SynthDude2001

Yep. That part was fun when they opened the doors and the mad rush began (This was at Best Buy)

lol....the thing is, we're actually college students without a whole lot of money, so we didn't get to buy too much stuff...but I think it was fun for the experience anyway :)

Only been once so far, but that time it was with a friend and her boyfriend

about 10pm last time

Pontiac Bonneville... ('92 SE last time, '94 SSEi this year) Has a ton of space, but I don't have the money to come anywhere close to filling it

Hmm...I've only ever been once (and didn't spend a whole lot of money at the time), but I guess I'd say I enjoyed spending the time with friends the most. :)

I think I need to hide my wallet from myself on that day, else my waistline will suffer

Definitely! That'll be especially helpful if I'm ambitious this year and want to do more than one store (and have the money to do so, lol ). Knowledge is power, as they say.

I've only had one experience before, 2003 (which I also told about last year here), nothing too exciting. Got to Best Buy around 11pm, two friends were already waiting for me there, we were the very first in line. It was cold that night (for Texas standards ), but being there with friends was fun...the lines got insanely long around 4-5am, and once the employees got there (and security guards or maybe a police officer, I forget), they had to keep an eye on the line to make sure no one got in front of us, lol... Local TV station brought a truck and (briefly) interviewed one of my friends around 5:30am; doors opened at 6 and there was a mad rush for everything inside...luckily (depending on how you look at it), we were/are all poor college students and didn't have much money (it was more for the experience, I guess), so we only bought relatively few things..we were out in about 10-15 minutes and then crashed at a friend's house for the morning. :) Last year I was having major car problems (as in, the thing wouldn't even start ), so I didn't get to go (although I did get a friend to pick up two DVD's for me at Best Buy). This year...car is in working order, I'll be armed with a PDA and cell phone (to use as a modem, eventually), and this website...I'm ready

I have, especially since I didn't get to go last year! (Although I did finally crack on that X51v a few days ago...hopefully I'll be web browsing while waiting outside in the cold for 8 hours )

What I want: -Huge hard drive (400GB+ ideally, HDTV capture can make any hard drive appear small ) -Maybe a good inexpensive (~$500?) HDTV for my mom's house -DVD's, boxed sets (Simpsons, 24 season 4 if it's out yet, maybe others) -Axim X51v -Maybe a laptop but probably not since I won't have that much money (unless everybody throws tons of money at me when I turn 21 the week before Black Friday ) That's all I can think of now...I'm sure there will be more though

That works for me. Although realistically, $500 or less almost certainly

1) How excited are you about this years Black Friday? I'm very much looking forward to Black Friday this year (assuming there are good deals) since I didn't get to go last year - my car wouldn't start at the time. 2) What's on your shopping list? What items? Nothing specific at the moment...whatever I can afford. Electronics and computer stuff, mostly. 3) Parents, do you dread shopping for the hottest toys and/or video games? I'm a parent? Why didn't someone tell me? 4) Do you bring anything to sit on while camping out at 2AM waiting for a store to open? I'm thinking about getting a collapseable lawn chair. 2am? That's when the amateurs get there. 10pm all the way. But I really haven't decided yet. When I did Black Friday before (2003), my friends and I did have chairs (and blankets, it was 35F out there ). If I or my friend can hop out of line to throw the stuff back in my car right before they start letting people into the store like we did that time, I'll probably bring it. :) 5) What stores ads are you anxious to see? Best Buy, Fry's, Circuit City, CompUSA maybe...basically anywhere that sells computer/electronics stuff. 6) We're currently at 5,898 members ... do you think we'll break 10,000 members by Christmas? It's certainly possible. 7) I can't wait until we upgrade to vBulletin forum software v3.5 with new features and goodies. Plus we're going to have several giveaways and prizes this holiday season. Awesome. I was really disappointed that I didn't get to go to any of the sales last year due to my car troubles, I felt somewhat left out.

Thanks for the replies. I guess I probably should wait until next month.. New model coming out + end of quarter = (hopefully) big savings on last year's model. Oh, and thanks for the links, RossMAN. I'd found a little info about the X51v in my searches too. If what I'm reading is correct (and who knows if it is), it's just an incremental upgrade with twice the flash ROM and stuff like that. If that's the case, I don't particularly care since I'll be using a 5GB microdrive for storage when I get my x50v.

I've decided that I almost certainly want an X50v (and maybe a GPS kit to go with it). Unfortunately, the last coupons from a few days ago are dead. Does anyone know when the next deal would be coming around for this? Ideally I'd like to see right around $300 (or less) for just the X50v. Would I have to wait until their financial year's end next month? (I'd rather not wait that long )

Nice...Around $400 shipped with tax. The only thing that's making me have second thoughts about this is whether or not Dell will offer an upgrade to Windows Mobile 2005 later in the year...

I appreciate the advice, but I'm already quite well-versed in the art of online hardware purchasing. :) And actually, CompUSA's sale tomorrow has a 250GB hard drive for $99, which is even hotter. And yes, it's ATA 133 instead of Serial ATA, but that's not a big deal to me since it's not like being Serial ATA magically makes the drive faster.

CompUSA is probably first - that 200GB hard drive for ~$96 is hot. (And I'm quickly running out of space on the drives I have.) After that, who knows...I already bought myself a digital camera last month, so I don't need that (and the BF sale ones tend to be low-end stuff anyway). Also bought myself a DVD burner last month (and 100 DVD+R discs today), so don't need that. Picked up a photo printer in September. Supposedly having a 2001FP monitor coming soon, so don't need a flat panel on BF. The only other "big" item I was considering was a laptop - but I don't think I can swing it now (just spent $650 on the monitor, which I'd use quite a bit more). Not to mention, the deals aren't that great as far as nice laptops. I suppose I'll hold out hope for another insane Dell deal like the one last month that I missed out on. Then again, there's still the issue of "how much would I use it?" Anyway, we'll probably stop by Best Buy later in the morning (i.e., after camping out at CompUSA if that's where we end up first) - at this point, the most attractive items to me are the 24 Season 1 DVD's ($13 or so) and the Man on Fire DVD (like $10). Isn't it sad that I actually have money this year, but there aren't any really compelling items on BF to spend it on? (Besides the hard drive, I guess.) You could argue though that I've already spent my money in the past month or so. :) It's also possible that we might head up to Fry's in Austin (short ~70 mile drive) if they have any nice deals there too. But I guess it'll be Thursday before we really know what we'll be doing.

I'd do it anyway, just for the experience again. Especially since this year it'll probably be 20-30 degrees warmer than last year (when it was 35° and very windy). I think we're going to have a group of at least 7-8 people this year. It'll be fun! :) It helps too that I actually have money this year.

Yeah, there's one in the small town I go to school (College Station), but I'd never seen one before coming here (and I'm from San Antonio, which has 1million+ people). I've never bothered to stop by and look around the place though.

Hmm....this gives me some ideas. Perhaps, while camping out all night in front of Best Buy, we could use a friend's laptop, with my cell phone hooked up as a modem, to order stuff from other stores we might not get a chance to get to while they still have stuff in stock....:)

When I got to Best Buy last year just after midnight, there were probably 15 people in line already (although I was meeting friends who were saving a spot for me luckily). I live in a big city though (San Antonio, though I go to school in College Station), so I imagine other places wouldn't be so crazy. Even from store to store it varies...the Circuit City last year had very little line compared to BB. But anyways, we're probably aiming for 10pm or sooner this year. :)

None. We might even be at Best Buy by 9pm or 10pm this year.

I vaguely remember this too...I was actually planning to go (they had 90 CDR's for $7 or something crazy like that), but I had a LAN party to go to anyway and I didn't feel like standing in line forever (since I would have been by that point). :)

Let's see....last year it was just jeans, a t-shirt, and a borrowed leather jacket over that. But it was cold (35°F and windy), and I don't generally get cold. However, if it stays the same up until BF as it's been the last week or so, we're probably only looking at mid-40's, which if there's not insane wind like last time, I can deal with just fine. :) One of the friends who I went with last year, said that the first year he went (2-3 years ago), he was outside with no jacket or anything. Probably around 65°-70°, I'd imagine. In Texas you can never really predict...lol Oh, and I suppose I will be "wearing" my camera bag (I just bought a Canon PowerShot S1 IS about three weeks ago), so I can take pictures of all the madness!