Friday Five – Best Black Friday Purchases

Welcome to the Friday Five! Each week I help you get to know me a little better with the help of a top five list. This week’s category: Black Friday Purchases.

No where else but America do we give thanks but beating the ever loving crap out of others in order to save on things we don’t really even need. But assuming you can deal with some cuts and scrapes, you can make out with some sweet deals.

Back in the day I used to deliver papers, so I had access to all the ads before it was commonplace for them to all be online weeks beforehand. But I was too busy delivering those ads or working to ever really go shopping and enjoy it until recently.

1. Comics – I have been hitting the midnight sale at my local comic shop pretty hard over the last 3 years. I usually spend over $120 on 10/$1 books.

 

2. Computer Stuff – I think it was like 2005, I waited outside of the CompUSA (where I used to work) and bought all kinds of stuff, using my inside connections to get access to all the goodies they keep locked up. I got a huge 12 bay ASUS case, 4 250G drives I turned into a raid 1+0 array, and like 2 gigs of RAM dirt cheap.

 

3. Laptop – In 2009, I needed a new laptop to play Star Trek Online with, as all the parts I bought in the previous entry were all outdated, so I bought the HP Black Friday special online. It was a fantastic deal, a like $3000 laptop for only $1800. But they didn’t have it in stock when they said they did, and they promised it would be there in a week and offered me a $50 coupon for the inconvenience, which I used to get a laptop bag. But the best part was it wasn’t ready in a week like they promised so I called to complain. All I wanted was free overnight shipping when it was finally in stock, I’m not unreasonable. “Linda” in the Philippines said that was impossible, even though the thing wasn’t even built yet and the order wasn’t even processed. However, she could authorize a 10% discount, which was like $180, well more than I had asked for, so I happily took it. The thing ran well for almost 3 years straight till it died last month in the middle of a vigorous Star Trek Online session.

 

4. Tablet and Blu Rays – I was able to to buy a cheap ass tablet online yesterday through OfficeMax, and I bought a bunch of DCAU blu-rays for $7.99, and all three seasons of Community on DVD for only $30 through Best Buy, and I didn’t even have to wait in line, and shipping was free too!

 

5. Photo Paper – I remember my first real experience with Black Friday. I was home from college, and wanted to print out some photos I took at school to show people back home. I was like “Oh, I’ll just go buy some photo paper at Best Buy.” Even though it was like noon, I was like “WTF is going on here, while is this line so long?”

JohnScott is the proud owner of a life size replica Captain Kirk Chair. He is a hoarder of Comic Books, Transformers, and Star Trek action figures. He attended Space Camp as an adult. He has taken vacations to the closing of the Star Trek Experience and the final night Shuttle launch. He has been known to yell at his television when the kids can't put together the damn statue in the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. When not writing for InsufficientScotty, he is a Software Engineer for a major healthcare communications company. You can Email or follow on Twitter @NotEnoughScotty or Facebook