Good morning, Netizens…

Things to consider in retrospect to Black Friday:

Did you go out and shop yourselves insensible on Black Friday? Did you spend yourself into debt without remorse or fear this year? Did you get out of bed at an ungodly hour of the morning to stand in lines outside your favorite store in the hopes of buying a loss-leader item?

Some other things to consider on the day after Black Friday:

Most of the television announcers who are squalling like pigs just before slaughter about the “new resurgence” of shopper confidence have no factual proof of their assertions. Sure, there were huge crowds at various stores throughout the country, lots of pictures of happy shoppers exiting the stores with full shopping baskets and even a few riots from people who tried to jump their place in line. I remember last year, which has to rank high on the ranks of economically dismal Christmas Shopping Seasons when some of the same announcers made some of the same joyous predictions about that Black Friday. So you see, many of the announcers, but perhaps not all, are paid to say good things about Black Friday even in the face of economically-uncertain times. God forbid they should ever report the facts. It might negatively impact the coming Christmas Shopping Season.

If a deal simply sounds too good to be true, the chances nearly always are they are probably bogus and thus not true. One of my favorite tales from last year’s “super sale” on Black Friday at a regional outlet was the laptop computers being offered at what were ostensibly bargain basement prices, so much so I even went to look at them, despite my ambivalence about Black Friday. I didn’t really need a new laptop. My old one, with some enhancements and modifications, does everything I need it to do and more. But I had to look. This new in-the-box laptop included a low-end Intel processor, tons of software junk I didn’t need and a dirt-cheap price below $200. It was a piece of crap I wouldn’t lend to one of my cats and the price wasn’t that good to begin with.

Do NOT feed the landfill. Perhaps to some this might sound altruistic, naive and negative, but stop and think about what you are buying, especially for your children, grandchildren and other young members of your family. What are the odds that the Christmas presents you buy this year for your younger members of the family will end up discarded, not recyclable and thus tossed into the nearest landfill within two years? Five years? It is a difficult decision you have to make as a parent/grandparent/guardian, choosing when that doll or gadget your offspring are screaming about is a piece of plastic junk that will end up useless and discarded within a few years.

So now perhaps you may understand why I avoid the crush of the crowds on Black Friday. Most of the Christmas presents have already been purchased, or at least cleverly planned long before now. With this out of the way, it leaves me and mine expendable time to truly prepare for the mysteries and joys of the true Christmas Season.

Dave

Good morning, Netizens…

[Picture credit: KREM-TV]

If you think I am going to drive to my nearest shopping center to capture a live picture of insensibly insane people willing to stand in long lines in the rain for hours, waiting for the doors to open on Black Friday at 5:00 AM, guess again. First, I have a long-term allergy to huge crowds, especially if they are standing in the rain, and second, I have a TV card in my PC that allows me to capture television pictures, which is a valuable tool in this case.

According to KREM-2 TV this morning there were over 400 people standing in a cold rain in front of Target for the doors to open at 5:00 AM. Lines were worse at Best Buy, according to KREM, but the question stands.

It’s raining outside, the temperature hovering near 40 degrees, which is pretty chilly if you are wet to the bone, and all this for what? Were you among the crowds that flocked to the Big Box stores this morning? If so, what was your motivation? Was it worth it? Or did you sit in your chair watching the early morning debacle, amused at the mayhem?

Shopper or no? Which are you?

Dave

Good evening, Netizens…

 

We have until this Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, and there is little more needs to be said than the macabre and often delusional pre-Christmas Shopping Day known as “Black Friday” has already begun a bit earlier than usual and it appears to be lasting several weeks. According to my liege, Jeanie of Spokane, we have only 32 more days before Christmas. To put it more succinctly, merchants and big box stores alike are desperate to steer us all into their stores before then so we’ll be sure to participate in the combination riot, donnybrook, insurrection and various other orgiastically unworthy descriptions of Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. That was, we get to shop twice as much as if we had waited until just before Christmas to do our shopping, and we still have those nefarious crowds, some who do not bathe often enough and others who trample whoever is ahead of them in line.

 

Maybe, just maybe if we have a little spare time between now and then, we might actually have some disposable time to remember ourselves and possibly what Christmas is supposed to represent. I went into a pique several years ago when transfixed shoppers back east had what many termed a civil riot over a limited number of Elmo dolls. People were injured, taken to hospitals, while others were arrested for being disorderly. Or how about this YouTube video telling about Cabbage Patch dolls. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is-e1FX8-D4 or this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4vmyUb6aTU&NR=1&feature=fvwp

 

Now let’s wildly speculate for a moment here. How many of either the Cabbage Patch or Tickle Me Elmo dolls are already in the bottom of the nearest solid waste landfill? Anyone care to speculate?

 

 

This year we are suffering beneath a fractured economy, with more people unemployed than purportedly anytime since the 80’s. More families are planning to get a free turkey for Thanksgiving Day from KREM-2’s Tom’s Turkey Drive than ever before in the history of this strange sociological event.

 

Yet the advertisers are saying there is already excitement in the air. Excitement? I submit that what they term to be excitement isn’t that at all. At least among those who remember Thanksgiving Day when it was 100% a family event, and Christmas when it still had some elements of the Birth of Christ attached, I would say rather than excitement, this is much more like sadness. Of course, your results may differ.

 

Dave