Life Goes On

Even being out of the media loop, it's been hard to avoid the macabre fascination of the Saddam Hussein execution watch. The deed was finally done, of course, so it'll be interesting to see how much coverage it gets tomorrow. Will this finally be the last corner we need to turn in Iraq? Can we come home yet? All I know, at least, is that I definitely feel safer with one less imprisoned and crushed dictator in the world. I wish I had more to say about it, but the whole thing is just one huge anticlimax.

But in the meantime, I'm still in Toronto. I usually make a fair bit of effort to check out bookstores and CD stores for titles that are more difficult to find in the states. A few years ago, when the U.S. dollar was strong and the Canadian dollar wasn't, you could find some real bargains after factoring in the exchange rate. Nowadays, that's not so true--after you take Canadian federal and provincial sales tax into account, you're only saving about 5 percent over prices in Chicago. And I'm also finding that I still haven't gotten over my Tower Records liquidation sale overdose from earlier this month. I walked into Sam the Record Man and HMV and couldn't think of anything I was particularly looking for. I browsed the new titles, but nothing caught my attention beyond the new Bob Dylan for $10.00 ($9.50 after the exchange rate), which was close enough to used prices for me. I also bought a copy of Layer Cake as a late Christmas present for my sister-in-law (who doesn't read this blog, so shhhhh, it's still a secret). Since it was $26.00 alone or two for $30.00 with another title, I also picked up the two-disk Monty Python and the Holy Grail for Mrs. Talk Talk Talk Talk Talk and myself.

Back to the subject of the opening paragraph, how long will Saddam's hanging last into New Year's weekend? Make your bets in the comments.