<p>DH decided to try to get one of those Black Friday deals (he just called- no luck). He called b/c I texted him. I woke up at 4am when he did and I can’t get back to sleep!! So much for that turkey and tryptophan theory.</p>
<p>Anyone try to get something this morning? Any luck??</p>
<p>Oh-- the boys both slept through the ring of the phone when he called the house – thank heavens. Then again they could probably sleep through an atomic bomb blast.</p>
<p>I’m off now to BB for a navigation system for s/o. I’m too sluggish and full to do anything else.</p>
<p>Ahhh! Slept in a little and bought my GPS from BB on-line with free shipping. Heading out later in the day for other things.</p>
<p>I promised myself years ago I would never go out shopping the day after Thanksgiving. And I haven’t. The sad fatality at at Walmart last year just affirmed my resolve. Seeing news photos of the lines of oddball types in the dark this morning is just more icing on the cake. No thanks.</p>
<p>I am not going out at all today. For anything. I live in an area where traffic and congestion are bad anyway so I feel no bargain is worth this hassle. I am one of those people who shops only out of necessity anyway.</p>
<p>The rest of the family wants to go to the mall so I will drop them off and go into the office (to avoid having to park).</p>
<p>Heading down the shore. Both kids coming along. Will be one of the first times the four of us have spent a weekend together in years, just us. Very happy! Leftovers, fishing, walking on beach. Maybe some writing time. Noooo shopping!</p>
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<p>Sounds like heaven. :)</p>
<p>At present I am in NYC. If the rain holds off for a couple of hours it will be fun to walk around anywhere but mid-town. No Black Friday shopping for me. Last year I did 98% of my shopping online and I plan on doing the same this year.</p>
<p>It seems like you really have to get quite a few items for it to worth the hassle. I also found that some of the laptop deals look like too good to be true. But upon further inspection, they are not really as big as they first appear. For example, the Sony laptop at BB at $399 is thought to be huge; one website says (incorrectly) it’s normally priced at ~$900; then it took me a while to notice the processor is just pentium, not core 2 duo. It’s very misleading because “similar” Sony laptops sold elsewhere (including Sony’s website) have core 2 duo processors; it’s like Sony distributed these products with Pentium only through BB. I bet a lot of customers don’t know the difference and thought they got 50%+ off while comparing apples to oranges.</p>
<p>“Heading down the shore. Both kids coming along. Will be one of the first times the four of us have spent a weekend together in years, just us. Very happy! Leftovers, fishing, walking on beach. Maybe some writing time. Noooo shopping!”</p>
<p>Nice. Have fun.</p>
<p>No shopping. Our foreign guests, however, were determined to experience Black Friday, so they headed off to the mall despite the rain. The guys may go to a movie this afternoon.</p>
<p>Pentium is just branding and the main differences between Pentium and Core 2 Duo are cache size and frequency. They are the same chips and same architecture outside of these differences. They also cost Intel very little to make.</p>
<p>H and I were at Walmart at 5am. We saw our first snowflakes this morning, so that alone was worth it. We got the $79 Magnavox blu-ray player and (2) $59 Tom-Tom GPS systems. Then we went to Sears and bought $15 Lands’ End fleeces. Sears was sold out of the $29 matching down vests and the $79 Kodak EasyShare cameras, but we were able to order online when we got home. We were home by 7am.</p>
<p>BC, thanks. I honestly don’t know the technical differences. Part of me was saying I probably wouldn’t notice them. I do notice the price difference between the two at stores while they can easily be mistaken with each others because they look so much alike with very similar model numbers…etc. But if they are not really that different, I guess a mistake like this would turn out to be a good mistake anyway. Either way, I couldn’t see myself waking up at 4am and still risk not getting it just for one item. :)</p>
<p>There is a difference but if you do what most people do, you won’t really notice it. I have a laptop from 2004 that I still use at the office for personal stuff and the processor in that is far slower than even the cheapest of laptops sold today. Intel still sells the Pentium brand as it’s low-price chip to compete with AMD. AMD doesn’t really have competitive chips so it sells based on price and Intel wants to be competitive in that space too.</p>
<p>I did do some Black Friday shopping. Online. At 12:15 am! My first ever purchase at Saks - yeah! The dress I’ve been watching got discounted about 75% to the price I was willing to pay. I hope I will fit into that size :D</p>
<p>Now wish me luck - I’m taking DD to the mall for her hair appointment. Traffic will be horrible 
When I made the appointment, I forgot about the Black Friday. Too late to reschedule now.</p>
<p>I’ll be walking up to Target later, it’s about a mile from home. It’s good exercise and I just like to look. I am not in the market to buy a thing.</p>
<p>I went to J.C. Penney…two of them. BUT I didn’t go until about 9:30. The stores were both sort of empty. The “early birds” had gone home, I guess. AND the later shoppers hadn’t ventured out yet. Neither store had what I was looking for (a navy men’s pea coat for DS). So I just went to American Eagle and got it there. </p>
<p>My husband and I are interested in getting a 50inch Plasma Samsung TV…but we are going to wait until January. We figure there will be plenty of sales then.</p>
<p>Just got back from Black Fridaying in NYC. It was not that bad at all. No real waits at cash registers, and we psyched ourselves up for crowds, but it was fine. Stores were full, but not manic. Actually, we did pretty well and had a good time. Great hot chocolate too!</p>
<p>We just hit the Microcenter (I am the oly non-tecchie in the house). My family oc computer geeks bought some additional memory (2gig) for one of my computers as well as for one of the laptops, and DS got some Microsoft … well sort of …giftcards (its essentially Microsoft currency he uses when he buys stuff on line like streaming a movie from xbox to his HDTV) Anyway, the $20 cards were $13. I forget how much the memory for the computers was, but they were satisfied with what they got.</p>