What I did on my Thanksgiving break...

I vowed about two years ago never to go shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, no matter how tempting the deals. The last time I attempted (2 years ago), I was on the prowl for a VCR. Mine was going batty (would only play videos in black and white) and so a great deal on a Sony VCR caught my eye. The catch? The great price was only going to last between 5 am and 6 am. So yup, I woke up at the crack of dawn and dragged myself down to the store, flyer in hand. I purchased the VCR and came home and went back to sleep. My brother came to check out my new purchase later on that day and he glanced at the sales flyer and then at the VCR. He looked at me and said, "Um, what were you planning to buy?" Turns out, I went to the *wrong* store and purchased the *wrong* VCR. So instead of Best Buy, I ended up at Circuit City and instead of the Sony, I ended up with the Panasonic. After that, I figured that waking up at the crack of dawn was overrated - especially if you didn't end up with what you went there for in the first place.

Well, I did it. Today, I drove to Best Buy and picked up Sarah Brightman's latest, Classics. They were selling CDs for $10 between 8 am and noon. Who can resist? Tower Records had CDs for $5 between 8 am and noon, but it was misleading; I called the store actually since I didn't want to make the trip downtown and fight traffic/parking battles. Anyway, the Brightman CD was actually $14.99 and only select titles were $5. At any rate, the entire city seemed to have converged on Best Buy for this particular sale, so I spent more time in line than it took me to a) drive there and b) pick out the CD. So far, I'm really enjoying Classics. It's nice and soothing - a perfect counterpoint to the remaining two pages I have to write on Rupert.

I also built a wheelbarrow today. Yes, four of the screws are upside down, but that's really, really minor. The wheelbarrow is sturdy and it rolls. What more could you possibly want? The directions were very complicated - they were made for Tool Time people like Tim Allen, not people like me who have never built a wheelbarrow before. According to the pictures on the box, there were only four steps in assembling this thing. I must have taken at least ten, not to mention all of the times I had to unscrew and rescrew the pieces together. Too bad I can't put this on my resume.