len_mullen

Harbor Freight 10/16

How have their predictions been the last three years? Seems to me they were wildly optimistic. I sense the same here. There are a lot of negative forces at play... - people are sick. No one wants to be in crowds of sick people and no one wants to go out when they are sick. - economy still sucks for many. - there's nothing to shop for. nothing is going to get people out to put their hands on product. I expect sales to be reported as up then adjusted down all the way to the new year.

I would visit your school and see what they recommend. It would be nice if she worked with a device which will be part of her education going forward. They may even have software and information to help you help her.

I'm in the same situation. I may jump early with the at&t double data deals. I wish people would post more information about carriers and plans in this thread. Please include zip codes.

I'm not sure I go out at all and I'm pretty sure I'll never stop going out completely. Online and B&M have so blurred that it's tough to characterize a purchase as one or the other. If I go into Staples and order something at the kiosk is that B&M or online? I almost always place my Wal-mart and Home Depot orders online these days. Is it still an online purchase if I pick the merchandise up at the store an hour later? Black Friday, as a shopping season, is even more blurry as merchants push their promotions to early November. I've gotten some BFish deals over this summer. I still go to the stores and I like to go to the stores on BF. I don't wait in lines and often do not buy anything at all. It's just fun to be out there. This year may be about new smart phones. This is something I will likely decide by the end of October (AT&T double data promo). For me, this is the part of BF I enjoy the most -- chatting about nothing, reliving historic campaigns, anticipating this years deals. It's 99% social. I check in around Labor Day, hang out until Christmas, then go away. I write a haiku, debate 1080p, and (sometimes) win a t-shirt. It's a lot of fun. When I was a kid, there was a season to Christmas. We went back to school in September with our new clothes and lunch boxes, the days got short and the leaves began to fall, Saturday morning cartoons began to fill with commercials for toys, the Wish Book came in the mail, the decorations came out, the adults got really sneaky, then Santa came. As an adult, Christmas is just shopping to get done before December 25th. I enjoy BF because it re-creates that season of anticipation. This year, we will go to my in-laws for thanksgiving dinner. I'll drive past the early lines on my way home. When I get home, I'll visit the forums one more time and take one more look at my list. Then I will set my alarm and go to bed. At some point, I will venture forth on BF to grab a bargain and survey the damage. Then I will retreat to my nest and see how everyone else did.

It's been six years since I bought my first HDTV -- almost to the day. That's how long I have been carrying that chart around. We had just purchased a PS3 and it looked like crap on my 36" Sony Wega. That 'deal' popped up and I jumped on it, set the delivery date for six weeks away, and started researching HDTVs. The HTIB is pretty dated, but the tv is still amazing. As for the chart, take it with a grain of salt. What it says is that if you put a 50" 720p next to a 50" 1080p tv, all other things being equal, you can distinguish one from the other at six feet. That does not mean the 720p set does not look great at six feet. My kids always pulled chairs within four feet of the tv to play games (no retention after five years of game play).

http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg212/hondar_2008/resolution_chart.jpg

RT came with Office. It was kind of like buying Office and getting a free tablet to run it on. Not my cup of tea, but attractive to a lot of people. Jumping to a more capable Surface meant a huge leap in price PLUS loss of Office. The 'laptop' I purchased was nearly the equal of the Surface Pro, cost less, and included Office. Not sure how you beat that.

http://www.frys.com/product/8018614#detailed

It's always open house. It's easy to see why plasmas are going away. Plasmas are the beta max of the flat screen era. Beautiful image, but heavy, reflective, and expensive to build/ship. It's too early to get into plasma vs 4k, but people shopping for a TV should spend some time looking at TV screens before BF. Nothing like an informed buyer. For the record, the reason I am looking for an LED for my pool room is that they can survive an occasional cue ball hit. I don't see that happening, but I could never be comfortable with 12 ft^2 of glass so close to a billiard ball.

Today is a good day to shop for a laptop on Staples.com. 1) http://www.staples.com/coupons has $150 off computers regularly $499 or more (38812) 2) http://www.staples.com/coupons has $150 off clearance computers (93281) 3) http://www.staples.com/coupons has 25% back in rewards These are all in store (the rewards is only in store). If you are Discover Card user who happens to take your rewards in Staples gift cards, you can use up to five of those on this purchase. Since they are 'same as cash' they have no impact on discounts or rewards. These $25 gift cards cost $20 in rewards, so that is another $25 off.

I'd like a GD hoodie as well. I prefer a pullover to a zip hoodie. Maybe Brad should put up a poll to gauge interest at some price points and another to pick among available designs. For any BF garb, I always want the back to say, "If you can read this, I probably got your door buster!" I'm pretty content to pimp the web site on the front... http://www.yourgamesource.com/images/flash_banner_pictures/Black_Friday_Good_Deals.jpg

Still don't get the appeal of a Chromebook. Or an RT tab for that matter. Are we doing football helmet Avatars this year? Or are you guys covering up for a tumultuous BF season?

I know EXACTLY what you mean. It's not as easy to remove the keyboard as with the Surface's magnetic cover, but you aren't going to break it. There is a button at the top of the keyboard. Press that and pull the display off. Push the display down on the keyboard to reattach. It's a two handed operation, but it's an intuitive two handed operation.

Yeah. It's routinely $349.99 and I applied a $100 off. They run these things a lot on SUNDAYS for some reason. If this sounds like a computer you could love, add it to your cart and try all the $-off coupons every Sunday morning.

A couple weeks ago, I bought a 64g Asus T100 from Staples for $250. This *may* be the perfect PC and is, at least, worthy of your consideration. For starters, it's very portable. It weighs just over two pounds and the battery lasts for eleven hours! It's also very powerful. The quad core atom processor idles at 1.3ghz but soars to 1.9ghz when an application demands more processing power. Despite this, it is fanless which makes it silent and less vulnerable to heat/lint related failures. Wow! Huh? It just keeps getting better. It runs FULL windows 8.1 which means I can run all my old legacy apps -- even the ones that run on DOS. This is very important to me. It has connectors for usb 2, usb 3, hdmi, an SD card, and bluetooth. That means when I use it at home, I can run a real mouse, keyboard, and display. The screen itself is a touch screen and the keyboard detaches so this thing can work as a tablet as well. Finally, it comes with a full license for Office 2013 which retails for $140 all by itself. http://www.staples.com/Asus-T100TA-C1-GR-2-in-1-101-Laptop/product_574373

this is just k-mart making fun of themselves for running Christmas ads in September. Black Friday sales will come even earlier this year and they want everyone to know their layaway is open for business. The implication is that you can layaway stuff now for Christmas. Merry Birthday everyone!

I'm looking for me too. I bought the 42" plasma (just got my cash back notification, so $144 OOP) and am hoping to apply the $125 eGift card to an LED for my pool room. I have a wall that would be ideal for a 60-70" screen. I have a couple 32" LCDs that would look nice in two corners. My wife thinks I'm a little nuts, but not completely. We used to spend a lot of time playing pool and we all agree that it would be much more safe and economical to not have to drive home after a Sunday of football, billiards, and everything that goes with that.

http://accessories.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=A7658008 60" VIZIO 1080p 120Hz LED Smart HDTV + $200 Dell eGift Card - $797.99 FS @ Dell 60" 1080p LED Backlit LCD Display
120Hz4ms Response Time5M:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio300 cd/m2 Brightness4 HDMI and 2 USB Inputs53.1" x 8.7" x 32.8" (w/ stand) Plus another $80 cash back via shop discover for a $500 60" LED smart tv It's always black friday somewhere!

I think this BF will be about 4k tvs. Most of the major players have announced their exit from the plasma market and prices on plasmas and LEDs are insanely low RIGHT NOW. For instance, Dell has a 720p, 42", plasma for $299.99 with a $125 gift card earlier this week. $300 - $125 is $175 -- an insane price for a 42" anything. You could also rack up 15% in Dell and ShopDiscover cash back. $600 60" LG plasmas have been pretty common this summer. I got mine the day before the Superbowl. Midnight55, you should be looking at televisions already. I think the 4k sets look pretty good, but there is a lot of variation in quality between the economy sets and the mortgage-your-house sets. Best bang for your buck continues to be the plasmas. I don't think they get to 70" and 60" is much more common than 65", but they look great.

i got my HDX today. Got it at staples. They only had the 16g and 32g versions, but 32g was fine for me. It came with a $25 amazon gift card, so $404. i had $40 in rewards, so $364. I wanted to use gift cards to effect a 20% discount, but the manager was not particularly cooperative. I ended up using four $50 gift certificates and a $25 gift card. All of that cost me $180. Plus $164 on my discover card for $344 out of pocket. I get 5% staples rewards on everything except the rewards, so $19.45 back. All considered, $325 for a 32g 8.9" Kindle Fire HDX. I'm OK with that, but concerned about my relationship with staples going forward... The newly enforced rule is five gift cards per order. I usually take all my discover cash back as staples gift cards to enjoy a 20% discount on their best prices. I'm premier member, so I have six months to spend rewards and I alwarys recycle 20 carts, so my rewards is always at least $240. Add five gift cards to this and I can spend $365 at the maximum discount. I can increase that to $490 if I leverage the online gift card purchases, I can go $240 + $250 or $590. I have $318 in cash back, which would be worth $380 in staples gift cards, but I need to look at other options since I already have $325 in staples gift cards. Another change that has impacted my behavior is their ink promotions. I used to buy ink when they offered the recycling bonuses. This resulted in the accumulation of ink. Now, the promotions are less attractive and I have to spend $30 every 180 days, so I only buy what I need when I need it and wait as long as possible to make the purchase. Last time I bought ink was $33.99 on 8/26/13. Six months from that would be 2/26/14, but I will recycle on 2/25 and delay my ink purchase until march. I'm not sure these changes are good for Staples. I know they are not good for me. Potential suitors for cash back... LL Bean: 20/25, 40/50 Old Navy: 20/25, 40/50 Crutchfield: 20/25, 40/50Bed Bath & Beyond: 20/25, 40/50 Or I may switch to a different rewards card. Recommendations welcome. We're planning to fly to Orlando in two years for some Disney.

One of the gifts I'm going to pay retail for is the 8.9" Kindle Fire HDX. I really a Gold Box Deal.

November sales were modest, December predictions are dismal, it's ten days to Christmas, and I'm not being enticed! I am going to have to pay retail for one large gift and close to retail for another. Are others disappointed in the sales as the holiday approaches?

How can that be? I have a storage box (also free after rewards) full of free batteries from deals past. Last year, Duracell gave me a $25 visa gift card for accepting those free batteries.

free after rewards batteries from staples