Bleak Friday....

I used to go shopping on Black Friday. Years ago, the deals used to be good - hundreds of dollars of free after rebate stuff - and the lines were reasonably short. I could hit three or four stores, get most of what I wanted, and be done with it.

In the last few years, the deals have gotten less hot - a couple good hard-to-get doorbusters but not much else. Not only that, but the lines have gotten longer. In 2006, I spent the night outside a Circuit City. I got there around midnight, and was still too late to get the laptop I wanted. (my post on it is here).

So last year I stayed up late and got a bunch of good deals online. (The post from that is here.

I didn't stay up late last night - I was in bed by 11:30, knocked out by turkey and white wine. I woke up around 6am and went online to see if there were any good deals, but I didn't find much.

There are one or two I missed - a get-paid after rebate RAM deal from zipzoomfly and a copier from Fry's for $20AR - but for the most part it wasn't that I missed deals, just that there wasn't much out there.

What I've bought in the last few days - decent deals, but not the smoking-hot deals of previous years:

Newegg:
- crucial balistic ram $2 AR, free shipping
-Thermaltake 430watt power supply, $11 AR, free shipping

Fry's
-EVGA 7200 video card, FAR (free after rebate)
-Memorex jewel cases 100-pack, FAR
-Memorex 256 cd wallet, FAR

~$9 shipping on the above order

eCost
-a whole bunch of OCz flash cards FAR (about $9 shipping)

Ritz Camera
-3 4 gig high-speed compact flash cards FAR (about $7 shipping - I'm kicking myself because other places had it with free shipping later on, but I jumped the gun).

Amazon
-Belkin iPod case for 80 gig classic FAR (bought with some cliff bars to get free shipping)

I'm hoping some more deals show up, but it seems like BF isn't a great deal anymore. I think stores have figured out that people will show up and buy stuff no matter what sales they have, so they don't need to offer as many deals. Also, many of the best deals I've gotten have been with rebates, and a lot of stores are moving away from them.

I'm hoping for better deals later on, but I'm not expecting it.