Black Friday, celebrated on the couch...

So this year, I perused the Black Friday circulars and was not impressed. Sure, there were the awesome doorbusters - the $229 laptop at Best Buy and the the $299 laptop at Circuit City. But last year I got to Circuit City at 10pm and still wasn't early enough to snag the laptop. In past years, there were enough small items that were free after rebate (FAR) or cheap enough to make it worthwhile, but not this year.

So I decided instead of spending 12 hours in front of Best Buy, I would stay home and see what deals I could snag online. I may run to one or two stores later today or tomorrow - there are a few things at ACE hardware FAR, and I need a lightbulb anyway, and there is a 10 off 25 Macy's coupon that's good tomorrow morning - but I decided to stay in for the most part.

So what have I bought so far? Quite a bit:

CompUSA.com

-trendnet print server $4.99AR, free shipping

BestBuy.com

-TomTom One LE, $119 out the door, shipped free - this is going on eBay - wish I had known I would get it, as I just bought myself a refurbed tom-tom one for $170 last month.

CircuitCity.com

-monitor desk mount, free after rebate (FAR)
-kensington laptop lock, FAR

ClubIT.com

-Ritek CDR, 99¢ AR
-Coolmaster Power supply, $3.99 AR
-2 gig SD card, $1.99AR
-TrendNet wireless PCI network card, 99¢ AR

Amazon.com

-Logitech Quickcam Communicate, -$31 AR (yup, $18.99 with a $50 rebate!)
-Logitech cordless desktop LX -$10 AR ($19.99 with a $30 rebate!)
-Logitech MX Revolution Cordless Laser Mouse $6.99 AR

Frys.com

-eVGA PCI-X 256 mb video card, FAR (plus $6 shipping - the only thing I didn't get free shipping on)

Newegg

-coolmaster case, FAR


There were a couple disappointments - I was hoping Circuit City would put the $7AR 4 gig SD card rebate online, but they never did. A bigger disappointment was the ZipZoomFly sale - it had a FAR (with free shipping) CoolMaster case and power supply. Sale started 12:01 PST - ie 3am east coast. I was tired around midnight, so I went to sleep and woke up at 3:15AM for the sale - and found that they had jacked the prices up so they were no longer FAR. A few people in the thread on FatWallet said they got in, so it seems like they had the sale for 15 minutes and then raised the prices. I could see if the items went out of stock - I could see if they listed the items for a few minutes, then showed them out of stock, only to come back after the sale was over - but advertising the sale, then raising the prices after a few minutes while the stuff is still in stock, is sleazy to the max. I'm glad I woke up when I did, since Amazon paid me to buy a bunch of stuff, but still...

And with all this shopping, I did buy myself a present - Guitar Hero for the Wii. Not sure if I'll like it or how much I'll use it, but bsom and t seem to love theirs, and GameStop was one of the few places that had it online. I figure if I hate it or don't play it, I can always eBay it for most of what I paid. I thought about asking for it for Christmas, but I can't see any of my relatives buying the right thing...

So I'm going to have a huge credit card bill, a giant stack of rebate forms to fill out, and a ton of packages arriving on my doorstep in the next week - and in 6-8 weeks, a ton of rebate checks coming in. I'll also have plenty of inventory for when hamfests start again in another 2 months. And I didn't have to sleep outside of Circuit City or shiver in the cold (and MadAnthony hates the cold).