MarkRaby

Hm. I might step in to get a 2 GB SD card for $30, but other than that, like others have said here, *big fat yawn* Seriously, what is with advertising things like the PSP and Xbox 360 in the context of a sweeping deal like the Motorola thing? (PSP - FREE AFTER REBATE!!!! Or, regular price if you don't sign a service contract and commit to paying a $500 fee if you cancel early)

Yes! I would definitely be interested in it. It's right on my path of usual BF stores.

Wow. Which heaven did your CompUSA fall out of? I'm pretty sure at the CompUSA here, not a single employee was even outside. They just opened the doors at midnight and it was a free-for-all, including the 50 or so people that jumped out of their cars at 11:59 PM. Inside, once again, I don't think there was any sort of management or supervision overlooking anything. It was basically "form your own 200-person lines any way you want. We don't care what you do."

Yeah. CompUSA was the definition of unorganized in terms of their BF sale last year. The one I went to wasn't a particularly large one, and it was shoulder-to-shoulder throughout the entire store. Absolute chaos. Nobody knew where the lines started, or to which register each line went. Since I plan on getting the big stuff at Best Buy or Circuit City this year, I will not have time to go to the CompUSA sale at midnight if they do it again, but I may go back later in the day to try to pick up anything that maybe wasn't super popular.

Even though the big box guys (Best Buy, Circ City, etc) are always crazy, there's usually at least some order to the madness. In terms of pure chaos, my vote has to go to CompUSA, for last year's midnight opening. There was no security, no attempt to bring order to things from the employees, AND NO LINES AT ALL. CompUSA, typically a pretty calm store, has no real lines set up. They've just got a handful of registers. For those who didn't go, you can just imagine how insane it was to not have any sort of official lines, with hundreds of people wanting to check out.

I am very much considering making the biggest purchase of my life with a $1,000+ HDTV (I'm deeply considering the 50" plasma, or at least the 42" LCD). There's also a good chance I'll be buying a digital camcorder, which, depending on which model I go with, may or may not be a huge purchase. Anyway, what's everyone else eyeing in the ad this year?

This question seems to come up every year, so I thought I'd get it up here ASAP (apologies if this has already been asked! I couldn't find anything using a simple search). I'm also curious to see how many first-timers we have here. With four Black Fridays under my belt, I'm actually beginning to feel a bit like a Black Friday veteran. Of course, my first Black Friday included getting a JC Penney snowglobe, waiting 2.5 hours in Best Buy's line for a $5 PS2 game and a $40 portable TV, and then going to Radio Shack for a $5 M&M radio. But this year will mark my first really big Black Friday. It's all been growing up to this point, to now where I actually have a good income and can spend, spend, spend!

I started doing Black Friday in 2002, when I was 16 years old. For the first couple years, I really didn't have a ton of money, of course, so waiting outside for hours didn't make sense for me. I'd get to JC Penney a couple minutes before they opened to get one of their snow globes, and then I'd hit any other stores I wanted, and since it was the small stuff I was interested in, I never really had a problem getting anything that was on my list. Last year was the first time I really had a purpose for going early. I got to Best Buy sometime between 2:00 and 3:00. I was about 25th in line (you have to remember, they did not have, or at least did not advertise, the door busters here so there was not as much excitement about the laptop and other stuff that you guys were all clamoring for), and got the two semi-big things I wanted (home theater system and a flat-panel PC monitor), allowing myself to get out of the store by 5:15. This year, since it seems Best Buy will at least be handing out tickets for the door busters (even if they don't put them in the flyer), and I have some big stuff to get this time, I plan on getting there around midnight.

I've noticed a lot of people talking about replacing TVs and computers (and other stuff) on BF, so I was curious to know, if you are looking to replace some of your household stuff, how old are the things you're replacing? For example: I want to replace my TV this year with a bigger, HD one. The current TV I have now is a 27" SDTV and I got it about two years ago, though it was the cheapest one you could get. It was from Best Buy's in-house Insignia brand. The colors bleed terribly, the sound isn't the best, and overall image quality just leaves a lot to be desired. I'm looking for a 42"+ HDTV, flat-panel, wall-mountable, with at least 720p. I also am looking to get a new digital camera to replace the bulky 5 MP one I currently own. I just got it last year, and it's not a bad camera, but it is rather big for its level of performance. I'm hoping to get a digital camcorder that can take 3+ MP still shots, for a reasonable price.

California and Nevada also have the same law, and I believe a handful of other states as well. This has led to almost all of the big-name stores to just get rid of the "no-activity" fees on their gift cards, so it's not something that most people need to worry about.

From all I've read, I know that LCD is the more preferred technology, but I've also seen that they're improving plasma (and it can already rest its laurels on things like color contrast and viewing angles), so I was thinking of going for the 50" plasma HDTV door buster from Best Buy, since it seems to be the genuinely best deal on HDTVs that we've seen so far. It's a $3,000 TV for $1,600! Not bad. I'm also picking up a wall mount since they're 20% off. But I just want to know if anyone thinks there's any reason why I should avoid this TV. Is there any between-the-lines stuff I should know about Toshiba's TVs, or plasma, or anything of that nature?

So, for the first time since the store opened in 1992, Media Play will not be opened on Black Friday. In other words, it's the first Black Friday since their parent company filed Chapter 11 and agreed to get rid of all the Media Play stores. Some of their BF deals used to be really good; it was a good last stop because they had lots of deals that were wide-encompassing. For example, they'd usually do buy 2 get 1 free on DVDs, or buy 1 get 1 free on books, or even like 20% off all bargain books...stuff like that. It will be sad to, for the first time, not have the store on my Black Friday plan of attack.

I will be hanging out at Best Buy to get one there

We used to have a Radio Shack around here that nobody even knew about. It was hidden away in a shopping center where stores were coming in and out all the time. It's off of a road that a lot of people never even drive on. So it was the perfect "final desintation" for BF. But I think they went out of business this year. I will probably still hit a Radio Shack some time on BF, since I live pretty close to one, but it'll be sad not to be able to get the door busters at 11:50 AM.

Unless something really spectacular shows up in the ad scan that was missed here, I will probably just do what we've been doing for years. After Best Buy, we head across the street to the mall, my brother stops the car in front of the lower JC Penney entrace, puts the hazards on, runs in to get one of the snowglobes, comes back out and then lets me run in and get one, and then we're on our way. I've rarely purchased anything from JCP on BF.