Normally, I’d be happy that it’s finally Friday, but since today is the last day of the holiday (not that I have to work over the weekend, but that doesn’t count), I kind of wish it was Thursday again. For the amount of work that gets done over the next 5 weeks or so, they really ought to just give everybody time off until after New Year’s.

At least anybody who doesn’t work at Wal-Mart, gas stations, or grocery stores. And maybe keep a skeleton crew of people working at the hospitals. Oh, and snow plow drivers, firefighters, and police officers. We’ll be needing the post office to stay open, of course, and UPS and FedEx and those poor people who bust their asses picking orders at the Amazon work camps (good god, without those folks, I might actually have to go out and shop in person, amongst “the people.” Now there’s a disturbing thought). And then there’s the people who keep the Internet and DirecTV running….

I guess what I mean is they should just give me time off – until after Martin Luther King day. Oh but then you’ve got the Super Bowl and President’s Day, and then you’re getting in to St. Patrick’s Day and March Madness…. So, I should get paid time off until April, and then I can be fresh and productive right up until Memorial Day. Then I’ll be needing the summer off.

According to the 4,853 e-mails in my inbox this morning, today is something called “Black Friday.” I’m not sure what it is (I think it’s got something to do with Obama and the war on Christmas), but it seems kind of anticlimactic since it’s been “pre-Black Friday” for about six months now. Whatever it is, it appears that there are some great deals out there (assuming there’s anything left over from the crowds fighting over cheap shit at Wal-Mart on what used to be known as Thanksgiving).

Whether you went shopping or just sat around the house watching Detroit finally win a football game on the fourth Thursday of November (or, god forbid, spend time enjoying friends and family forgetting for a day about all the things that suck in the world and remembering all the things there are to be grateful for), I hope your holiday went well. We didn’t actually do much of anything here. I mostly finished binge watching season 2 of Homeland while I cleaned my office, though I also did get out on the tractor to plow the driveway. According to the radar, it looks like it’s snowing out there again, but it’s too dark for me to tell how much, if anything, is accumulating.

They say we’re in store for a few cold days around here, which kinda sucks because the heat is only on for a couple hours on weekday mornings, and then it’s off until the afternoon. So it gets a little nippy in the house. Yesterday it was about 57-58 most of the day, though if I keep my office door closed, the computers keep things in there a bit warmer (also has the benefit of keeping the cats from coming in to claw the upholstery on my chairs and puke on everything; yes, I cleaned up a lot of cat puke yesterday, though it was kind of old and fossilized, and therefore easier to deal with). I’ll have to try one of those tea light and flower pot heaters from OKat’s video the other day.

Ah, here comes e-mail 4,854. Lowe’s Home Improvement wants me to know that “Black Friday Is Here!” 20% off on Char-Broil infrared gas grills. I bet I could heat up my office with one of those suckers. Guess I better get out there and start shopping. Either that, or start on season 3 of Homeland (which I hear sucks, but, hey I’m hooked now).