Black Friday 2011

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, which makes today Black Friday.

Last night I had dinner at the home of a professor with whom I've worked (he invited one other international student). They bought two deboned rolled turkeys of 10lb each -- the six of us got through less than three quarters of the first one! (So we students were sent home with leftovers.)

I got home just before midnight and realised that it was just in time for me to go to the Black Friday sales. Every year the shops open early on the Friday after Thanksgiving and usually people camp out in the cold waiting. But this year a number of shops, including the electronics giant BestBuy, announced that they would open at midnight. I arrived at 20 min past but the queue was still outside, snaking around the corner about 150m. I brought a warm jacket and my earphones so I joined them. The queue moved slowly but when I got in I quickly found the hard drive I was looking for (and was happy that they hadn't yet sold out). But then I had to find the queue for the checkout. After wasting a few minutes in a line for something else, I was told that the end to that queue could be found by looking for a pink helium ballon. I did find it but had no idea how long it was, snaking through the aisles. About an hour and a half later I got to the checkout! I didn't get back to the car until two hours after I arrived!

It wasn't all that pleasant having to be there so long but my experience was nothing like the twenty people who got capsicum-sprayed by a psycho shopper in L.A. And elsewhere people have been robbed on the way back to their car and shot. I guess my experience was fine, compared to all that.