloud. Looking out the window, I couldn’t have known where we were. The buildings, streets and the busy sea-port were invisible. All I knew is, we were drifting through the air, falling lower and lower with every second that ticked by. It got really wild when we penetrated the foggy mist. The plane was swallowed up, and no one could know how far we were from the ground. Down, down, down…and suddenly, there they were – the runway lights – only about 100 feet below us. The plane landed in a very normal way, just like it does on a clear night with unlimited visibility. No big deal. The first word that came to my mind was, ‘amazing’.

As I exited the plane, I saw the pilot and said, “nice landing”. The guy smiled and replied, “I can’t wait to do it again”.

I’m finishing up my business in Philadelphia this morning then I’ll be in the air this afternoon/evening heading home to Seattle. Travelling west from the east coast (and adding a connection) means I won’t be back until later tonight. As such, this place will be closed until tomorrow. See you then.

Hillary says an immediate U.S. exit from Iraq would be “a big mistake”. Do you know what this really means? It means that the variety of polls which suggest that the American public is tired of the war and wants troops out of Iraq are weak, or entirely inaccurate. If there was a strong majority of people calling for troop withdrawal, Hillary would be standing up next to Senator Jack Murtha pounding on the lectern as his booming voice fills the Senate Gallery. But, she’s not. She’s picking the position that mirrors the reading of her internal polls. Of course, Hillary is simply waiting to see which way the political wind will blow, and today’s jet-stream continues to flow in Right direction – “Stay the Course”.

Penn Jillette, of the magic and comedy act ‘Penn and Teller’ submits a short essay to NPR entitled ‘There is No God.’ I’ve enjoyed his performances, and it’s always fun seeing what special illusion he’ll come up with next. Unfortunately, this article is not an illusion. I see it for what it is – pure crap. Jillette’s argument for his non-belief is especially weak. His confused position proves only one thing. Penn Jillette is nothing more than a modern day socialist.

And that’s not funny.

Innocent mistake by an intern, or is CNN trying to insinuate something here? Approximately 3 to 4 times, for only about a 15th of a second each, a large black ‘X’ appeared over the face of the Vice President of the United States. To the naked eye, the flashes were hardly noticeable, but when viewed on video playback and slowed down, the black ‘X’ is clearly viewable.

10:00 PM EST Update – CNN claims that the ‘X’ flash was made by a control room engineer, who happened to be operating an ‘effects’ board when a button was pushed by mistake. No word on how an effects button can be pushed “by mistake” multiple times.

I’ve come to believe that when the media says ‘maybe’ they are mostly wrong.

U.S. forces sealed off a house in the northern city of Mosul where eight suspected al-Qaida members died in a gunfight — some by their own hand to avoid capture. A U.S. official said Sunday that efforts were under way to determine if terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead.

In Washington, a U.S. official said the identities of the terror suspects killed in the Saturday raid was unknown. Asked if they could include al-Zarqawi, the official replied: “There are efforts under way to determine if he was killed.”

Yeah, like showing a dead body, unless of course, he was ‘adjusted’ well beyond recognition, then we’ll go for dental records.

I have my doubts about the accuracy of this early report. Not because we blew a mission, or misjudged Al-Zarqawi’s movements. I doubt the man is dead only because I don’t believe he would die in a simple gunfight within a house on a street in Mosul. If this guy is really as important to the terrorists as our media plays him to be, he’d have a couple of extra layers of protection between himself and our troops. Hey, he’s stayed alive this long right?

If he is (in fact) dead, the terrorist war in Iraq will change dramatically. Without their leader, al-Qaida in Iraq will be without their locally popular figure head. His hate has driven hundreds of people to fight. His radical leadership influenced many to become suicide bombers whose purpose it is to kill as many people at once as possible.

Someone with that kind of power doesn’t die easily, and they never die willingly. If he is in fact dead, someone screwed up, perhaps even Al-Zarqawi himself. We’ll know soon enough. (I’ve got my fingers crossed).

UPDATE: DNA Testing Underway, Status of Zarqawi Unresolved.