How did you spend Black Friday ?

[Brett_Cameron]

DW noticed that the local wal-mart had a sale on an Xbox 360 bundle we were eying for DS-8, so I ventured out at 10 PM Thursday night. It was the first time in 25 years of the WM's existence that the parking lot was full with people circling the lot for parking spots. I parking in a nearby state and hiked to the store "just to see". They had pallets of the their "black Friday" crap in the aisles with most of it gone already. Amazingly, they had all of the registers manned. I had not thought that was possible! I did run into a couple of fellow ERer's and had some nice chats before I fled.

On the way home I noticed the police had a mobile command post set up in the empty parking lot of the mall waiting for the mall sales to start at midnight.

I shuddered and carefully drove home. I was passed once by a crazy speeding driver who undoubtedly left his cash at home and NEEDED to get it and get back to the store.

A few years ago I went to get some "black Friday" specials at Sears, fifty miles away. They were cheap and crap.

Bought the Xbox on-line on Friday.

[donheff]

Long bike ride on rural roads. Took another one today. The weather was nice but winter is on the way. Didn't go in any stores.

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nodak My 4 year old laptop died about 3 weeks ago; I found a nice Toshiba at Best Buy for $449. It's an AMD quad core processor, 17 inch screen, 4G RAM, and 500G HDD. I don't know the exact weight but it's not bad.

Don't you hate it when you are forced to spend money to replace things that you already own, and have no reason to replace?

The quad-core laptop you bought probably has enough "horsepower" to rival desktops that are only a few years old. However, it is probably in the 6-7 lbs range, and power hungry too.

I already have several desktops with big screens for home use. This notebook I want to replace is for travel and portable use. The small size and light weight are not negotiable.

The 10" netbook I bought for my wife to use for travel is fine for Web surfing and emails, but too puny for my occasional need for portable computing for pay. I have found that the recently deceased dual-core with 13.3" screen worked out perfect for me.

And by the way, my dead notebook is also a Toshiba. Yet, on the Web, they say that Asus and Toshiba are the two most reliable laptop brands. Additionally, overall, about 1/3 of all laptops die in the first 3 years. That's really miserable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 google the camelizer - fantastic tool for stuff you can wait a while for the best price. I heard about it from someone on this forum, IIRC.

Thanks. Will check it out tonight. Just returning home now and resting from a dash out to several hardware stores. Purpose of trip: to get material to fulfill a recently handed down "honey do" list.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gsparks2 On the way home I noticed the police had a mobile command post set up in the empty parking lot of the mall waiting for the mall sales to start at midnight.

On the Web, there's a headline about a shopper using pepper spray on others. I guess spraying capsaicin is still a lot better than spraying lead!

[eytonxav]

My Fit Foods had a buy $40 worth of food for $20 deal online, so I took advantage of that, but avoided the stores altogether. Also enjoyed LSU puttin a woopin on them Razorbacks.

[frayne]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo Rescuing puppies and kittens from burning buildings, adopting starving orphans and gut-shooting annuity salesmen.

Dat wood be a great sig line !

[dessert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DFW_M5 Also enjoyed LSU puttin a woopin on them Razorbacks.

+1
That was the highlight of my day too! No shopping for me either.

[Gumby]

The young wife and I spent Thanksgiving at her mother's house in Titusville NJ. On Friday, we slept late, then ate leftover turkey and stuffing for brunch. In the afternoon, we went to Lambertville, NJ, a pretty little town on the Delaware River. We went in the various antique and art shops which fill the town and also just enjoyed walking around in the 65F sunny weather. Didn't buy anything.

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo Rescuing puppies and kittens from burning buildings, adopting starving orphans and gut-shooting annuity salesmen.

Why would anyone want to adopt gut-shooting annuity salesmen?

And while we're on the subject of starving orphans, what happened to the puppies & kitties?

[tsturbo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound After hosting Thanksgiving for 28 people, or was it 29 - and I was cooking too, along side DW - I spent quite a bit of time shopping on Friday. Yep, I deserved what I wanted to get. I needed a certain thing, and went to all the usual places looking for it, such as Best Buy, Staples, Walmart, Costco, etc... Best Buy had something that would work for me, but I was late and it was sold out. Costco had the next runner up and at a very decent price, but it was not exactly what I had in mind, so I did not buy. I may have to do more shopping today. Heh, hold your horses! I am talking about shopping online here. About a week ago, my trustworthy laptop suddenly went "kaput". It was so sad. I paid $700 three years ago for this 4.5-lbs 13.3" laptop with a dual-core CPU. I had been happy with it, and was expecting to use it forever, and not having to replace it so soon. I strongly suspect that either the CPU or more likely the motherboard has gone bad. I have opened up and repaired a couple of laptops before, but am reluctant to fix this one. As I have no way of isolating the failure to either the CPU or motherboard, buying replacements for both would be nearly as expensive as getting a new laptop. My requirements are simple. It must have a dual-core i3 CPU, 3 or 4GB of memory, a screen of 13.3" or 14", a built-in DVD, and a weight in the 4-lbs range or less. Oh, and it has to be $500 or less. If it weren't for price, one of the wonderful Sony Vaio's would make me very happy with the weight down in the 2-3 lbs. Toshiba also got some like that. Found a suitable one on-line, and been seriously considering hitting the "buy" button. But I wonder if I can get a better deal by waiting a bit longer.

Buy an ipad2, lightweight, oh yeah, quick, yup, 10 hour battery life, instant start up, unlike a windows machine and NO virus threats or anti virus software needed.

[daystar]

I guess I was the only one at work on Black Friday. Things in the office very pretty quiet and I could get a lot done without the constant interruptions.

[52andout]

I took the cutest smartest grandchildren ever to the park and climbed on the gym equipment. We came home and ate leftovers while listening to music. Nap time then played with play doh and drew pictures. Grilled cheese for dinner. I was in charge of bath time and reading before bed. Closed their day with hugs and kisses. I don't see them often enough so I really enjoyed my day.
By 8 pm I was ready for bed and the parents enjoyed their evening out while I gladly stayed home.

Again this morning I was the first one up and we laughed while eating Cheerios and fruit with music playing in the background. They went home late today and I cried when they drove away. I love the little ones.

no sales for us- you save nothing if you don't need it in the first place.

[brewer12345]

I bought a truck. Dealership was a ghost town, since I guess all the shoppers were at MegaLoMart.

[Aiming_4_55]

Quote:

Originally Posted by daystar I guess I was the only one at work on Black Friday. Things in the office very pretty quiet and I could get a lot done without the constant interruptions.

I was one of the few in the office also. I started the new position in Sept, so saving PTO for yearend. I made it in late, 8:30am vs. the 6:30am start that I self-imposed. Management booted us at 2pm, so that was nice. They even ordered subway box lunches for those in the office, something quick and simple as a nice gesture.

I had the itch to shop as I had a few extra severance checks burning a hole in my pocket Wife headed out Thanksgiving night at 10pm with her brother while I shopped online. She returned home at 4am. I hit Menards at 6am and the parking lot was a mad house, scored a few things, i.e. 7" tablet, infared heater, a few cheapie tools for rentals.

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brewer12345 I bought a truck. Dealership was a ghost town, since I guess all the shoppers were at MegaLoMart.

I saw an article a few days ago saying black Friday was a good day to buy a car!

Did you get the F150? We want details - and a photo...

[brewer12345]

Yes, I got an F150. 4X4 XLT with sufficient goodies, including the ecoboost twin turbo V6. I expect I will have 800# of payload capacity once all the passengers and miscellaneous are subtracted from the max load on the door frame sticker. As the current trailer maxes out at 3300# and I don't expect to tow anything over 5000# give or take, thsi truck should do everything I want it to.

After driving an elderly 4 banger with a lot of wear on around here, I find I have to feather the gas pedal to avoid peeling out all the time.

See if my pic attaches:

[W2R]

Very pretty, Brewer. Bet it's fun to drive, too.

[Nova]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brewer12345 Yes, I got an F150. 4X4 XLT with sufficient goodies, including the ecoboost twin turbo V6. I expect I will have 800# of payload capacity once all the passengers and miscellaneous are subtracted from the max load on the door frame sticker. As the current trailer maxes out at 3300# and I don't expect to tow anything over 5000# give or take, thsi truck should do everything I want it to. After driving an elderly 4 banger with a lot of wear on around here, I find I have to feather the gas pedal to avoid peeling out all the time. See if my pic attaches:

Wow! You might be the best "black Friday" shopper I (virtually...maybe even personally) know. Nice looking truck. Hope you got a real deal on it, too.

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsturbo Buy an ipad2, lightweight, oh yeah, quick, yup, 10 hour battery life, instant start up, unlike a windows machine and NO virus threats or anti virus software needed.

Maybe (but I don't know how one can be sure about virus infection)...

Yet, I have not taken a close look at the iPad and am not interested.

It's because cussing at Microsoft as I have done and will continue to do, all my engineering and scientific software tools run under "Windoz". Not just using software, but I also have invested a lot of time to learn to write software under "Windoz". The iPad may be more friendly for surfing the Web or viewing media content, but I am not going to carry two things.

Even with the Mac, for years, I have hoped for corporate America and business to adopt it, just so Wintel has some competition. Sadly, it does not look like it will ever happen. Ditto for Linux...

[Koolau]

DW saw a sale she couldn't pass up, so we bundled the wheel chair into the car and headed for the closest mall. Turns out the sale and coupon DW planned to use had enough fine print that we didn't buy a thing. I was not particularly happy, but DW needed to get out of the house, so I guess it was okay.

Oddly enough, though the store was fuller than usual, the crowds I've seen for previous Black Fridays simply were not in attendance. Of course, we didn't get there until almost noon, so maybe we missed the bulk of the crowds. One thing I did notice: The usual Hawaiian spirit of aloha was difficult to find in the store and on the road. Materialism ruins us all I suppose.

[marylandcrab]

After hosting 20 something for Thanksgiving, including sleeping over, I came up with a fun plan to get everyone up and out the door in the morning.

We went to the National Harbor Center for breakfast then to see the Ice! exhibit. Conveniently located on 95, all the guests could then head north or south to go home.