...fivethirty...

I've got a box sitting in my home office full of stuff to go up on eBay. It's a bizarre collection of things I've picked up along the way, fittingly odd bits that really belong on an auction site. A 1960s-era sanitary toilet seat paper dispenser? A CD of Billy Joel playing with Attila and The Hassles? A Palm III modem? Yep, they're in that box. In fact, I've had pictures ready to upload and vague ideas of opening prices for several months now. I've just been sitting on them, waiting for the right time to start unloading this crap on unsuspecting fools bidders. In other words, I've been lazy.
All that has changed, though. Today and noon Chicago time, my first lob into the world of online auctions was launched: Christmas Converse All Stars. Who could resist these red, white and green beauties, which my mom misguidedly bought for me sometime in the early '90s? The plaid laces, the jingle bells on the heels -- and listed just ahead of the big Christmas push! I dare say there's nothing else like them. Go, bid up these paragons of good Xmas taste, while the getting is still good! I fully expect they'll be snapped up by some holiday-frenzied mom bent on having the perfect shoes for her office Christmas party.
Sure, it's still October, but haven't you noticed the red and green peeking out from behind the orange and black in the "seasonal" aisle of your local grocery store? The holiday shopping season is upon us, and with it the fever for festive fluff grows in the hearts of housewives across the nation. The period between around October 15 and December 25 has already become a blur of competing decorations for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas -- why hold back when everyone's in a shopping mood?