I have no particular reason to buy things this time of the year. The deals which would appeal to me anyways are on Monday anyways, and the stuff which I AM looking at will be cheaper in a couple of months (hopefully), than the next few days.
Besides, before I get the most expensive item on my list, gotta head down to Best Buy and try it out.
Which reminds me, ugh, the closest Best Buy isn't really in a fun, convenient location for me.
Mom just ended up in the nursing home and wants a few things so... shit! :) I head out around 2:00pm to avoid the craziest of the crazy and the lunch rush.
On a side note what is it with 90% of people needing to eat lunch EXACTLY at 12:00 even on a day off? When I go on an all day shopping trip I make a point of eating off schedule just too avoid the rush.
@narfcake I am looking for a phone too but going after the P8 Lite. Don't need a phone but it has a dual SIM and it would be nice for my work phone and personal phone be just one phone.
@elimanningface I don't use the second SIM, but a few months back I got the ASUS ZenFone 2 for other reasons and it's really nice. Not sure how it compares to that one though.
@elimanningface I don't have a good basis for comparison but the GPS seems fine to me. I think the only time it hasn't been able to find me was inside a 20+ story building, although I don't use it inside much, so maybe I just haven't noticed. Outside it usually takes a couple seconds to find where I am when first opening the maps app but I haven't tried Waze.
I had heard about people having issues with the brightness and glare too and was worried about that, but I use it outside all the time (in Arizona) and have never had a problem. The one issue that I have noticed is that it gets a lot dimmer if you turn brightness off auto and turn it all the way down, so I use that in the dark and forget to turn it back to auto sometimes. But even that isn't really a problem because it has the brightness options in the 'drop-down from top of screen' menu and takes like half a second to switch back. A little hard to do while driving but otherwise doesn't bother me. If the sun is shining directly on it it might be harder to see than other phones, but this is another place where I don't really have a good basis for comparison. I have never noticed it being so bad that it was unusable though, as one review I saw claimed.
@elimanningface one other thing I forgot to mention, I have heard the second SIM slot on the ZenFone isn't fully featured or something like that. Like maybe it only supports up to 2G or 3G or something, but as I said I don't use it, so never bothered to find out in more detail. Might want to look into that too if you are thinking about getting it.
@elimanningface You might want to look at the Huawei P8(I think that's what it is)- my one co-worker recently bought that after years of searching for the perfect dual-sim phone. I think it gets LTE service with both AT&T & T-Mobile.
I must confess I found an amazing deal on cat food online earlier in the week. If I can get my act together I'm ordering more. Better to stock up and have it sit in my closet at 30% off then buy it later for full price. I'm sure not going to make 30% interest on my $.
@ceagee also, you are going to want to make sure you get a cat. I think it would be odd if you had a closet full of cat food but no cat. Just a simple man's opinion.
I just came back from stores you may not necessarily expect to be awesome on Black Friday. I cleaned up at CVS, buying toothpaste, toothbrushes, laundry detergent, and a ton of other stuff for next to nothing. I also went to Michael's and bought a ton of yarn. Between the sale and the additional 30% off, I paid next to nothing.
I spent about $160 online at Best Buy last night and $20 at Staples, and would have spent another $70 or so at Wal-Mart today if the deals I wanted weren't in-store only. I wanted a $200 to $300 TV too, but the ones I was looking at were sold out by the time I got around to it. Also thought about getting a laptop in the $300 to $400 range but no one had quite the right specs at the price I wanted, so I didn't bother with that either, fortunately. And I might have spent another $500 to get an Xbox One and the new Rock Band game if they'd bothered to make it sound worthwhile. Pretty nice of them all to save me money like that. :)
@Al_Coholic the best deal on the Xbox One was a couple of weeks ago IMHO. Lots of places had them on sale, plus 'free' $50 giftcard, plus a free game up to $59.99 value.
I mixed sales with giftcard to get an Xbox One when that sale was going on, got the following deal:
Xbox One w/ Kinect - $399.99 (Normally $499.99) Free Game: Destiny the Taken King $50 Best Buy Gift Card Bought with Gift Card: Kinect Mount Rare Collection (Games) Play and Charge Kit
Total Out of Pocket not counting gift card I was given: $342.96 ($620.95 retail value at MSRPs) - Gift card was $78 value, plus $50 Best Buy gift card received buying the console itself
At 39 weeks pregnant, it's not worth the risk of crazy people! I'd rather get the deals on Monday anyway!
I also discovered a couple years ago that Target near me still has inventory of pretty much everything, and the deals are still on at 9 am and there is nobody in the store! (I went to get some items I needed that were not Black Friday deals)
I went to wal mart at 11 pm. I got everything on my list plus some groceries. I mostly went for socks, underwear, and pajamas for my kid though. That stuff is expensive normally.
Spent $3K on BF deals direct from manufacturer sites, where the real deals are, and got some nice toys on the way now. Spent none at Amazon, where it looks like BF is mostly hype marketing and pushing their subscription products.
Left the house last night around 4 got home around 11 left again this morning around 8 got home around 11 and getting ready to leave again to check out the walmart "left overs"
I have never needed or wanted anything so badly as to go out into the hellscape that is Black Friday. Dear gods, I shudder at the thought! Lines or crazy crowds for anything make me highly skittish and squirrelly. Nothing is worth that stress of frantic animality. I have enough shit and can keep using that shit 'til it's the price I want at a more convenient, less crazy time. Or, yay, available online! Though I do very much enjoy the stories of the people I know who venture out into today's shopping wilds. Am meeting my best friend for drinks this eve and looking forward to the tales of her morning adventures.
I ordered some stuff clients needed (computers, monitors, peripherals) and some stock for my IT business today, otherwise nothing has really jumped out at me.
I wasn't planning on shopping at all this weekend but my son decided to do a science experiment in the kitchen without supervision (or even letting us know what he was doing) and he started a fire in the microwave . . . so I guess I'm shopping after all. Thankfully I'm only in the market for a new microwave. Regrettably my son's wallet is now empty . . but the lesson must be learned. (I'll just up his stocking cash this year - but he needs to feel this one for awhile).
@Pavlov So his life motto is going to be 'What could possibly go wrong?' And you're going to have grey hair in six months. Sometime in your past, somebody said 'I hope some day you have a child JUST LIKE YOU!' Payback!
@OldCatLady My mother wished that on me since I was knee high to a grasshopper. I called her tonight to tell her what the little stinker did and she just laughed . . . and laughed . . . and finally I just murmured "love you" and "must be a bad connection" and hung up, but not before she reminded me that I caught the kitchen on fire in high school making home-made chicken soup for a girlfriend that had taken very ill. I had no idea how to cook back then - but it was the thought that was important . . . at least that was the story I was sticking to . . .
I didn't think you would. In the 2000s, there was a movie trilogy called The Librarian. It was turned into a TV series called The Librarians.
They had a holiday themed episode last year where they had a whole thing with different incarnations of Santa, and each incarnation had a different personality (kinda like The Doctor [first time I'm admitting ever in public...]). Anyways, the pic i posted was of the incarnation of Santa which they were dealing with.
I have no particular reason to buy things this time of the year. The deals which would appeal to me anyways are on Monday anyways, and the stuff which I AM looking at will be cheaper in a couple of months (hopefully), than the next few days.
Besides, before I get the most expensive item on my list, gotta head down to Best Buy and try it out.
Which reminds me, ugh, the closest Best Buy isn't really in a fun, convenient location for me.
spent 2 hours at walmart today
my dad always arrives early to get the tv(last year we came 3 hours early to get the $99 32 in and we were the 6th in line)
this year dad scored a 40 in hisence tv for $149
3 appliances(slow cooker, coffee maker and 1.1L deep fryer) for $10 each
i bought 3 wrangler jeans for $10 each
and 3 cans of soda for $0.50 each to pass the time
Mom just ended up in the nursing home and wants a few things so... shit! :) I head out around 2:00pm to avoid the craziest of the crazy and the lunch rush.
On a side note what is it with 90% of people needing to eat lunch EXACTLY at 12:00 even on a day off? When I go on an all day shopping trip I make a point of eating off schedule just too avoid the rush.
@WINTERMUTE Force of habit is my guess. I got up at 5:30 this morning and it's wasn't because I planned it. Heck, even my alarms were turned off.
There needs to be a "maybe online if a deal catches my eye otherwise Aw Hell No".
Maybe; I bought a few things online yesterday, main one being a better phone (Lumia 640). No plans of shopping in stores, though.
I also never finished checking out the TeeTurtle shirts from last week, so maybe I'll finally do that.
@narfcake why Lumia 640? why not something better or even the Lumia 640 XL?
@communist Because $30.
@narfcake I am looking for a phone too but going after the P8 Lite. Don't need a phone but it has a dual SIM and it would be nice for my work phone and personal phone be just one phone.
@elimanningface I don't use the second SIM, but a few months back I got the ASUS ZenFone 2 for other reasons and it's really nice. Not sure how it compares to that one though.
@Al_Coholic how is the GPS? I heard the glare off the phone makes it almost unusable outdoors on a bright day.
Between both phones, I mainly travel (Waze), txt, e-mail, and listen to podcasts w/ and w/o a bluetooth headset.
@elimanningface I don't have a good basis for comparison but the GPS seems fine to me. I think the only time it hasn't been able to find me was inside a 20+ story building, although I don't use it inside much, so maybe I just haven't noticed. Outside it usually takes a couple seconds to find where I am when first opening the maps app but I haven't tried Waze.
I had heard about people having issues with the brightness and glare too and was worried about that, but I use it outside all the time (in Arizona) and have never had a problem. The one issue that I have noticed is that it gets a lot dimmer if you turn brightness off auto and turn it all the way down, so I use that in the dark and forget to turn it back to auto sometimes. But even that isn't really a problem because it has the brightness options in the 'drop-down from top of screen' menu and takes like half a second to switch back. A little hard to do while driving but otherwise doesn't bother me. If the sun is shining directly on it it might be harder to see than other phones, but this is another place where I don't really have a good basis for comparison. I have never noticed it being so bad that it was unusable though, as one review I saw claimed.
@elimanningface one other thing I forgot to mention, I have heard the second SIM slot on the ZenFone isn't fully featured or something like that. Like maybe it only supports up to 2G or 3G or something, but as I said I don't use it, so never bothered to find out in more detail. Might want to look into that too if you are thinking about getting it.
@Al_Coholic Thanks Al! I appreciate your thoughtful answer.
@elimanningface How does the dual sim work for outgoing calls, do you pick which number to be?
@jbartus generally in other phones(like my cousins s4 duos) when you are in the dailer you choose what sim/number to use to make that phone card
@elimanningface You might want to look at the Huawei P8(I think that's what it is)- my one co-worker recently bought that after years of searching for the perfect dual-sim phone. I think it gets LTE service with both AT&T & T-Mobile.
@communist nice, that's a good way to do it. Would suck if it defaulted to something and you called work people as personal and vice versa.
I must confess I found an amazing deal on cat food online earlier in the week. If I can get my act together I'm ordering more. Better to stock up and have it sit in my closet at 30% off then buy it later for full price. I'm sure not going to make 30% interest on my $.
@ceagee also, you are going to want to make sure you get a cat. I think it would be odd if you had a closet full of cat food but no cat. Just a simple man's opinion.
@elimanningface I've bought cat food and I don't have a cat. My neighbor's has gotten much chubbier, though.
(Apparently, he's been triple dipping for food. He's also left a "present" on my front steps too. Ass.)
I just came back from stores you may not necessarily expect to be awesome on Black Friday. I cleaned up at CVS, buying toothpaste, toothbrushes, laundry detergent, and a ton of other stuff for next to nothing. I also went to Michael's and bought a ton of yarn. Between the sale and the additional 30% off, I paid next to nothing.
I spent about $160 online at Best Buy last night and $20 at Staples, and would have spent another $70 or so at Wal-Mart today if the deals I wanted weren't in-store only. I wanted a $200 to $300 TV too, but the ones I was looking at were sold out by the time I got around to it. Also thought about getting a laptop in the $300 to $400 range but no one had quite the right specs at the price I wanted, so I didn't bother with that either, fortunately. And I might have spent another $500 to get an Xbox One and the new Rock Band game if they'd bothered to make it sound worthwhile. Pretty nice of them all to save me money like that. :)
@Al_Coholic the best deal on the Xbox One was a couple of weeks ago IMHO. Lots of places had them on sale, plus 'free' $50 giftcard, plus a free game up to $59.99 value.
I mixed sales with giftcard to get an Xbox One when that sale was going on, got the following deal:
Xbox One w/ Kinect - $399.99 (Normally $499.99)
Free Game: Destiny the Taken King
$50 Best Buy Gift Card
Bought with Gift Card:
Kinect Mount
Rare Collection (Games)
Play and Charge Kit
Total Out of Pocket not counting gift card I was given: $342.96 ($620.95 retail value at MSRPs) - Gift card was $78 value, plus $50 Best Buy gift card received buying the console itself
At 39 weeks pregnant, it's not worth the risk of crazy people! I'd rather get the deals on Monday anyway!
I also discovered a couple years ago that Target near me still has inventory of pretty much everything, and the deals are still on at 9 am and there is nobody in the store! (I went to get some items I needed that were not Black Friday deals)
@MrsBeckett I was in fear for the pregnant women and women with babies strapped to their fronts at walmart last night! Darwinism at work I guess.
I saw the question and said "oh hell naw" out loud before I saw any of the responses.
I went to wal mart at 11 pm. I got everything on my list plus some groceries. I mostly went for socks, underwear, and pajamas for my kid though. That stuff is expensive normally.
I don't see anything I want. Plus I feel the prices are still too high.
Spent $3K on BF deals direct from manufacturer sites, where the real deals are, and got some nice toys on the way now. Spent none at Amazon, where it looks like BF is mostly hype marketing and pushing their subscription products.
Does a "Martian Notifier Watch" count?
I said something a bit stronger than "Aw HELL naw" when I first saw the question. Here's my (current) favorite Black Friday quote:
"Black Friday should actually be called The Hunger Games. People kill each other, and the winner gets a $20 crock pot."
@Shrdlu That crock pot is $9 at Lowes.
Left the house last night around 4 got home around 11 left again this morning around 8 got home around 11 and getting ready to leave again to check out the walmart "left overs"
I have never needed or wanted anything so badly as to go out into the hellscape that is Black Friday. Dear gods, I shudder at the thought! Lines or crazy crowds for anything make me highly skittish and squirrelly. Nothing is worth that stress of frantic animality. I have enough shit and can keep using that shit 'til it's the price I want at a more convenient, less crazy time. Or, yay, available online!
Though I do very much enjoy the stories of the people I know who venture out into today's shopping wilds. Am meeting my best friend for drinks this eve and looking forward to the tales of her morning adventures.
I ordered some stuff clients needed (computers, monitors, peripherals) and some stock for my IT business today, otherwise nothing has really jumped out at me.
Nooo way! Black Friday turns otherwise peaceful retail establishments into to-the-death Thunder Domes.
2142 hrs, haven't spent a dime all day.
Let's see if the Saturday Mehnanigins can break the streak.
Did some Small Business Saturday shopping and dining, so now we're waiting for Monday.
I wasn't planning on shopping at all this weekend but my son decided to do a science experiment in the kitchen without supervision (or even letting us know what he was doing) and he started a fire in the microwave . . . so I guess I'm shopping after all. Thankfully I'm only in the market for a new microwave. Regrettably my son's wallet is now empty . . but the lesson must be learned. (I'll just up his stocking cash this year - but he needs to feel this one for awhile).
@Pavlov
Was it at least a food related experiment?
@FroodyFrog Melting wax in a glass dish, with a chemical catalyst - plus the microwave adding heat. We're lucky to still have a kitchen.
@Pavlov
Depending on what chemicals he used, you might get to be thankful for having your house+...
@Pavlov So his life motto is going to be 'What could possibly go wrong?' And you're going to have grey hair in six months. Sometime in your past, somebody said 'I hope some day you have a child JUST LIKE YOU!' Payback!
@Pavlov how does one get in on "stocking cash"?
@OldCatLady My mother wished that on me since I was knee high to a grasshopper. I called her tonight to tell her what the little stinker did and she just laughed . . . and laughed . . . and finally I just murmured "love you" and "must be a bad connection" and hung up, but not before she reminded me that I caught the kitchen on fire in high school making home-made chicken soup for a girlfriend that had taken very ill. I had no idea how to cook back then - but it was the thought that was important . . . at least that was the story I was sticking to . . .
@Thumperchick Sit on Santa's lap. Ask. Receive.
@Pavlov
Nobody should ever be forced to try the food which i used to cook. It would be considered "cruel and unusual punishment" by today's standards.
(I blame society and the fact that it has gone soft and lowered its standards for punishment)
@Pavlov I must have had the wrong Santa before.
@Thumperchick
Did he look like this:
?
@FroodyFrog I'm sure someone will give me flack for this but... I don't get it.
@Thumperchick
I didn't think you would.
In the 2000s, there was a movie trilogy called The Librarian.
It was turned into a TV series called The Librarians.
They had a holiday themed episode last year where they had a whole thing with different incarnations of Santa, and each incarnation had a different personality (kinda like The Doctor [first time I'm admitting ever in public...]).
Anyways, the pic i posted was of the incarnation of Santa which they were dealing with.
@FroodyFrog ahh ok.