IIRC, MJ5150 does the hardcore, leave the house at midnight and wait in line at Best Buy kinda thing. You out there buddy?
Yeah, I'm out here and you recall correctly.
We met at a friends house at 3:15AM Friday. There were four people in our car, and another car with us that had five people in it.
I only had $30 to spend, so I took my $30 with me and stood in line outside of Kohls at 3:30 for the 4AM opening. I had never been to Kohls in my life, but the other people wanted to start there. I ended up scoring a very nice 100% cotton Arrow dress shirt in Steeler yellow for $8. I went back that night with my wife, and the exact same shirt was sold out in that color, but other colors were now $24.99. So yeah, I got a good deal.
We moved on to Best Buy for the 5AM opening. I wanted the 10 pack of DVD-R's for $8, but the line waiting to get in was around the whole store so we went to JC Penneys next door and looked around. They opened at 4AM. Once BB opened, we went back in after the line died down and I found SSX Blur for the Wii for $14.99. I jumped in line with my buddy to buy it, but the line was way too long so we hid the game and the DVD-R's behind a vacuum cleaner so we could come back and buy them later. I came back later that evening to get our stash, but everything was gone. My buddy and I were bummed.
We then rolled across the street for the Staples 6AM opening. Nothing for me here, but a friend wanted the $100 GPS. By FAR and AWAY, this was the most intense crowd of all. I was surrounded by a whole bunch of Arabian folks yelling and pushing as the opening got closer. When 6AM came, it was like the running of the bulls. We got to the table with all the door busters, and it was complete mayhem. People pushing, shoving, knocking other people down. I saw people grabbing items out of others people hands and carts. Some guys would just grab a whole armful of the doorbuster items and throw them in their cart even after the Staples employee said "one per person". Then they would move away from the madness and sift through what they grabbed and only keep what they wanted leaving the rest on the ground. I saw and heard verbal screaming matches between customers and employees about items sold out and only being able to buy one per person. It got kind of scary at times. I had to grab people and push them off my back and tell them to stop trying to run me over. It was actually funny watching these little Arabian guys trying to get past me.
After Staples, we just went home. I was burned out by then and hungry. I ended up only spending $8 total, so I put the rest of the money in my gas tank.
So yeah, it was nuts as usual. But every year it gets more and more nuts. People turn into animals over a 500GB hard drive for $85. Yeah, I know it is a good deal. But it's not like you need to hurt people to get one. Funny thing.....those door busters are all over my local craigslist and eBay now.
I never really go for some super deal. I go to people watch. That part is totally fun. I've heard all of the "my sleep is worth more than any of those deals" people. That's true. There is rarely anything out there that is a once in a lifetime deal. It's just a good time to hang out at 4AM at some store that is never open at that time and watch people make complete fools of themselves.
-Mike
