It’s Christmas eve (at least it was when I started typing). If you haven’t wrapped up your Christmas shopping by now, there’s no hope. Most stores are closed, and of the ones that are still open … well, nobody wants that Imitation Designer Perfume / Cologne from the 24-hour truck stop, no matter how cheap the price. Just cut your losses and move on.
Earlier today I completed my trek up to parts north to spend the holiday with family. As I’m typing this in front of a roaring (gas-powered) fireplace, a dog of intriguing lineage has decided I’m her best friend. She’s pretending to sleep right now, but every few minutes she inches closer and wedges herself in as close as she can. I just finished off the last piece of homemade poppy seed roll while watching the season’s final three episodes of Dexter. Life is good.
2009 has been an amazing roller coaster of a year. For starters, floor9.com moved a little further from covering nightlife and a little more towards consumer interests. I called out Privado for printing full, unmasked credit card numbers on their receipts (a practice which they have since corrected). Circuit City went under and tried to take us all with them through unethical, anti-consumer behavior. Metro Bank Harrisburg … don’t even get me started (although the story did earn me a link from The Consumerist). The state decided not to pay 70,000+ state workers for weeks on end.
And then … I ran out of steam. Don’t get me wrong — lots of other interesting and significant things happened in 2009. I just didn’t have the momentum to cover them all. I honestly think I’ve put forth more blog posts this year than I have at any point in the last seven years of floor9.com, and I’m only now starting to recharge.
And now it’s Christmas. I’m exhausted from a day of shuffling presents around. We polished off the last of the traditional Christmas Eve made-from-scratch pizza hours ago. The though of spending the next 12 hours sleeping is awesome.
Merry Christmas* to all. I doubt I’ll update again in 2009, but I do want to thank you all for being here. The massive readership over the summer has been, if nothing else, therapeutic towards the shared causes so many of us took up. And the gigantic spike I saw after the last post let me know a ton of you are still here. Be safe, and see you in 2010!
* – To avoid offending the fragile sensitivities of Glenn Beck / Rush Limbaugh / et al listeners: “Please partake in and/or observe an adequate non-secular event”.
