On Saturday, I proceeded to go to Best Buy to find and HDMI cable for my Xbox. I wriggled my way through the madhouse, only to find that they had nothing shorter than 6′ and nothing cheaper than $30. I went to Wal-Mart instead and found a 3-footer for $17. Still fucking ridiculous, but Forza 3 never looked so good.

There was also another reason why I went into the Best Buy hellhole yesterday: to look at digital SLRs. I’ve been looking for a camera since my parents have all but adopted my old Olympus point-and-shoot. I’ve really wanted a DSLR that shoots video, so I won’t have to decide on whether to buy a video or still camera, so I looked first at the Canon Digital Rebel T1i. I really liked the controls on this camera. I was changing modes and tweaking f-stops in short time, and this is coming from a guy whose only SLR experience was with a Pentax K1000. I played with the T1i for a bit, and then a gave a Nikon a chance. I can’t remember what model it was, since I couldn’t decipher the confusing buttons and interface. It could have been the D90, but I dunno. Then I went back to a Canon, in particular the EOS 5D. It had the same easy-to-use controls, but the kit lens and continuous shooting was kickass. I have never played with continuous shooting before, so I was almost giggling with delight at the prospect of shooting several pictures a second with relative ease.

I’ve also looked on the web for that perfect camera, and I’ve found another candidate: the Pentax K-x. In the same body as the K2000, another former candidate, it adds a better sensor and 720p HD video. It’s also cheaper than the Canon T1i. It may end up my final decision, once money becomes available.

Now, on to a restful week of nothingness and New Years.

This little summary brings me to the big story. I decided that a new netbook was in order. I decided I would go to Best Buy and take advantage of the no interest for 18 months credit offer. I went to the store, got the netbook with all the trimmings, went to the register, and the credit application server was down. I had to abandon my things and go home. I then tried to apply for the card at home some time later. DENIED.

How sad is it to not even be accepted for store credit. STORE CREDIT! The bastard child of the sordid credit industry won’t even accept me! Guess my credit is worse than I thought: nonexistant. Maybe Fry’s will help a brotha out. Hopefully I can get a card of sometime before Obama’s CARD Act goes into effect, thus barring me from getting one ’til I’m 21. It stuns me that an American nineteen-year-old is able to smoke, own land, vote, and risk his life in defense of our country, but cannot buy a bottle of Bailey’s on a credit card. A damn shame.

Other than Black Friday, my Thanksgiving break has been fun. Dinners at relatives’ houses, sitting around in a turkey coma, and yet another dinner on Saturday at a good friend’s. My friend who is also an uncle to several nieces and nephews, who we escorted to the playground at the elementary school after their constant demands. We went to the playground I once played on in elementary school. It had been what seems like forever since I had been on the grounds of Valley View Elementary. The majority of the playground equipment I played on was no longer there, being moved either to the less used playground on the other side of campus or banished to the pathetic city park on the edge of town. It was all plastic and sterile now; nothing like the bumpy metal slide that burned your ass in the summer and countless kids fell off of, or the gargantuan (when I was little) spiral slide that also burned your ass in the summer and suffered from traffic jams when a kid would decide to block the way. There would sometimes be at least twenty of us crammed onto that slide at one time. How all of it had changed made me feel old. But it was still cool to see kids enjoy the same little schoolyard I enjoyed. It may not be the best school in the world, but you sure can’t say it’s not a memorable one.

But, life goes on, and it starts with going back to work Monday and hopefully finding credit. Hooray?