len_mullen

Like they need stickers. The rest of us KNOW who they are.

Right and there is a door to the back area of the store in the area so dozens of employees walk past you avoiding eye contact.

I learned my shopping style from my mother -- get the things that must be under the tree early and fill the space around these things with things you get Christmas Eve. Of course price matching and return/rebuy make this easier.

Yes it does matter. Retailers will have an additional weekend to liquidate before final markdowns.

PHOTO #1 http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/images/c1.JPG The line starts over there! PHOTO #2 http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/images/c2.JPG These Nerf guns are for ME. No lines, no waiting! PHOTO #3 http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/images/c3.jpg I told you this would be AWESOME!

This might actually be my favorite part of BF. I check in Labor Day and wait for the conversation to pick up. I love the product specific dialog, the gift ideas, and fun games (like writing haiku poems). I enjoy poring over the ads, making my lists, and plotting a plan. It's foreplay to the shopping. Lots of fun. The sales are exciting. When the buying is done, I bask in the warm afterglow of casual shopping among those who are still losing their minds, the Christmas decorations and music, and, near the end, some unexpected bargains. The problem with BF becoming an online event is that you end up doing the exciting part by yourself and that, while satisfying, is just not as good as doing it with others.

Great way to meet new people. Have fun. Be nice.

Listen folks, take it upon yourself to make BF more enjoyable. I might be getting old and sentimental, but I plan to do just that this year. In fact, 2016 has been a back to basics adventure for me and I am LOVING it! Dumped Netflix and Prime. Relying on an antenna for television. Turning off the computer after supper. Getting to bed a little earlier. Shopping locally -- Kohls, Staples, Walmart, Home Depot, Best Buy No more warehouse stores -- thank you Aldis for freeing me of bulk purchasesI AM going out to shop on Black Friday and the Farmer's Almanac is predicting snow! I'm taking my youngest (he doesn't know this) and we are going to stand in line to get one thing to remember. Then we are going to have breakfast and shop. I am going to shop at least four times between BF and Christmas Eve. I may not buy anything, but I want to take in the atmosphere, frenzy. I am assembling a collection of Christmas songs and audio books to listen to as I drive around. Merry Christmas!

Yes, please share this.

Excellent post. I always look forward to your posts (even if I disagree with some). This one, however, is dead on. My only caveat (and we discussed this last year) would be that given the price of UHD sets and the fact that they DO look great, I would not disqualify one simply because the tech remains unsettled. As always, the consumer should but the set which looks best within their budget. (I still have not seen a television which makes my 60" plasma look dated.)

Here is a little poem to help you avoid being a victim this Christmas season. OPSEC or OPerations SECurity is all the things you do to avoid breaches. Have a safe holiday shopping season! 'Tis the Season for OPSEC With apologies to CLEMENT CLARKE MOORE 'Twas the Holiday Season, and all through the streets Every hacker and burglar, was looking for treats; Boxes were stacked by the trash without care, Alerting the thieves to the treasures in there; Vacationers tweeted their plans and photos; While bandits were stealing their speakers by Bose; And mamma with her iPhone, and I with a map, Went off to the mall to plunder the Gap, First to the automated teller machine, Where my PIN was stolen and my bank was wiped clean. We shopped with our credit cards having no cash, Until a POS bandit ended all that. With no money for gifts we headed for home, Where my PayPal and I would the internet roam, When what to my wondering eyes did appear, But a really good offer that seemed quite sincere, With an unpleasant popup as soon as I clicked, I knew in a moment my Mac would be sick. More rapid than FiOS the popups did come, My outdated defenses could only stop some, From the click of a link with a virus attached, All the files on my disk were quickly dispatched! To another computer, I went to shop, But accounts and email were already locked. No money, no credit, and no PC too, Tax returns, photographs were all gone from view; No fav'rites, no bookmarks, no cookies, no clue, Gone were my high scores and the Christmas list too -- And then, in a twinkling, I heard in the street The prancing and pawing of very big feet. As I looked to the street, and was turning around, I saw a man escape from my home with a bound. As he covered my spare key with the mat, The thief turned to me and said, "Thank you for that!" At that very moment came a knock at my door, "I'm from DSS and I'm here to brief you some more." His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry! "Let's do this thing right, I'm not in a hurry." "Keep boxes inside until trash day, you know," "Expensive debris tells the crooks where to go." "Get your cash at a bank and keep your profile low." "Only swipe credit cards with merchants you know." "When surfing the net, be alert to the deals" "Which promise you things too good to be real." "Hover over links that might your click redirect" "Your identity to steal, or credit to wreck." "When away from home, leave shades down and lights on," "That way the prowlers don't know that you're gone." Then he seemed to accuse with a knit of his brow, "The key under your mat - go get that, right now!" And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, from my table he rose; He walked to his car, which was locked and well lit, And looked twice in back seat before he did sit. With a wave of his hand, as he drove out of sight -- "Practice good OPSEC each day, and have a safe life!"

I started shopping Black Friday before it was called Black Friday. My mother did most of her Christmas shopping the weekend after Thanksgiving and I went with her when I got old enough not to become jaded. I worked Thanksgiving at a department store. We were getting ready for Friday, but the manager decided to keep a register and the doors open. That was in 1983 or 1984. I have never camped out, but, as someone who is a very early riser, I have often hit a secondary store an hour or two before opening. I group of us used to meet at Staples to 'stock up' then hit Big Lots next store then Radio Shack. One year I waited for Kohls. Last few years, I have done most of my shopping online.

I never got out last year. Had a great Thursday morning online and finished up online over the weekend. All about the Xbox One. I did pick up a laptop Christmas Eve. HP - Pavilion 17.3" Laptop - Intel Core i5 - 4GB Memory - 1TB Hard Drive - Silver for $349.99. That is what I am hoping to do this year -- a nice 17" laptop on the cheap.

Lesson learned, r3d. ALWAYS open, set up, and test any important gift as early as possible. I bought an Xbox One and Battlefront on BF. When it arrived, I set it up, paired the controllers, and took all updates. Satisfied, I packed everything up for Christmas. Before anyone got up Christmas morning, I set the whole thing up. Everything went great except there was another update for the console and the controllers. When the update completed, the box rebooted and came up to a blank screen. A few minutes on Google and I suspected the issue was the default video configuration and my AVR. I confirmed this by plugging directly into the tv, made the necessary changes, plugged it back into the AVR and was good to go -- with hours to spare. So, even the best laid plans... Glad things worked out for the both of us. Hope your daughter enjoys the game.

My mother's cable company provides an integrated router/modem with voip. It's inexpensive enough to not be worth replacing. Last time I suggested buying a cable modem, they were pretty expensive. We did the math,my friend went for it, and a month later she lost her investment to a power surge. Then there is the support end of things and dealing with obsolence.

This explains SO much.

I was hoping Channel Master or Antennas Direct would buy the company stores and promote OTA/OTT. With OTA especially, seeing is believing.

As the Christmas shopping season winds down, I am surprised at the lack of reporting on retail sales and cash register receipts. Expectations were tamped as early as September... Pundits are blaming consumer spending numbers on lower gas prices and warm weather. I found this amusing since they were blaming bad weather and high gas prices for the same thing lest year. I'm going to see Star Wars Sunday. Between dinner and the movie, I will be in the malls for the first time since summer. It will be interesting to see how enthusiastic last minute shoppers are just five days before Christmas. You may want to stroll through a Sears (same-store sales drop of 13.9%), K-mart (same-store sales drop of 6.9%), or a Radioshack this holiday season, because I don't think we will waiting for their Black Friday ads next year.

Now I want one

That's OK. As soon as my Kohls order comes in, I'm going to cancel my Walmart order -- live by the sword, die by the sword!

Curved screens are a bizarre marketing scam. No one watches television that way. Even Samsung concedes that the experience maxes out four feet away from the television. What is the curved screen supposed to be accomplishing? which I kind of get

Mission accomplished.

Sure, but a lot of us are looking forward with great anticipation to Black Ops 111

I did not plan on purchasing a console this year. I got interested after seeing an Xbox One on a 70" television. We were probably going to get Battlefront on some platform. It seemed like a good time to get a new console. My kids have gaming PCs, so my focus was on multiplayer, single screen games. I feel like $650 (not including $110 in unspent gift/promo codes) for this system was a bargain... XBox One 1TB console (Microsoft Store $388.99 w/$60 gift code)Four wireless controllers (new model with phone jack; two with bundle, two from Amazon @$39 ea)Battlefront (Dell Home with $25 promo code @ $59.99)Call of Duty Black OPs III (Dell Home with $25 promo code @ $59.99)Gears of War: Ultimate Edition (with bundle)Minecraft ($16.37 from Amazon)Sunset Overdrive (with Bundle)Ori and the Blind Forest (with bundle)Rare Replay (with bundle)Rayman Legends ($23.99 from Amazon)Borderlands: The Handsome Collection ($24.99 from Amazon)Xbox 360 Gears of War Collection (with bundle)12 Month Xbox Live Gold ($27.89 from CD Keys.com)In the end, I chose the Xbox One for ME. The games the kids will play are on both platforms. I build a bundle that I would like to play on with them and chose games the whole family would enjoy playing together.

Early numbers show Sony winning the BF console sales contest. Did you get a console? Which one? Where did you get it and how much did it cost? How did you decide? I'm not very experienced at polls. You have to choose one option in each question.