Is Black Friday Actually Funny?
Nov. 29th, 2025 04:00 am
Have we grown as a society to see Black Friday madness as...kinda gross? Or not?
Open thread below...

Have we grown as a society to see Black Friday madness as...kinda gross? Or not?
Open thread below...
Read To Say “Ugg” Seems So Inadequate
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Customer: "I want a size five."
I looked at the twenty-five pairs of shoes on the table.
Me: "Umm… in which one?"
Customer: "I don't know! Do you think I know what you guys have?!"
Black Friday is officially here, which means humans everywhere are waking up at dawn, putting on their most tactical leggings, and preparing to do battle for a discounted air fryer they absolutely do not need. But while everyone else is out scoring deals, black cats are at home living their best, most unbothered lives.
Black Friday for pets would look very different. 90% off feather wands that will be ignored immediately, buy-one-get-one treats they'll somehow still refuse, and half-priced cat beds they'll pretend don't exist because the real luxury is sleeping on your freshly folded laundry. Meanwhile, the cardboard box the items came in is the real doorbuster.

A visibly angry Garry Kasparov tore into what he sees as the failure of NATO and Western countries to defend Europe from Russian aggression. And the so-called Trump "peace plan" is just more gross capitulation that is more like just another real estate deal meant to enrich Trump's family and sell Ukraine.
Source: Censor.net
Russian opposition leader Garry Kasparov stressed that Ukraine is the only force holding back the Russian army and preventing it from advancing further into Europe.
He made this statement at the Halifax International Security Forum.
"It is not about how many weapons you have. It is are you willing to fight and die. 'You have a Canadian brigade in Latvia'. What's the order for this brigade? Will they shoot if Russians cross the border? We know the answer: it will take ages to negotiate," he said.
Kasparov does not understand how anyone can seriously discuss a "peace plan" made by Donald Trump's business partner.
"It's a real estate deal to enrich the Trump's family and sell Ukraine," the politician believes.
Kasparov stressed that NATO today is a fiction, it does not exist.
"The reason you are still sitting here and celebrating it, Ukraine is dying every minute. If not for Ukraine, Russian tanks would already be in Poland. ... And we are still discussing should we include them into NATO or not?" he said.
Read Getting A Black Friday Sale Item Is A Tall Order
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I've heard a woman get tased by the police, seen a shelf of products come crashing down as a crowd hit it like a tidal wave, and witnessed some college students leapfrog over the crowd to grab a gaming console, but I've never seen any of the stereotypical violence or trampling you would hear about every year. The closest would be the following story.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read The Calm Before The Store-m
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It's Black Friday in our big box retail store, before opening. You can already hear the muffled mumbling of customers outside.
Manager: "Alright, team, we’ve got fifteen minutes till we open. Everyone stretched? Hydrated? Emotionally prepared to question humanity?"
New Hire: "They sound really… excited out there."
Black Friday is fun for people, but for cats, it's just another chance to act like they own the store. They march into bags like they're browsing luxury boutiques, climb into carts as if they're VIP customers, and stare at every item like they're deciding whether it meets their very high standards. If a deal doesn't involve treats, toys, or boxes, they're not interested.
Cats don't chase discounts. They chase luxury. They'll ignore the budget food and demand the premium brand, insist on the softest bed money can buy, and expect the fanciest toys like they're shopping with a limitless credit card. Try to offer something cheap, and you'll get a look that says, "Wow. Embarrassing."
And of course, the best part of Black Friday (according to cats) is not the items themselves. It's the boxes, bags, and receipts. They don't care what you bought. THEY are the prize now. You went out for deals, but you came home with a furry little CEO ready to sit on all your purchases and claim them as their own.
Read Sinterklaas With The Class
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I normally avoid retail like the plague at the end of November, because between Black Friday Sales. As an Autistic and hypersensitive person, that is just a big fat 'Nope!' from me.
As we watch President Donald Trump use his second term to grift like never before, it’s tough to remember that when Trump took office in January 2017, his attempts to leverage the presidency to line his pockets were positively quaint compared to now. Back then, he was just finding his feet, figuring out where and who to push and just how much he could get away with.
He could never have anticipated, lo those many years ago, that he would lead an insurrection, steal government documents, be convicted of 34 felonies, and be found liable for sexual abuse. Yet thanks to Chief Justice John Roberts giving him sweet, sweet blanket immunity, Trump has returned to office tanned, rested, and ready to commit some much bigger crimes.
Let’s look back on how our bribe-fueled tyrant started out.
Who could forget the ridiculous stack of obviously completely blank papers? You recall the ones where Trump pretended he was going to divest all of his business interests, and somehow that required a giant stack of manila folders too: “After the news conference concluded, transition staffers blocked reporters from looking at them. And some photos of the news conference show folders without labels and, in some cases, seemingly blank pages inside.” You don’t say.
How about the totally fake blind trust? At the start of 2017, we heard all about how Trump had placed everything in a trust controlled by his large vicious adult sons and therefore, per whatever lawyer Trump had as a mouthpiece back then, he was “completely isolating himself from his business interests.”
It only took until April of that year before someone had to confirm to ProPublica that Trump could withdraw profits and assets from that trust any time he wanted. So blind, much ethics.
God, and there was the tacky hotel in Washington, D.C.! During Trump’s first term, somehow every foreign leader and domestic GOP politico were all completely compelled to stay there, definitely because it was objectively the best place to stay and not at all because it was a discreet way to shower cash on the sitting president.
Once Trump was out of office and sold the thing, everyone suddenly found they didn’t want to stay there any longer. To be fair, Trump began to make it much easier just to give him money directly, thanks to his crypto grifting, so who needs a stupid hotel?
Speaking of hotels, how about that Secret Service scam where Trump stayed for free at properties he owns but charged his protection detail a hilariously inflated rate to stay there with him? Since the detail obviously had to be where Trump was, it was an ongoing chance to line his pockets. By the end of Trump’s first term, the Secret Service had paid $1.75 million to various Trump properties.
As the House Democrats noted, he treated the Secret Service as his own personal ATM. Agents paid $1,185 per night for a room in that tacky D.C. hotel, even though the per diem at the time was $201.
He’s probably keeping that one going into this term, even though it is remarkably small potatoes compared to what he can do now. But why pass up an opportunity to fleece the American people, no matter how minor?
Eight years ago, it seemed like quite the scandal that somehow the Trump family was able to get some very speedy trademarks in China. Yes, the Trump companies kept doing business in China during his first term—you know, all those companies that Trump only pretend-divested from?
The Chinese government approved 38 Trump trademarks in an “unusually quick” fashion. Do you really need to be told that all of these were just English and Chinese variations on Trump’s name? Keeping it all in the family, China also fast-tracked dozens of trademarks for his daughter Ivanka in 2017 and 2018 as well.
Since Trump has graduated to grifts that are much larger and much more openly like bribes—free plane, anyone?—his first-term habit of having foreign leaders buy his overpriced subpar real estate offerings is no longer necessary. But back in the day, you could get in good with Trump just by becoming a tenant in Trump Tower. That’s why the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which China owns, and the Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority became tenants.
Gotta show the king some fealty, gotta let him know you’ll always tithe. Too bad for all these folks that the price of bribing Trump just keeps going up and up.
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Everyone needs a furrever home. Cats, dogs, women, children, kangaroos, everything. Everything needs a place where they feel comfortable, yet the world doesn't always provide one. In this story, a family notices a cat appears outside their home a lot. The cat is practically living right on the outskirts, and the family can see him from the inside. They already have a cat who isn't cat friendly, so adopting them themselves isn't an option. Though they're in a conundrum, they don't let it stop them from trying to help.
They give the cat toys, food, and try to keep an eye on the cat at all times. They made a vet appointment for TNR, and they've made a makeshift shelter for him. He's living the best life he can at the moment, and they're working hard to get him adopted and get him a furrever home. They're on the waitlist for the rescue, and in 1-3 months they'll be able to get him in. It's absolutely precious and pawdorable to see this family really stress about a cat that they're under no obligation to take care of. It must be the holiday spirit, or they're really special hoomans. Read the full story below.
We're all hankering for a good ol' time. A hit of nostalgia never hurt anyone, right? Unless it meant you went back to an ex, spiraled about the past, or something similar. But what could be triggering or harmful about cat memes? Nothing. The interwebs are a magical place where hoomans gather around and worship cat-astic cats. Cats are more famous online than in person it seems, with their timeless comedy. The place where memes were born, and where cats rule everything, what could be better. If you're hankering for nostalgia, get ready to scroll, giggle, and purr about these 25 cute kitties.
These memes aren't just funny, they're comforting, nostalgic little digital kittens that remind us of simpler times when your biggest worry was deciding which cat gif to send in a group chat. They span the decades of internet culture, from the early 2000s jagged GIFs to today's perfectly looped high-def creations. So whether you're a seasoned meme historian or a newcomer curious about the classics, prepare to fall down the rabbit—or should we say cat hole—of feline hilarity. These 25 iconic cats remind us that no matter what's going on in life, there's always a meme out there ready to make you snort-laugh, hiss-terically meow, or simply smile.
Terri McCullough, the first woman to serve in a formal role as chief of staff to a House speaker, worked alongside Pelosi on big policy wins and broke a marble ceiling of her own.
By Grace Panetta, for The 19th
When Terri McCullough was a young college graduate in Northern California in the early 1990s, she knew she wanted to do good in the world somehow — and that she wanted to work for a woman. In 1991, she did just that when she landed an internship in the district office for a relatively new congresswoman representing San Francisco, Nancy Pelosi.
It would mark the start of a decades-long partnership, during which she and Pelosi, now House speaker emerita, would shape public policy around women and LGBTQ+ people. They also made history, expanding the limits of what was possible for women in an arena long dominated by White men.
Pelosi rose through the ranks of the House before shattering the “marble ceiling” and becoming the first and still only woman elected as House speaker. The second time Pelosi took the speaker’s gavel, in 2019, McCullough, too, made history as the first woman to serve as chief of staff to a House speaker in an official, paid capacity.
But now both are moving on. Pelosi, who stepped down from House Democratic leadership in 2022, announced this month that after nearly 40 years in the House, this term in Congress will be her last. McCullough is transitioning to the role of senior adviser for the rest of Pelosi’s term.
“I would work for Nancy Pelosi for the rest of my days if I could,” McCullough told The 19th in an interview. “It’s time to make a change, reluctantly, because I love this work and I love this job so much.”
In an interview with The 19th in her office at the U.S. Capitol, Pelosi brimmed with praise for McCullough. Her legacy on the Hill, Pelosi said, is “one of effectiveness, getting the job done and doing it in a way that advances the cause of policy that's good for women.”
“People really like her, and they know the confidence I have in her and anyone who she worked for would have in her, because we know of her talent, her integrity, her judgment, her confidence she has,” Pelosi said.
Early in her career, McCullough said, she worked on expanding legal services for survivors of domestic violence and promoting global reproductive rights. During Pelosi's first stint as House speaker from 2007 to 2011, McCullough led her personal office and worked on historic and complex legislation like the fight to pass the Affordable Care Act.
She said she learned many lessons from Pelosi — a vaunted legislative and political strategist known for keeping Democrats united during tough fights — on listening and fostering relationships.
“She has a standard of excellence which she demands of herself, so we all demand that of ourselves, too,” McCullough said. “So certainly I thought about that in terms of excelling and doing well in my work. But I definitely thought about excelling and doing well as a woman in my work, because there's still not enough of us in these leadership roles.”
McCullough’s time as Pelosi’s chief aide in her role as speaker from 2019 to 2023 was a tumultuous one that saw two impeachments of a sitting president, the COVID-19 pandemic and the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
“I certainly came into this job as the speaker's chief of staff never anticipating I would need to be a health expert during COVID, I would need to be a security expert after January 6,” McCullough said. “These things, often you don't anticipate, but you meet the need, and you answer the call. And I feel very proud of so much of the work that we have done. And even in the most difficult times, it has been the opportunity of a lifetime.”
Democratic lawmakers and aides gave McCullough hugs and well-wishes at a send-off Thursday as they filed into the House chamber. An emotional Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top House Democratic appropriator and an early mentor to McCullough, was seen dabbing at her eyes. Rep. Dan Goldman of New York beamed as he snapped a selfie. McCullough crossed the aisle — literally — to shake hands and exchange pleasantries with House Speaker Mike Johnson.
When Pelosi took the floor to speak and honor McCullough, whom she called “a visionary, steadfast and deeply respected leader,” the Democratic side of the aisle erupted in a standing ovation.
“She epitomizes, as much as any member of the House, someone who always understood how extraordinary this institution is and how it can transform people's lives,” DeLauro told The 19th. “I worked with her in the last days when the Affordable Care Act was under fire, and it was touch-and-go. And sitting with her, working up our strategy, and working with the speaker — she is equally responsible for helping to get that bill passed.”
Chiefs of staff manage both a lawmaker’s office and their relationships with other members, staff and outside groups. McCullough said the job looks different every day — both “keeping the trains running” and setting an agenda.
“It's really being a translator, being a motivator, being a leader, but to me, the most gratifying thing is being the support that people need to do their job excellently,” McCullough said.
McCullough “had advancement of women prioritized,” in every policy she touched, Pelosi said.
“When you do a job like this, your priorities move the day,” Pelosi said. “And her priorities were: ‘How do we do this bill or this commission or this committee that we're forming … thinking about the women? It's not always the case around here.”
McCullough’s instincts and relationships were critical to the passage of many of the big bills passed when Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress in the first two years of President Joe Biden’s term.
“People told her things because they knew she wouldn't betray a confidence, and they also knew she would make good use of what it was,” Pelosi said. “‘What does Terri think?’ was a very important not only question, but a challenge.”
As lawmakers put together the American Rescue Plan in early 2021 to provide relief to Americans during the pandemic, McCullough worked to direct funds to the state and local level, where many community leaders on the front lines of the crisis were women. In legislation boosting infrastructure and domestic manufacturing, she worked to ensure women would be represented in the jobs created in trades and technical industries where they’ve historically been underrepresented.
“I am still, frankly, in awe every day that I have had the opportunity to see and be part of things I could never even have dreamed of, both the glorious and the horrific,” McCullough said. “It’s hard to explain how meaningful it can be to do this work, especially in the dark times.”
One such dark time was when a violent mob of Trump’s supporters ransacked the Capitol on January 6 to thwart Congress’ counting of the electoral votes for Biden’s election victory.
“One of the proudest moments of my life,” McCullough recalled, was when the National Guard secured the Capitol and lawmakers returned to the Capitol to finish the job of affirming the election results. After Congress completed the count around 4 a.m., she walked back to her apartment to get a couple of hours of sleep before returning to work the next day.
“All of my colleagues and peers came back the next day and kept coming back, because this place mattered so much to them,” she said.
In the aftermath, Pelosi said, she didn’t want to direct the House’s response from the top down. McCullough worked with Jamie Fleet, staff director for the Democrats on the House Administration Committee, on forming the Select Committee on January 6. McCullough reached across the aisle to then-Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, who were among the few Republicans to speak out against Trump’s attempt to subvert the election.
Cheney, in her 2023 book “Oath and Honor,” credited McCullough and Fleet as “indispensable” to the committee coming together and carrying out its work. Cheney recalled how, on a night when she and a few staffers were working late to finalize the committee’s public report, McCullough came into her Capitol basement hideaway office with midnight snacks.
“She knew we’d be there down around the clock, working to meet our deadline,” Cheney wrote. “I looked up from the pages of the report to see that Terri was sporting a ‘Team Cheney’ hoodie. It made me smile. It was a touching symbol of the unprecedented alliance we had formed, beyond partisan politics, to do what had to be done for our country.”
Despite the partisan divisions in Congress and ongoing political violence, the efforts of the January 6 committee were “deeply meaningful,” McCullough said. “I hope history will show how critical that effort was.”
Pelosi spent her career recruiting more women to run for Congress and elevating women to leadership roles on committees. McCullough, too, was a mentor on the staff side.
“She not only is responsible in her job, but she takes responsibility for the opportunity here to make sure that she's not just the first woman … that there will be many others,” Pelosi said.
McCullough said she did feel the pressure and weight of being a first. “But it was a good pressure, and I hope that allows other women to take roles like this and not feel the pressure,” she said.
And women continue to achieve “firsts”: Tasia Jackson, chief of staff to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, became the first Black woman to serve in that role to a member of House leadership in 2023.
“I have been so proud to have been able to contribute in Speaker Pelosi’s office for the years that I have, and it is my greatest hope that other women feel as passionately as I do about this work, work as hard as I hope that I did and are able to achieve great heights in the House as a result,” McCullough said. “And I hope that they feel that they will love it as much as I have loved my experience here.”
Read The Boss Fails To Register Their Mistake
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Customer: "This is ridiculous! You have six registers, but only two of you are working here! Why aren't you fully staffed!"
Me: "I'm sorry, sir, my coworker and I are the only ones serving at the moment. We're going as quickly as we can."
Customer: "I know that, idiot! I have eyes! I'm asking why! Why?!"
Read The Couponator: Black Friday Special
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Customer: “This is ridiculous! You people don’t even have half of what I came here for! Your coupon doesn’t even work either! You need to honor it!"
Me: "I’m sorry, ma’am. The ad states the sale started Thursday morning, and it's now Saturday afternoon, so some items have sold out. As for the coupon, it clearly says valid Monday through Wednesday."

My first computer suffered an economy found in early 8-bit machines with limited video memory: if you wanted lots of colors, you got less pixels, and a rational way to do that with the hardware back then was to make pixels twice as wide. — Read the rest
The post Tiny pixel fonts are a challenge. With double-width pixels, they're a nightmare. appeared first on Boing Boing.