Link Of The Week

If you're anything like me, you're sick to death of hearing about Black Friday. Personally, I wish they'd never came up with that phrase. But I digress. Black Friday is over [thank goodness] and now we have Cyber Monday to look forward to. In case you're not hip on that one, tomorrow is supposed to be the busiest day of the holiday shopping season for online shopping. I'm sure that companies all across America are dreading tomorrow because they know that a lot of their employees will be online shopping instead of working tomorrow.

If you can sneak in some online shopping tomorrow at work, make sure that you get the best deal possible, and don't forget to check for free shipping. Do a quick Google search for the website you're shopping from to see if you can find a free shipping promo code. Or better yet, check out FreeShipping.org. Visit http://www.freeshipping.org and you'll find over 850 retailers that offer free shipping in some shape or form. Good luck with your online shopping tomorrow - I hope your boss won't catch you.

Light Gray Saturday

If yesterday was Black Friday, based on the [lack of] crowds I just saw at the 'hood Walmart, today has to be Light Gray Saturday. This was the first time I'd ventured out of the house since I came home from work Wednesday, and if I hadn't needed a few health-related items I would have kept my fanny on the couch. But I bundled up and headed to Walmart, and believe me when I tell you the total time of the round-trip was 15 minutes. There was noone in the store, and for the first time that I've ever seen, all of the shopping lanes were open and there were no more than two people in each line waiting to be checked out.

I expected it to be a madhouse, but was very pleasantly surprised. I grabbed my few items and checked out and was back home before I even had time to complain about the crowds or traffic. On the way back home I kept wishing that I had felt better and had more money so I could have stayed longer and done some shopping today. But then again, there's Cyber Monday.

Flashback Friday

As I type this, I just finished eating supper, and it's hard to comprehend that millions of people started shopping over twelve hours ago. It's Black Friday - the first official day of the holiday shopping season. I had no intention of going shopping today, and thanks to a wicked sinus infection, I've done no shopping since I came home from work Wednesday night; in fact I haven't even left the house. But I digress. When I was a kid, the term "Black Friday" hadn't been thought of yet. To my family, it was Turkey Sandwich and Fritos Friday.

Turkey sandwiches the day after Thanksgiving was as much a tradition here at The Compound as the actual Thanksgiving Day meal. Mom and Grandma would slice the turkey and would start toasting the bread for our turkey sandwiches. I can still picture Grandma standing in the kitchen spreading a generous amount of Miracle Whip on the toast before she placed the turkey on it, and then she'd finish it off by giving it a few shakes of salt and pepper. Mom would usually warm up some dressing or dumplings and have those, but the rest of us would have our turkey sandwiches on toast. As a special treat, we would have Fritos with our sandwiches, along with any leftover green olives. If Mom had remembered, we would also have a carton of french onion dip to accompany the Fritos, but I was happy to eat them sans dip.

Sliced on toast is still my favorite way to eat turkey. Even though we don't have it often, I still prefer my turkey in sandwich form instead of as an entree with a big meal. Some habits are hard to break.

Things I Am Thankful That I Do Not Have

1. A home mortgage

2. Cancer

3. A car payment

4. Teenagers

5. A parent in a nursing home

6. To get up at 3:00 tomorrow morning and stand in line at a store for a $19 DVD player

7. A mutual fund

8. 50 extra pounds to carry around on my body

9. A video game system

10. A MySpace page

Black Wednesday, Part 2

Just when I thought things couldn't get worse then they already were today, they got worse. I just hung up the phone after talking to my friend/department head/company president/COO informing me that the factory voted 168 to 8 against their contract. Yes, you read that right -- against. In a nutshell, this means that next week the factory could be on strike and yours truly will be working out on an assembly line. Yep, things just got worse.

Black Wednesday

Since MSN.com informed us yesterday that the economy in the crapper right now, I'm sure that lots of folks will be cutting back on their Thanksgiving dinners and on their Black Friday shopping. With the stock market crashing, banks and big financial institutions closing, the home mortgage crisis and the uncertainty of the Big Three automobile manufacturers, there's not going to be a lot of good cheer on this Thanksgiving weekend. I, for one, have jumped on that band wagon. For you see, at my company today was Black Wednesday -- the day we got our third quarter retirement fund statement.

After I was able to resume most normal bodily functions, re: breathing, I did some quick calcultions and it wasn't pretty. I should have just stuffed the paper in my file drawer and went on about my business, but no - I had to start figuring percentages. Granted, you'd be hard pressed to find a company that contributes as much to our retirement fund as mine, but still -- money gone is money gone, regardless of who put it in my retirement fund.

Here's some of the startling facts: let me preface by saying that I've been 100% vested in our retirement fund for 17 years. Now for the statistics: for the third quarter of 2008, I lost 6.5% of the total amount of my retirement fund. Wait - the news gets better: comparing quarters in 2008, for the third quarter, I lost over seven times what I lost in the second quarter. Keep reading - I'm not finished yet: I lost more in the third quarter of 2008 then I earned in all of 2007. I'm glad my office is on the first floor, or else I'd be tempted to jump out of the window.

Understatement Of The Year

A major headline at the MSN homepage today:

"The ecomony is in a slump."

No shit.