Are you out and about, greedily snapping up those post-Christmas deals? Me neither. And we have plenty of company, according to The New York Times. The dismal post-holiday buying follows a hideous pre-Christmas shopping season, as reported by The Wall Street Journal and passed along by Steve Benen at Political Animal, who is predicting widespread bankruptcies among retailers in the new year. Oh, goody.
I just took a drive through Bibleburg’s downtown after retrieving the Subie from Heuberger, and the sting in my wallet pocket failed to distract me from noting that Tejon Street wasn’t exactly rocking with shoppers. The malls may be doing a little better, but I’ll be damned if I’ll visit one to check it out. I hate those places. And anyway, I’m stony broke.
Mad Blog Media 
We celebrated by returning something for a refund. A set of electric firelitos/luminarias that were so offensively cheap looking that we winced when we opened the box. Better to burn the place down with the real thing (its been windy as all getout down here).
I’m sure that return didn’t help one of our local vendor’s balance of payment. Then again, they shouldn’t sell ExtremeCrap. Someone needs to tell the Chinese what a decent luminaria looks like.