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Happy Black Friday
I'm a bit envious of my American friends because they get to participate in "Black Friday," the insane shopping day with crazy prices on wonderful things. We don't celebrate Black Friday in Canada, we have "Boxing Day" instead, the day after Christmas. It's a day celebrated in the Commonwealth countries, though the origins are a little unclear; we know it as the "day of sales" in Canada.
I'm assuming everyone has checked out the sales flyers, so what are you getting? Maybe a new TV, an HD DVD/Blu-ray player, or how about a whole bunch of DVD sets? Whatever you get, I'm jealous (at least until boxing day).
Gord
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Nov 22, 2007 11:47 AM
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I've never really thought about Canada not having a Black Friday before. With Thanksgiving in Canada happening in October instead of November, you really do lose the lynch pin that all the sales are hung off of, don't you?
In any event, while I had already seen all the Black Friday ads, courtesy of various online sites, there's still something to be said to getting the Thanksgiving Day paper that measures about four inches thick with all the ads stuffed inside.
The one thing I saw that may be of interest to this blog's readers is that Best Buy is selling all HBO seasons for 50 percent off. I'm hoping to use that to complete my collection of extant 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' sets.
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Nov 22, 2007 1:43 PM
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As a fellow Canadian, I appreciate we get our big sales day but wish it were before Christmas. Not that there's anything wrong with going out the day after to take advantage of the sales to fill gaps in your DVD collection -- I have a friend who's probably going to get half of the Sopranos series that day -- but it's a kick in the head that it's one day too late to get gifts for Christmas.
Have a good day.
G Morrow
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Nov 22, 2007 2:36 PM
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Hey Gord, any word yet on how the strike's impact on shortened seasons will affect upcoming DVD releases? In other words, if only 8 episodes of Lost are aired, will the fourth season DVD set only be composed of 8 episodes? Or will they hold off until the entire season airs (whenever that may be!) and sell the season in its entirety?
It'd definitely be something interesting to look into.
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Nov 23, 2007 4:39 AM
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Marcus, I'll chime in and say that Ausiello's probably got the best take on that sort of question. However, my take on that is this: the producers at Lost have already said that they prefer the 8 eps in the can to not air until the other 8 can be in the can, too, because it will be like "being forced to put down a Harry Potter book after reading it halfway through" (I think I got that quote right; might be just a tad off but you get the idea).
So, for most shows I would say that "the 2007-2008 season will be whatever they air, no matter how long or short". Just like during the last strike, the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation was only 22 episodes, instead of 26 like all the others.
But for Lost, I would think that there would be a lot of reasons to make sure that any DVD release of Season 4 consists of all 16 episodes.
Unless, of course, Lost ends up taking the Heroes route and changes things so that things end tidily at the finish of the episodes that are in the can. But Lost producers have already expressed an unwillingness to do that (and Heroes did it for an additional reason, that being that a second season change in direction was not working out as well as planned, so use the strike as an excuse to end the strategy change and go back to what they knew worked better).
Hope that was follow-able. I'm up a tad early so my missus could go Black Friday shopping. 
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Nov 23, 2007 5:04 AM
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Gord - I may be able to shed some light on Boxing Day for you. I lived in England several years ago, and here's how it was explained to me.
Christmas was considered a holy day - one for worship and prayer. On Christmas Day, the family spent the time in church and other spiritual activities.
Boxing Day - the day after Christmas - was the day fmaily members exchanged gifts - or opened the "boxes." Hence the term Boxing Day!
Hope that helps!
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Nov 23, 2007 1:51 PM
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Back in college one class had an assignment designed to encourage research, and the subject we were given was the origins of Boxing Day. Turns out that the origins are lost in time, as far as actually factual provable evidence goes. But the class came up with the one theory which seems to have the most basis in fact:
Back in the days of Lords who ruled vast tracts of lands and huge household staffs, "Boxing Day" was the day after Christmas, apparently when the various provisions for the coming year (especially for the cold winter) would be given by the Lordly family to the people that were beholden to them. The Lady would usually lead the effort, and the Lord would have to give his ultimate okay on whatever was given to whom. But the provisions would be sorted out in one large meeting area (a huge hall, the front lawn, whatever made sense for the situation) and as each lot was provided to each servant and their family, it would be boxed up for them to cart to the place they lived at.
Hence, "Boxing Day".
That was what my class came up with, oh about 20-ish years ago now. Your milage may vary. 
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Nov 23, 2007 2:07 PM
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Awesome, Dave, thanks for the comments.
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Nov 23, 2007 9:44 PM
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Boxing Day: The holiday's roots can be traced to Britain, where Boxing Day is also known as St. Stephen's Day. Its' origins are found in a long-ago practice of giving cash or durable goods to those of the lower classes. Gifts among equals were exchanged on or before Christmas Day, but beneficences to those less fortunate (be they tradespeople, employees, servants, serfs, or the generic "poor") were bestowed the day after. It is to be noted that the social superiors did not receive anything back from those they played Lord Bountiful to: a gift in return would have been seen as a presumptuous act of laying claim to equality, the very thing Boxing Day was an entrenched bastion against. Boxing Day was about preserving class lines.
And... Black Friday is NOT an American holiday! We don't celebrate it! It's like a visit to the doctor. You hate it, you need to do it, and you know you'll feel better after it's all over!
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Nov 24, 2007 11:51 AM
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I bought the first 4 seasons of monk and 1st season of psych from amazon. They had the monk sets for 20.99 or something like that. That's the cheapest I've ever seen them.
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Nov 26, 2007 10:21 AM
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I picked up a Philips DVP5982 DVD player that upconverts to 1080p and has a USB 2.0 port for only $49.99 at Best Buy! And it plays pretty much any type of file.
And picked up the first three seasons of The Sopranos for my father-in-law for 50% off.
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Nov 28, 2007 2:35 PM
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