Black Friday Frenzy at Home

Began a sunny, windy morning at home. I had breakfast while watching while watching Yogi's All-Star Christmas Caper. Yogi and Boo Boo head to the city to meet the rest of the Hanna Barbara funny animals for Christmas, unaware that they've gone to Jellystone to meet them. While Ranger Smith and half the cops in New York search for them, they and the others help a little lonely rich girl find her busy millionaire father.

Switched to Christmas music while taking down the Thanksgiving and fall decorations. I'll start cleaning tomorrow or Sunday evening before putting up the Christmas items by the end of next week. I always do major cleaning before I put up the holiday decorations. Not to mention, Amanda's visiting next week as well.

After the fall container was put away, I brought the crate of comics books and box of young adult paperbacks out of the back room. I had them out there because Charlie was working on the windows in the bedroom. He hasn't been up here or mentioned working up here in ages. The moment I saw that shelf at Rose's house, I knew it would hold everything in the crate and narrower shelf. Had to move around the shelf-holding pegs to get them to fit, but yes, I got all the books in, with two shelves leftover. I even had room for the My Little Demon Jem print Linda and James Young sent me a while back. The Princess Leia print went over it.

I've picked up quite a lot of holiday records and CDs in the past few months, including Perfect Christmas: Holiday Music 2006 and The Time-Life Treasury of Christmas. The former is a two-disc collection of mostly newer music and remakes like "Someday at Christmas" by Mary J. Blige. My favorite here - and one of the reasons I bought it - was for Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's classic rendition of "The Heat Miser/Snow Miser Song" from The Year Without a Santa Claus. Treasury mostly skewers older, with songs like "White Christmas" by Bing Crosby and "Here Comes Santa Claus" by Elvis Prestley, along with a unique rendition of "The Night Before Christmas" by Fred Warring and His Pennsylvanians.

(I've been trying to find The Time-Life Treasury of Christmas for years. I used to borrow the cassette version from Mom's sister Aunt Terri when she came up to visit us for Thanksgiving in the mid-late 90's and would listen to it after Thanksgiving dinner as a way to kick off the holiday season. I've seen other collections, but never the exact one Aunt Terri had until I found it while on vacation in September.)

Ran a few Match Game episodes while eating a quick lunch. Prototypical ditzy blonde Elaine Joyce and bubbly Joyce Bullifant joined in the fun during a 1979 syndicated episode. Elaine insists on showing off her perfect body, while Joyce wears a wig, so she won't be mistaken for the other goofy blonde on the show. Rita Moreno had a tougher time figuring out the game play in another from a month before, to the point where one question had to be thrown out because she showed her answer before she was supposed to.

I did at least need to go to the Acme today. While I didn't need a huge order, I did want to pick up a few pricey things I kept forgetting, like vanilla. Grapefruit and red pears were on good sales. as were Stayfree pads. Restocked brown and white sugar, mushrooms, cranberries, deodorant, milk, and honey. Grabbed cream of celery soup when I realized they no longer sold the Healthy Choice Cream of Mushroom.

(And no wonder I have today and tomorrow off. They were totally, utterly dead. I was the only person in the express line when I got up front.)

The real reason I went to the Acme was for my schedule, which was far better than this week's. Perfectly normal morning and mid-afternoon hours. Thursday and next Saturday off, Thursday for Amanda's visit. I do have that extra-early Sunday, but I'll be off with plenty of time to get to Dad and Jodie's for the Eagles-Dolphins game.

Went home and did one last Match Game episode and the interview with Brett Somers while putting everything away. Spent the next hour and a half rearranging the living room. I now had an open crate, but I just couldn't find room to put it another empty crate anywhere. They didn't fit between the table and the cookbook shelves - the narrow folding shelf went there, with the Marvel and DC superhero movies added to the Star Wars and James Bond films and straight dramas. I still have one that I can't figure out what to do with for the life of me.

Moved on to fanfic for an hour or so after I finally finished messing with the furniture. Patti shows them what happened via an image in Donald's coffee cup. Malade, posing as a sea witch, got her to admit that she liked the human she'd rescued and wanted to get to know him. She gives her a potion that will turn her tail into legs...but at the price of her unique voice and contact with her family.

Broke for dinner at quarter after 7. Had leftover tuna casserole while watching the Rankin-Bass Frosty the Snowman. Frosty comes to life after a group of kids place a magician's discarded hat on his head. They're delighted with their new friend...but the greedy magician wants his hat back, now that he knows what it can really do. He pursues Frosty, his former rabbit who lived in the hat, and the little girl who befriended Frosty all the way up to the North Pole. When he does harm Frosty, Santa may be the only one who knows how to set things right.

Finished the night after a shower with Buzzr. They've advertised their "Black Friday Frenzy" event for weeks now. This basically means "championship episodes of all their shopping shows," namely Supermarket Sweep, Sale of the Century, and its much-reviled 2008 remake Temptation. Sweep ran two new-to-me episodes from the end of "Double Your Money Week." The three couples with the highest sweeps at the end of the week came back for a shot at winning 5,000 more dollars. I'm guessing these were from the early 2000's run. Everyone's hair is much flatter, the clothes are less colorful, and David Ruprecht traded weird-patterned sweaters for weird-patterned ties.

Sale of the Century was pretty much the same as what little I saw in the few weeks it was on during prime time in October and early November, a classy cross between Jeopardy and an upscale The Prices Is Right. The Jeopardy aspect was mostly ditched for Temptation, which came to the US via a successful Australian version. Here, you earn money for prizes by playing mini games rather than direct questions, a lot of the prizes are packages like baking lessons with dancing lessons, and you only choose one prize in the bonus round, rather than gradually working up to winning all of them.

The show was apparently a major flop on this side of the Pacific; no one's touched the format in the US since besides the Buzzr reruns. Granted, it does look a little cheap, but it was fun to play along. I do wish the host hadn't been so annoying, though, even jumpier than Ruprecht and trying way too hard to be upbeat.