It was supposed to be so innocent -- a simple evening run to Toys "R" Us for batteries and a few other needed bits. The place was expectedly mobbed, but I managed to sneak in and out without a long wait, as the second I got on line, a bunch of registers opened up and speeded everything along. Most of the stuff that I needed was on sale, too. It was shaping up to be the most perfect little TRU run in holiday history, until my car exploded on the way home.

Actually, it was just a flat tire. A flat tire may be a minor nuisance for the planet at large, but it isn't for me. I can't change tires, and even if I could, my old donut tire wasn't even in the car. To further the drama, I'd left my cell phone at home.

Struggling to find the button to put on my hazard lights for the first time ever, I sat on the side of the road, waiting for a cop to come rescue me -- just like in the movies. Twenty minutes and a chewed tongue later, and I was still sitting there. Ultimately, I drove the thing home with a flat, clunking the whole way, assuredly twisting my front-right rim into a pretzel and increasing the cost of tomorrow's repair job tenfold.

That's the long way of saying: Today's AC entry will be up a bit late.

Tonight's SNT is brought to you by G&E's Color-Changing LED Night Light, snowman-themed. I love this thing. The crude animated GIF really doesn't sell the smoothness of the color-changing feature, where reds subtly morph to blues, and blues subtly morph to whites, and yadda yadda. Most electrical outlets have to spend the holiday season uglied by a dozen extension cords, but with this, your outlet becomes a decoration in itself.

Getting back to Toys "R" Us for a moment: It wasn't easy to navigate the store's aisles with so many stressed out shoppers present, but because Matt is dead and I'm actually a sentient mutant ferret who took his place years ago, I managed. Somewhere in those zips and dashes, I found Christmas magic...

This LEGO Holiday Magnet was a nice surprise, and not just because it's a tribute to the LEGO Santa who died on December 21st, 2007. It was also a nice surprise for at least, oh, thirty other reasons.

The lower base is the only truly magnet-related artifact in the set, and if it would've fit as nicely on the package, this would be more correctly titled a "LEGO Miniature Christmas Playset." You get Santa, a bare tree, a lantern, and what appears to be a toolbox filled with random, orphaned LEGO parts. Mainly I'm just happy that there's something more interesting on our fridge to look at than pictures of my distant cousins' kids now.

While there, I also picked up this small, musical Bumble snowglobe. I love Bumble, and I've failed at every opportunity to see something Bumble-related and not buy it.

A little button on the front activates the globe, sending the styrofoam snowballs spinning like mad while various, Rudolph-related songs blast at a surprisingly high volume. I gave the globe a test run at TRU, and was surprised to learn that it will play music for approximately 17 minutes even if you only press the button once. Not knowing how to turn it off at the time, I was forced to shop with my own personal musical score following me around.

In our collective travels with small, styrofoam snowballs, we've all learned that they're extremely static and adhesive. Hence, as they fly around Bumble's spherical abode, they have a nasty habit of getting stuck to his head. Maybe the snowglobe's makers made it this way to distract us from the unfathomable "BUMBLES" label above the activation button. Why did they pluralize? Clearly there is only one Bumble in this globe.

Off to work on the AC. If I'm lucky, red wine by 3 AM. Happy SNT!