Merry Cyber Monday, ya’ll.
Oh, you haven’t heard? Cyber Monday is the internet’s Black Friday, minus the stampedes and races to get the hottest deals first. From what I can tell, it’s exactly the same as most fridays, except for free shipping in a few places.
Some places, like amazon, are mentioned on the cyber monday website, but don’t seem to mention cyber monday anywhere on their front-page — and on the cyber monday website, it advertises Amazon’s “free super-[duper] shipping for orders over $25 some restrictions apply!”; but wait, isn’t that something amazon always does?
When you spend $75 or more, B+N is going to give you a free winter throw along with it (holy fuck!). When I think of B+N, the first thing that comes to mind is their winter throws — so what better a time to give them away than Cyber Monday? Except, it doesn’t seem like it’s an exclusive CM deal…it just seems like it’s a regular deal that they have going. Well. Surely SOMEONE is giving something good away on Cyber Monday — after all, it IS the internet’s Black Friday, right?
Overstock seems to have some sort of free shipping deal going on, but that doesn’t seem to be CM exclusive. In fact, some of their electronics look like they’ve increased in price since I last looked at them — but that may just be my Cyber Monday paranoia setting in.
Nobody doesn’t Cyber Monday like Dell. Or at least, that’s what the tagline says. It’s nice that Dell at least mentions cyber monday; that’s a step up from the rest of them! And, wait a second…it looks like there are legit deals going on at Dell.com. Look at the dell mini 9 — at $300 and less than 3 lbs, it’s the perfect give for anyone who needs a really small, really cute computer. But don’t hesitate: this deal is ONLY good for CYBER MONDAY! Oh! And what about that one relative that got really into blu-ray because they thought it was the future of entertainment (“Yeah, when DVD’s came out, no one bought VHS tapes anymore; blu-ray’s gonna make DVD’s obsolete.”)? There’s a phillips blue ray player on sale! Holy shit. There may only be nine or so deals, but certainly Dell is getting in the Cyber Monday spirit.
But what about hp.com? Oh, yes. They’re taking advantage of the Cyber Monday crowd, too. Unfortunately, it looks like all the same shit, but free shipping. And some of the deals are “cyber monday” deals “good for four days only!” — so, according to hp.com, cyber monday is almost a business-week-long event. It’s easy to get confused, hp: monday is one day; it’s not four days. I used to get four days and one day confused when I was little, too.
I didn’t look at Office Depot, but I did learn that their little motto thing is “Taking Care of Business”. Get it? Haha. Yeah. Funny.
There’s a lot of stuff. If you go through shop.org’s cyber monday website, then I think you can earn some kind of “rebate dollars” which will be sent to you via snail mail as a check. Excellent. Also, I think it sponsors some sort of scholarship fund. So you’re doing good for kids; what more could you ask for in a black friday equivalent?
The ONLY site that I THINK took any time to think about Cyber Monday seriously was, unsurprisingly, wetseal. 20% off their entire stock one day only, and free shipping on any order over $15? That screams cyber monday to me. I know what I’m getting this cyber monday!
But in all seriousness, Cyber Monday isn’t the biggest failure ever — and, really, it’s a good idea. Black Friday is great for people who have the time and get-go to really get out to stores and buy their stock; but what about those online-only websites? Amazon, Buy.com, etc., are missing out on the Black Friday spendings simply because they live in the abstract cyber space and not in the tangible “drive-to”able universe. It’s kind of upsetting to not see them getting more into the Cyber Monday spirit. Maybe they all thought “Cyber Monday” was that one special day a year when people get together online and have intimate IMs with each other. I don’t know.
My disappointment with Cyber Monday doesn’t come close to matching my disappointment with this quarter, though. Rep of finite groups was a gigantic waste of time — I have learned next to nothing, and now I care about finite groups less than I ever have. Discrete Math was alright, but I don’t care enough about it to really make it worth my while. Logic was a constant nightmare: I was continuously behind and confused in the class, and having only some of the material available in the books was somewhat annoying. The ONLY saving-grace of Logic was the ability of the TA to make logic interesting. I might be biased — I’ve never been a huge fan of mathematical logic. Oh well.
Next quarter should be better. Commutative Algebra? Yes. Logic 2? Hopefully the class won’t be as bad as Logic 1. But Maybe. And functional analysis? At 9am? In the wintertime? I probably will go all of 3 times, and then give up.
So why three classes? Because Comm algebra will be hard. And because I need to start applying to Grad school. Really, I need to step it up a bit.
But what have I been up to besides complaining? Well, I’ve been cooking a lot. I made a chocolate mousse that turned out “okay”. Lots of sausage and meatballs. I think some sorts of dips that I can’t really remember. And a lot of cake. Oh, and varied meat products: salmon with lemon-mayo sauce, “deviled” chicken (which is just chicken with deviled egg yolk stuff on top.), and — oh! — Jon and I made hot sauce. Yep. We’ll see how it comes out in 3 weeks when it’s done.
I’ve been trying to learn polish, except it’s become increasingly obvious over the past few days that I suck at it. Eh. At least I’m having fun!
Okay. I’ve wasted an hour on this. But now you know how I’m doin’. Happy cyber monday, everyone!
