While browsing the web after Thanksgiving dinner reading up on Black Friday deals, noticed that CompUSA was opening at 11:59pm so decided to go take a look at the local store since it was only a 5 minute drive from my parent's house. Erin decided to tag along to keep an eye on my spending. =p So we arrived exactly at midnight and they were just letting people in. Parking lot was completely full so we parked in the McDonald's lot next door, taking the last spot there.
Inside, it was a bit of a madhouse. Most people had the sales flyer in hand and were going right for either the items they wanted or the really marked down items like the 200GB HD for $30 after rebates. Big queue in front of the glass HD case for that one. I wasn't looking for anything in particular so wandered around for a bit. By the time that I remembered that they were selling a relatively nice Logitech webcam for notebooks for $20 after rebate and found their webcam section, they were all gone. Erin picked up 3 packs of CD-Rs for $8 and I made my rounds around the aisles a few more times before stumbling into 3 more of the webcams that were displayed in a separate aisle that no one had noticed. Was going to take all 3 but since the price reduction was via rebate we could only do 2.
Then we proceeded to a checkout line where we had to wait for about an hour and a half before we actually got to the front of the line. It was f*ckin' awful. Combination of not enough checkout counters, slow workers, clueless customers, and reams of printouts for rebates. It was excruciating. We didn't make it home till a little before 2am.
Went immediately to bed only to get up at 4:30am to check out the local Best Buy opening at 5am. Erin opted to sleep in so I ventured out into the 7 degree Fahrenheit pre-dawn freezing-ass air at a little before 5 and arrived at Best Buy about 5 minutes after 5am. Now, the local Best Buy is located in a strip mall with decent sized parking lot. By the time I arrived, the entire lot was close to full. I had to park waaaay on the other end of the strip so it was no fun whatsoever to then have to walk in frigid weather to make it to the store. Hell, some people were already leaving the store with their purchases in hand.
Inside was insane. I had thought the CompUSA crowd was impressive, but Best Buy blew them right out of the water. Lines everywhere for $400 laptops, $999 plasma TVs and a slew of other stuff. Great prices on not so great items. Again, I wasn't looking for anything in particular really but by the time I found the last remaining box for a home theater system that I was pondering, I figured I'd have to wait in line for probably 2+ hours just to get the hell outta there. Wandered back outside to look for a cart cause the box was too big to push around and finding none, decided to just go home. On my way back to the car, a guy who had just parked asked if it was worth it and I just replied, "No." And that's the truth. Unless you wanted to pick up a cheap laptop or plasma in which case you'd probably have to have camped out the night before to successfully get one. But for those who know me, do I sound like the cheap laptop/plasma type? ;-)
Anyway, arrived home a little after 5:30 and roused Erin up from her beauty sleep at 6am to hit the mall. Arrived at the Short Hills Mall Macy's a bit before 6:30. Not that many people which was a welcome relief and was able to pick up a pretty nice winter coat for 67% off which was pretty sweet. Wandered and looked around for about an hour and a half before the other stores in the mall opened promptly at 8am. Picked up a few other articles of clothing at great sales prices from Club Monaco which was nice. Not that many shoppers this early in the morning. I guess people go gagga over cheap electronics more than anything else.
So by 9am we were done with our Black Friday shopping and headed home to go back to bed. It was an interesting experience although probably not something I'd go through again unless they discounted something that I really really wanted. But hmm, that Syntax Olevia 26" LCD HDTV Monitor is still looking pretty tempting...
