They were in the car!

Store closing sales are crap. Nidhal and I have gone to two this week and they were both ridiculous. You'd think that they would want to get rid of the stuff faster. First it was a Blockbuster near our place. We went in thinking we could get some good deals, but they were trying to sell these used DVDs for 30% off a $15 "regular price". There's no way I'm paying $10 for a used DVD when I can get it at the same price new somewhere else or for 1/3 the price used. Ridiculous. But I guess some gullible people buy the stuff. The same thing goes for Borders. One of the three Borders stores in Ann Arbor is closing, the sale has been going on for at least a week, and I thought it would be a good time to go get some good deals. Wrong. The sign advertised 25%-50% off of everything. Of course, only greeting cards and magazines were 50% off. And 50% off is really the limit for me. I can get between 25% and 40% off every week at Borders because they send me emails with coupons. On top of that, the stuff in there is overpriced (or regularly priced but it just can't compete with Amazon's prices and their free shipping) and is only worth buying as a treat or with a discount. But people were definitely buying the stuff, and I would've too if they had had something that I really wanted. Nidhal wanted an Atlas book, but it was priced at 25% off of $80 and the thing was ripped and bent and such. We would've paid $20 maximum for it. We ended up buying two maps (a USA wall map and a Niagara Falls folded map) and two magazines (Newsweek from almost three weeks ago and an economist magazine).

Then we got Chinese and Nidhal tolerated it, but it certainly wasn't the best Chinese I've ever had. That was unfortunate. Nidhal is a new-food skeptic and I wish it would've been of higher quality so that he would've liked it more. We had Indian food at a place in Ann Arbor back in the day, and even though he was skeptical, the quality of the food won him over and now he willing eats Indian food.

The unpacking is coming along slowly. It's hard to unpack when there's nowhere to put things. We have plenty of room in the place just not many shelves or drawers at the moment. So our clothes are put away and most of our kitchen stuff has found its place, but the vast majority of everything else small and not vital it still where it was set down a month ago. At least the downstairs is coming together nicely. We just have to set up the desk and put up the clock, and most everything will be done. The basement and the second bedroom is where all the work is.

I'm listening to an Irish song now from The Rough Guide to Irish Music and it really makes me want to go back to Ireland. When I was in Ireland, I really liked it, but I think that my liking for it has increased in the years since I've been there. It's hard to believe that it's been almost four years since I was in Ireland. March 2007 and now it's March 2011. Nidhal and I will have to go there. I went to some great places while I was living in Germany, but I was also lucky to get to go back to Germany multiple times and to Tunisia once in the years following my departure. Last year was a big trip, so this year will have to be a little US or Canada trip. Nidhal and I have a surprising amount of things in common and one of them is a love of traveling.