Line Starts At Best Buy For Black Friday

Geico266

Geico266

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Geico
I just got back from Best Buy. There is a dude in a sleeping bag in line (by himself) waiting for the store to open (it is open) at 5:00am on Friday so he can buy a lap top for $200. It is now 7:00PM on Wednesday. That is 36 hours of waiting in wind chills of 35F to save $400 or $11 per hour. When you live in a college town, you see weird things.
 
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What an idiot. I bought a nice laptop at Office Despot five months ago for about $230. Didn't have to wait in line, either.
 
How 'bout them Huskers?

Geico266 said:
I just got back from Best Buy. There is a dude in a sleeping bag in line (by himself) waiting for the store to open (it is open) at 5:00am on Friday so he can buy a lap top for $200. It is now 7:00PM on Wednesday. That is 36 hours of waiting in wind chills of 35F to save $400 or $11 per hour. When you live in a college town, you see weird things.
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Geico266 said:
I just got back from Best Buy. There is a dude in a sleeping bag in line (by himself) waiting for the store to open (it is open) at 5:00am on Friday so he can buy a lap top for $200. It is now 7:00PM on Wednesday. That is 36 hours of waiting in wind chills of 35F to save $400 or $11 per hour. When you live in a college town, you see weird things.
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Are you sure it is for the laptop?
Ok he is an idiot either way.
 
ron22 said:
Are you sure it is for the laptop?
Ok he is an idiot either way.
Click to expand...


I did not ask him what he was in line for, he was trying to sleep. Pretty sure it was the lap top though, Best Buy just announced yesterday that only 5 units at the price of $199 would be sold per store. :sleep:
 
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I would not wait in line overnight for anything I did not need to keep a loved one alive.

We did wait for about 45 minutes at a Target store to buy Tommy a Nintendo Wii, but they were very thoughtful there, handing out cards with numbers so you did not have to stand in the cold. Had six to sell, one-per, and you should have heard the twenty-something in line ahead of us cussing when they told him he could buy one, not five ("...I want one for each of my cousins..."). Cousin eBay, you mean...
 
DeeG said:
What an idiot. I bought a nice laptop at Office Despot five months ago for about $230. Didn't have to wait in line, either.
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Yes, but think about the epic story this guy will have now! Hypothermia, frostbite, sleep deprivation...this is the stuff legends are made of. Just think, years from now we might be hearing about The Odyssey II - Quest for the Toshiba. I mean, honestly, how satisfying could it have been to just walk in, get your item, and walk out?


:mad2::rofl:
 
Uggh-oo. I had to go to BB today. My Sophomore (college) daughter's Vista Laptop locked up. We restored a May 09 image, and then realized that the 200g backup external I had kept her file on, is just too small for her to do progressive backups.

INTO THE STORE! The line was about 1/4 of the floor layout. We got the second to the last 500gb WD Passport drive. Sigh.
 
Teller1900 said:
Yes, but think about the epic story this guy will have now! Hypothermia, frostbite, sleep deprivation...this is the stuff legends are made of. Just think, years from now we might be hearing about The Odyssey II - Quest for the Toshiba. I mean, honestly, how satisfying could it have been to just walk in, get your item, and walk out?


:mad2::rofl:
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I could ghost write it for him. Wouldn't catch me waiting in line to save a few bucks.
 
bbchien said:
Uggh-oo. I had to go to BB today. My Sophomore (college) daughter's Vista Laptop locked up. We restored a May 09 image, and then realized that the 200g backup external I had kept her file on, is just too small for her to do progressive backups.

INTO THE STORE! The line was about 1/4 of the floor layout. We got the second to the last 500gb WD Passport drive. Sigh.
Click to expand...

I bought a 1000 gig (Terabite?) WD drive for $109 at wally world a few weeks back.
 
woodstock said:
I wonder if he is still in line.
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Probably not now...but he was:
http://www.journalstar.com/news/local/article_edfc6e74-daea-11de-abef-001cc4c002e0.html


"My family celebrates Thanksgiving on Friday, because they know I'm not home on Thursday," he said.
Shakir said he became an ultra-early bird four years ago, when a friend invited him along for a similar excursion. He got a laptop then. Last year, he bought two computers and an iPhone.
"You get to meet new people," he said. "It's fun and you save a lot of money."
He ballparked a $1,000 savings on the stuff he planned to get this year.
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And to the people who storm the parking lots minutes before those doors open, some advice: Wear padding.
"Those are the crazy ones," he said. "They got hit by cars last year. The year before that, a little girl got hit by a car. I just get my ticket and wait here and look at them and laugh, like, ‘Now who's the crazy one?'"
He said he would probably go to sleep around 10 Wednesday night, when the store was to close. He had a tentative post-Best Buy plan, too.
"Probably go to Wal-Mart," he said.
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Today, I did my first ever Black Friday "doorbuster" shopping. Yesterday after dinner (we did a four-family combined dinner), I looked over the sale papers that some of the women were looking at. The one that suited my taste best ended up being Staples. It was a 6 a.m. opening (got in line by 5:35, and there were probably 75 people in front of us).

I ended up with a Brother wireless laser printer @ $90, a 1TB Seagate USB drive @ $67, a couple of 4GB SDHC Ultra II memory cards @ $13, an APC battery backup @ $20, some DVD-R discs (50 for $5), a laptop cooling pad @ $9, an 8 GB USB flash drive, and a lint roller! I was looking for a Canon point-and-shoot camera that they advertised, but they had 0 in stock :(

On the way home, we stopped at SAMS and bought a Wii, and a second TomTom GPS for the other car.

I have to admit that I've made fun of people who have waited in lines in the past, and have avoided it my whole life But today it was actually kind of fun. I guess that's because it was an all-technology trip. If I had to do clothes, or something boring, I'd rather sleep in!
 
David_L_Wilson said:
I bought a 1000 gig (Terabite?) WD drive for $109 at wally world a few weeks back.
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I picked up a 1 terabyte drive in NYC three weeks ago, for about $100.

Back in the 1980s, I remember clearly that HD prices were $100/megabyte.

What else in our collective lifetimes has decreased in price by a factor of one million?

-Skip
 
Erice said:
Today, I did my first ever Black Friday "doorbuster" shopping.

I have to admit that I've made fun of people who have waited in lines in the past, and have avoided it my whole life But today it was actually kind of fun. I guess that's because it was an all-technology trip. If I had to do clothes, or something boring, I'd rather sleep in!
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I have to admit this is my second year in a row of venturing out on Black Friday. I guess you could say I've gone "pro" on this Black Friday shopping gig. In fact, I call it a sport. See how many stores I can get to before they open, get in line, and buy something really inexpensive (only if its something I need or really want--and must be , like Erice, electronic or something similar as well in order to be interesting and fun.) Also, see how many people I can keep from knocking over accidentally as I weave my way through the stores or how many times I have to keep from getting knocked over, accidentally or otherwise.

I did indeed enjoy the game while it lasted. Next year, here I come!...IF there's something interesting to scavenge for...NO! NO! NO! clothes definitely do NOT count!....:D
 
David_L_Wilson said:
I bought a 1000 gig (Terabite?) WD drive for $109 at wally world a few weeks back.
Click to expand...

Skip Miller said:
I picked up a 1 terabyte drive in NYC three weeks ago, for about $100.

Back in the 1980s, I remember clearly that HD prices were $100/megabyte.

What else in our collective lifetimes has decreased in price by a factor of one million?

-Skip
Click to expand...
I saw ads for 1.5 TB drived for $89 earlier this week. Computing power and storage has become amazingly cheap compared to a short time ago.

The first computer I worked with had 16k of mag-core memory.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Wow.

My first "IBM PC" clone had a whopping 800K hard drive. (No that's not a typo that 0.8 meg.) And a turbo button. :rofl:
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I used to dreeeeam of a hard drive. :)

I bought a 16K memory expander for my VIC-20. IIRC, it cost $150.

Ron Wanttaja
 
It's amazing how cheap RAM is now. I remember my first 40 meg hard drive. It was $400.
 
My wife got up early and drove to Walmart & Target. They are across the street form each other. She said the parking lots were full so she came home. She went back a little latter and said the parking lots are still full and gave up.
 
Internet shopping is what it is all about. I'll do my shopping from my home office later this week and the stuff will show up like magic. In the meantime I get to sleep in my nice warm bed. The only crowd I will encounter will be two cats trying to sit on my lap.
 
David_L_Wilson said:
It's amazing how cheap RAM is now. I remember my first 40 meg hard drive. It was $400.
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I used DEC's first 1G direct-connect hard drive as a door-stop during my brief college career. Found it in the dumpster at DEC's ZKO facility. IIRC, the drive once went for well over $100,000.

Cheers,

-Andrew
 
smigaldi said:
The only crowd I will encounter will be two cats trying to sit on my lap.
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I feel you man. I have a big male Siamese cat that thinks I am his personal pillow. He is my big cuddly teddy bear.
 
Did some shopping today. No lines. no big crowds, same deals.
 
Picked up a 32 inch Samsung TV at Best Buy yesterday. Went in mid-afternoon. They had plenty and the crowds were manageable. I got tired of looking at the 21 inch TV in the bedroom. Now I need something taller to put it on so I can see it over the cat. :D
 
Okay now, fess up. How many of you POAers ordered stuff today on line? Did you sleep by your computer so you could be first in line? :rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
Geico266 said:
Okay now, fess up. How many of you POAers ordered stuff today on line? Did you sleep by your computer so you could be first in line? :rofl::rofl::rofl:
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Not me. I did it Saturday.

The wife pointed out that:
A ) The TV isn't working well.
B ) In the nearly 30 years we have been married I have never bought a new TV. And
C ) it's about time that I did.:dunno:

So now I should have a brand new, still in the box, ain't never sat on the curb, 32 inch Heavy Duty TV coming in the mail...
 
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I almost ordered a drill -- but resisted -- even though Lowes did have a pretty good deal with a Dewalt 18v at $99.
 
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