The Smarmy Carny

More than meets the eye

At long last, the trailer for the live-action Transformers movie is available for viewing at Yahoo! Movies. The trailer is available in WMP and Quicktime formats, including high definition Quicktime formats.

This trailer gives us glimpses of a few transformers, including Optimus Prime and Bumblebee.

Die hard Transformers fans have already spoken up with the usual fan qualms, but the movie looks to be exciting and entertaining for fans, both old and new.

Voting has been going on for The New 7 Wonders of the World. The contest is run by the NewOpenWorld Foundation and started out with 200 possible sites for the new seven. The choices have now been narrowed down to 21 choices:

1. Acropolis — Athens, Greece
2. Alhambra — Granada, Spain
3. Angkor Wat temple — Cambodia
4. Chichen Itza Aztec site — Yucatan, Mexico
5. Christ the Redeemer — Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
6. Colosseum — Rome
7. Easter Island Statues — Chile
8. Eiffel Tower — Paris
9. Great Wall — China
10. Hagia Sophia church — Istanbul, Turkey
11. Kiyomizu Temple — Kyoto, Japan
12. Kremlin/St Basil's and Red Square — Moscow
13. Machu Picchu — Peru
14. Neuschwanstein Castle — Fussen, Germany
15. Petra city — Jordan
16. Pyramids of Giza — Egypt
17. Statue of Liberty — New York
18. Stonehenge — Amesbury, United Kingdom
19. Sydney Opera House — Australia
20. Taj Mahal — Agra, India
21. Timbuktu city — Mali

If you're interested in what other sites were considered, check out the previous list of the Top 77 nominees.

Head over to the site and read up on how to vote by phone or online. Registration is required.

Since most people can't name the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, here they are:

1. Great Pyramid of Giza
2. Hanging Gardens of Babylon
3. Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
4. Statue of Zeus at Olympia
5. Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
6. Colossus of Rhodes
7. Lighthouse of Alexandria

The primary reason that most people can't name the Seven Wonders is that only one of them still exists today. Four were destroyed by earthquake, and two were destroyed by fire. The Pyramids have withstood the test of time, and are the only Wonder to survive past the year 1500.

An alternate list of New Wonders was created by USA Today and Good Morning, America. The list included 7 Wonders along with an 8th viewer-selected Wonder.

1. Potala Palace — Lhasa, Tibet
2. Old City of Jerusalem — Israel
3. Polar ice caps — Polar regions
4. Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument — Hawaii, United States
5. Internet
6. Mayan ruins — Yucatán Peninsula, Mesoamerica
7. Great Migration of Serengeti and Masai Mara — Kenya and Tanzania
8. Grand Canyon — Arizona, United States (viewer-selected)

Transformers – Autobots

The live-action Transformers movie is scheduled to be released on the 4th of July, 2007. That's exactly 7 months away from the original date of this post!

Thanks to my son, I have been rewatching the old Transformers series that I grew up with (available on a 20th Anniversary Special Edition DVD) as well as watching the new Transformers Cybertron series.

If nothing else, Transformers in all its forms is a great taunt-fest. If you need great trash talk lines, you'll find plenty when you watch Transformers.

The official movie site still has more content to add, however you can already view the teaser, download wallpapers,

Though it's expected anyway, I'm glad to see that Starscream will be in the movie. On Black Friday, I bought a 14.7" tall Transformers Cybertron Supreme Starscream for my son. It's for Christmas, but I want to bust it out of the box and play with it before then. For a list of other characters appearing in the movie, watch the extremely informative the Yahoo! webcast Q&A with the writers (Windows Media Player required). They discuss many facets of the movie, including working with Hasbro, the role of humans in the movie, and working with director Michael Bay.

For Black Friday, I didn't sleep at all that morning, but since I had decided not to spend a shocking amount of money, I didn't spend all day in line, either.

Here's the rundown on my stops. I won't go into detail about what I bought, as I have already mentioned that I didn't go for any outrageously good deals this year.

• Thanksgiving night: Purchased one item on Amazon.com and one item on BestBuy.com.
• 1:00 – 3:00: Researched all stores in the area one last time. Printed a shopping list. Printed a list of stores nearby and sorted them by opening times. Created a plan for which stores to visit in which order.
• 3:00: Showered and packed.
• 4:00: Left the house.
• 4:30: Arrived at Toys R Us in preparation for the 5:00 opening.
• 4:59: Toys R Us doors opened.
• 5:17: Left Toys R Us with our two items.
• 5:19: Drove by Wal-Mart and found the parking lot completely full. Kept driving.
• 5:20: Arrived at Target in preparation for the 6:00 opening.
• 5:55: Left my wife in line as police blocked out the line skippers.
• 5:58: Arrived at RadioShack on foot.
• 6:00: RadioShack and Target doors opened.
• 6:00: Searched RadioShack for a cheap, unwanted tripod. Waited for sales assistants who seemed to consistently ask people next to me if they needed help before wandering far away to help them.
• 6:14: Finally told that tripods were "probably over there in the small camera section" that I had already looked in.
• 6:17: Found another man looking for the same item, but he gave up and checked out with his dozen other items.
• 6:25: My wife left Target with our two items.
• 6:30: Finally caught a RS associate who informed me that they had 0 of that item. Left RadioShack.
• 6:35: Arrived at second RadioShack. Immediately asked if I needed help and shown the tripods, though the associate had no idea which tripod was the one on sale. Luckily, I knew.
• 6:45: Left RadioShack with two items (including a $7 impulse buy.)
• 6:55: Arrived at K-Mart for intended clothing purchases.
• 7:39: Left K-Mart with various clothing items.
• 7:47: Arrived at BJ's Wholesale Club.
• 8:28: Left BJ's Wholesale Club with various items.
• 8:30: Called it a Black Friday and headed home.
• Saturday: Purchased an item from CompUSA.com.

So, that sums up the morning on Black Friday 2006. Did anyone else have anything more exciting happen to them?

For the latest Black Friday posts and other stores posted earlier, check out blackfriday.smarmycarny.com

It's go time for Black Friday specials, Black Friday deals, and Black Friday sales!

On Thanksgiving, you won't have any trouble at all finding Black Friday ads right in your newspaper. Nonetheless, the Black Friday Shopping List feature at GottaDeal is certainly worth using. Plus, it's sometimes easier to spot the deals you want in a text-based list instead of a busy Black Friday ad. In addition to previously posted stores, even more are available now:

• CompUSA — Opening Thanksgiving night this year, even earlier than last year's midnight opening! Don't get caught off guard!
• Big Lots
• Disney Store
• Express
• Home Depot
• J&R
• Lane Bryant
• Meijer
• Office Depot
• Old Navy
• Ritz Camera
• ShopKo
• Diet.com — Even Diet.com has a half-price Black Friday special this year: 1 DAY ONLY: Get 50% off a 1-year Diet.com Premium Membership. Enter FRIDAY at checkout. Offer good only on orders placed on 11/24/06.
  

If you're bored and are looking for something to do, here's a quick 15-minute exercise to keep you busy:

The Official David Hasselhoff Site of Worship has a David Hasselhoff paper airplane that you can print out, fold up, and fly to your heart's content.

I wanted to make the David Hasselhoff paper airplane myself before talking about it here, so I did just that. I'm happy to say that the paper airplane folds up nicely to make a great David Hasselhoff paper airplane, and it flies really well, too.

Tip: Save the paper airplane image to a local drive, and print the image there. That way, you will have the opportunity to print the image out in as large a size as possible. Otherwise, your browser may resize the image, print out the URL and date on the borders, and mock you in general.

NB: The folding instructions are confusing and often unhelpful, so a general knowledge of paper airplane folding will help. And if the instructions reference a tab that you don't see printed on the paper, that's because it's not printed on the paper. Go figure.

Wal-Mart has changed the face of Black Friday.

After GottaDeal broke with Wal-Mart's BF ad extremely early last year, Wal-Mart has cracked down on the entire Black Friday leaks and changed their strategy regarding deals.

According to a CNNMoney story, Wal-Mart will add even more deals in addition to what is listed in their circular by posting another set of deals on walmart.com Thanksgiving Day.

Thus, Wal-Mart has given up hope of keeping their physical advertisements off of the internet until they are officially released. One has to wonder how many retailers might follow Wal-Mart's lead next year. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if some stores post additional deals to try and match the deals advertised by rival stores. That way, they can add new deals on more of a last-minute basis and still look like they're not trailing Wal-Mart in the Black Friday world.