My Existence

This year was the first time I participated in the American tradition of “Black Friday.” BestBuy was advertising ATi 512MB x1600 Pro’s for $99.99, a drop in price of over $100.  Great deal.  They were also advertising Seagate 250GB HDDs for $59.99, a drop in price of over $70.  Another great deal.  I ended up picking up both.

When I originally got to the parking lot, it was of course an absolute mad house.  At 0525, when I first drove by the end of the line was from the main entrance to the corner of the building, but was moving forward slowly.  So I wouldn’t have been surprised to have seen it wrap around the building before the doors opened, the corner of the building was at least 70 feet away at this time.  It took me barely three minutes to find a parking spot.  I have such great luck with that, always have.  I can pull into the mall at any time during holiday season and have a parking spot in minutes.  Other people drive around for a lot longer before they get one.

So I get to the back of the line, which is now maybe 80 feet from the corner of the building and start inching towards the doors.  About five minutes later I am the second person in line and I can peek inside….you see nothing but one huge jumbled mass of bodies moving.  One BB employee is standing on the security counter( OSHA anyone? ) trying to guesstimate how many more people to let in.  He turns around to the door and says “Let another 20 people in, then no more for at least 10-15 minutes”  My luck was certainly going good today.

So as I am walking through the double door entrance, I am thinking to myself..they all gotta be gone, it is is just past 0530, they all gotta be gone.  I start walking towards the Computer section and see a table with a number of people around it.  On the table I see the video cards, both AGP and PCI-e.  Right next to the hard drivers.  A quite a number of everything.  My luck is still holding it seems.  I scamper on over, snatch up both a video card and a HDD, and start looking for the DVDs they had advertised.  100 pack of DVDs for 4.99.  Not in sight, so I glide on over to the media section, not five feet away and there are none left anywhere.  Annoyed, cause that was the best deal out of everything I wanted, I start towards the register knowing to get in line ASAP and bump into an employee who I know from being in there so much.  I ask him about the DVDs and he says they had 100 of them, but they went fast.  I asked if there was any limit on per person and he says nope, and I say “Ah.” and he was like “Yup.”

So a few people prolly bought like five or ten bundles at a time, what a bummer.  I know that while I was in line, I saw a few people carrying two or three of them.  Speaking of the line here is my quick drawing of it!  I got in line when it was only four or five lines deep.  By the time I reached the last straight away towards the beginning of it, the line was half-way down the length of the building, snaking through Appliances, Washers, Driers, and just reaching Car Audio.  It was a LONG line.  Took about 20 minutes for me to be checked out, and I was at work at 0607.

So, my first foray into the big bag beast of Black Friday, and I got almost all that I wanted.  Not complaining anyways, my car wasn’t hit, I wasn’t run over nor was I shot or stabbed…gotta call that a good day!  Anyways, off to install my new HDD and video card.  Was thinking of selling one or both items on ebay, but the HDD and card, just aren’t selling…can’t imagine why!