I did black friday with a cousin who was looking to pick up an ultra cheap laptop. Unfortunately we were woefully unprepared for the lines, we were out maybe 15 minutes before the store opened and were far back in line. By the time we were in there was a huge line to even find out if they had any left. What a joke. This was at Best Buy. We couldn't find out where anything was supposed to be, there was a monitor that someone said you had to wait in the checkout line to find, yet I saw no sign of merchendise stacks in the checkout line (which snaked all through the store, the end of the line was marked by an employee holding a bunch of balloons, so you could find it from a long ways away).
However I picked up a pair of games at half the normal price, and a DVD that was $10, and waited maybe 15-20 minutes in the checkout line. By the time I left they had a signboard saying that the wait for the checkout line was an hour!
My cousin went on to an Office Max while I was waiting in line at BB, and they were out of good laptops too. He found a monitor he liked, but I talked him out of it because it had a weird resolution that I was afraid would cause him problems in games (which can often support only certain standard resolutions). By that time the sun was beginning to rise (keep in mind I'm normally a night person, I typically go to bed as the sun is beginning to rise, I was operating on maybe 2 hours of sleep) and we travelled on to Staples. I had forgotten my sunglasses, because it was dark when we left and I just didn't think about it. My eyes are rather sensitive to bright light (I've been accused of being a vampire), so I spent half the drive with my hands over my closed eyes.. Yes, my cousin was driving.
Staples came through on the CF card, a helpful employee checked on them and came back with a card after saying she thought they were out. She then directed me to a side checkout line that was far shorter than their main one.
I found everything I was looking for. Only one 2 gig card, but I really only needed one. I have one 2 of them now, plus three 1 gig cards. I think that's more than I've ever managed to fill on any one excursion. That's almost more than I shot on my last three Disney trips combined. I wasn't looking to get more cards, but the higher density issue made me pick it up anyway, if nothing else it means I have to change cards less. The two two gig cards are probably all I need now, although they're overkill for many occasions.
The day ended up being a massive shopping day, despite the massive lines and traffic foulups. All of the rest of it in vain, my cousin wanted a laptop but we couldn't find a single one that met his needs or price requirements. He's getting a Dell now, perhaps pursuaded by my monster 17 inch Dell laptop. Anyway, by the end of the day I'd been awake 21 hours operating on two hours of sleep, plus a nap. Not all shopping, I would have lost my sanity if I did that all day, but I call it a hallucinagenic day. By the end I was thinking that the beginning of the day had happened the previous day, because of how long ago it felt.
It was an experience. I'm not eager to do it again.. but picking up even just one ultra cheap ultra II plus some cheap games and such was worth it.
It was annoying.. but in a weird way (or maybe this is the lack of sleep talking) it was hilarious to be waiting in a checkout line at Best Buy that took me through nearly the entire DVD section and around the camera area. By the time I left it literally had circled around the entire store, in addition to the doubling back through the multiple DVD rows. Even when the end of line was out of sight, I could still see those helium balloons that the person marking the end of the line was holding. In a way it was an ingenious operation.
Circuit City was outrageous though. To just find out if they had a monitor in stock that was on display we were expected to wait in a massive line. Best Buy at least had their monitors on the shelves so you could look. They required you to wait to find out about the condition of the super discounted items, but their normal stock was still on display like normal. This was a normal monitor though, that was on a "normal" sale.. not an insane limited quantity deal to try to draw people in for things that they're never going to get.
I found out that they even get special versions of hardware to sell just for Black Friday. There was a mark of Toshiba Laptop, one of the deals we were looking for, that recieved a different name for the Black Friday sale. I couldn't find any details on it online, I later found out that was because the name was changed. I think I found the same thing for a Samsung monitor, I later found what looked like the same thing at a different Best Buy, but the name was different and it cost a lot more, even though the specs looked identical.
