My Thanks giving 2008 break week

As soon as, my class on the Thursday before thanks giving week was done it was holidays for me. I had planned something to do everyday during the break.

The technician returns:

On Friday, I came to work and had fun with friends at work while trying to get the Life After Class magazine done. On Saturday, I went to my friends house to fix his laptop and PC and after that he gave me a treat at a classy Italian restaurant (Olive garden) because I helped him on many occasions with his technical problem. He has the power of making anybody agree to whatever he says even if it is wrong. And he uses this power to get stuff for way cheaper than what it originally costs. So I asked him to get me a Nintendo DS Lite for $50 from somewhere. He said no problem at all because he has a lot of “connections”.

The PS2:

Then he gave me his non-working PS2 and asked me if I could fix it. I took it home and tried to fix it. It took me not more than 30 minutes to fix the problem. After I informed him that I fixed it he let me keep it for as long as I want it. So I have been playing his NASCAR 08 and MX vs ATV unleashed games since then.

BURNOUT strikes back!

I thought of buying a few old favorite used games on eBay. So I went online and checked for Burnout 3 and found it to be available for $9.99 then I saw that there was an auction on all the three versions of burnout for $4.25 + $2.99 shipping so I bid on that and got the 3 games finally for $12.73. Now what my plan is that I will play the 3 games and then sell the Burnout 1 and 2 on eBay and get money back and keep the Burnout 3 with me.
Then on Monday, I went to Chicago with 2 of my friends to meet my former roommate. We had a great time hanging out and walking in the downtown for 9 miles among the building. We then returned to Edwardsville on Wednesday night.
Wednesday night, went out with friends and hanged out till 6 am in the morning and then came back home and slept till 2 pm on thursday.

What is the main things for us during thanks giving?

The main thing for us is the thanks giving sale on the day after the thanks giving festival i.e. the Black Friday sale. On Black Friday sale the stores put up great/cheap deals with limited quantity for 1 day and whoever is interested

Thursday night, I had a plan with my American friend to stand in the line for the Black Friday sales at Walmart because they had more number of deals which we wanted than any other store. My aim was to buy 5 Nintendo Wiis and some other cheap small electronic gadgets for various purposes. 

The Black Friday Sales of Thanks Giving 2008

What is the Black Friday and Cyber Monday?

The Friday of the thanks giving week is called the black Friday. During which all the major stores put up great/cheap deals with limited quantity for 1 day only and whoever is interested has to come early to get it. The deals are usually so attractively priced that people do not want to miss the deals so they come and form a line in front of the store 1 day before the sale. Sometimes they have 2 day sale items also i.e. An item is offered for sale on Saturday also.

For people who cannot go and stand in the line to get the item they want there is the internet and on the following monday of the thanks giving break week, all the online merchant sites have online deals for cheap and people have to click and race fast to get what they want. There servers get very slow during those times. But this is worth for people who dont want to wait in line in the cold weather.

What was my plan of buying during this thanks giving sale?

I planned to buy a lot of things this thanks giving sale for various reasons. Most of the thing in my list were video games. also I planned to buy around 5 Nintendo Wiis and a few gadgets which I never had and were available for cheap.

Making the shopping list:

On the Thursday night (the night before black Friday early morning sale), after returning from Chicago and hanging out with friends, I went online to http://www.bfads.net/ and checked all the major stores, which I visit, for their advertisements about the doorbuster offers (the first come first server item list for cheap). After I short listed the items available in various stores, I had Walmart and bestbuy in my list because Walmart had many cheap deals and Bestbuy had some cheap and great deals.

The plan:

Me and my American friend were planning to stand in the Walmart line to get a great number of items. But he changed his mind and went to some other store for a 32" plasma TV available for $299 for his dad. So I made a list of things to buy in different stores and dropped the new kids who wanted a laptop for cheap at Bestbuy at 7 PM on thursday night because they had good laptop deals for $375-$499 and it was worth waiting in the line for. There were already around 30 people waiting in the line at bestbuy. And when i checked Walmart, there were no people standing in the line. So I just ignored and went home. I sat home looking for online deals instead of waiting in the line at best buy or Walmart.

Online shopping @ Home:

I gave the small list of items I wanted from bestbuy to the kids and they would them for me. So I continued searching for online deals on various sites. And as I am an avid deal finder, I got a mail from one of my deal site subscriptions that http://www.ecost.com/ was having an Outrageous offer on Nintendo Wii. They were selling THE NINTENDO WII for $99 1 per day at random time for 10 days = 10 Wiis. So i was keenly watching out for the deal to catch.

As the morning approached I went to Walmart at 2 AM and checked out the new way of getting things without a line. We can enter the store in the morning but cannot pick up the doorbuster items until the store opens. I and my another friend kept wandering in the store looking for the locations of the items I wanted like a treasure hunt. Then we stood near each item we needed as the time approached 5 am.

Electronic Buys:

I picked up a portable DVD player with 8" LCD screen on it for just $50, a Kodak CD1013 Digital Camera for $79, a V Rocker chair with music system embedded in it for $30 and a jeans pant from Wrangler for $8. After getting these I went to Bestbuy to see how the kids were doing with their deals. They got the tickets to get the item they wanted (i.e. the laptops) and I got my 19" Acer LCD monitor for $99.

Video Game Frenzy:

I did not find any video games for cheap from my brothers wishlist at these store but found some games for PS3 for $19.99 at walmart and SMSed him about those and so I got a reply that only Unreal Tournament was worth buying among those games I mentioned.

Then after finishing the shopping at bestbuy and Walmart I went home and slept and then again at 11 am we left for fairview heights shopping mall where I went to Gamestop and bought 3 used games for the price of 2 as they had an offer going on where we buy 2 and get 1 free for used games only. As Pikmin and Pikmin 2 were very expensive ($50+) online and hard to find I bought these used for $24 and $34 and took the Legend of Zelda twilight princess for Wii also used because I once ordered this game and never received the shipment.(I didnt feel like buying another new one). Then i bought a hoody for the first time in Aeropostale for $25 on a 50% off offer.

After the shopping here was done, the only things in my list to buy were the video games from my brothers wishlist. So I checked all the stores around that place for cheap games. But the only thing I could find was Burnout Paradise for $20 at Target which I didnt buy coz I never reached that store. Then after reaching home I searched for more deals online and checked the http://www.cheapassgamer.com/ site where I found AMAZING game deals. I got the following on this site:

"Wario Land: Shake it" for $29.99 (reg $49.99)

"Heavenly Sword" for $19.99 (reg $59.99)

"Mercury Meltdown Revolutions" for $9.99 (reg 19.99)

"No More Heroes" for $9.99 (red 19.99)

"Resistance 2 Collectors Edition" for $59.99 (reg 79.99)

"Little Big Planet" for $59.99 - $20.00 = $39.99 (reg 59.99) (used the coupon I got with the purchase of Wii Music in the past but later the price without coupon came down to $39.99 - Fate)

"Pure [PC]" for $4.95 (reg $29.99)

I also bought the Burnout 1,2,3 pack for PS2 on eBay for $12 to enjoy it on the PS2 which I fixed for my friend as he let me keep it for as long as I want it.

There were a lot more deals available but I bought only these. I now feel that I should have bought some more. But money matters...rite!

I almost bought a DS for $99 today in Cyber Monday deal at Amazon but for some reason it expired very very early. :(

WII (ALMOST) MISSED IT!

As far as the buying of my 5 Wiis goes, I observed in Walmart that they had 146 Wiis available this year unlike the 20-40 which they had last year per store. After seeing that the Wiis were so plentyfully available I didnt feel like buying it and didnt buy even one Wii. But the next day I felt bad that I didnt buy coz all the 146 Wiis were gone and now I was feeling again that the Wii is hard to find.

Now that the Wii are all gone again. I had one way of getting wiis for the rite or less price and that was to stay online on the eCost.com website to make use of the OUTRAGEOUS DEAL of theirs. because all other online stores sell the Wii for way more($300+) than the retail value of the console ($249).

On the first day(Black Friday) of the OUTRAGEOUS DEAL on Wii for $99, they mentioned that the Wii will be online between 8-10PM PST so to get it I came online at the exact time and when I tried to refresh the eCost.com website it took a lot of time to load the page because of the huge traffic as many people were trying to get the Wii for $99. It was like the day when all the students come online at the same time to check their results on the JNTU website.

After trying this for 2 days continuously, I failed, but on the 3rd day i.e. Sunday at 7 PM CST I ran from the other room remembering that the Wii deal will be online at this time and went to the site...added the Wii to cart and observed that it was added in the cart for $99... So I immediately started the checkout process as it was a race we needed to be fast in doing it. Luckily there was Paypal option and also I already had an account with eCost.com which I dont remember making. i did everything fast and in the last step when I was clicking the SUBMIT ORDER BUTTON, I got a message which said

We're sorry but an error occurred processing your order. The site administrators have been notified

When I saw this i was sooooooooo pissed coz I was very close to getting a Wii for $99.

After an hour when, I was just checking stuff I observed that I still have the $99 Wii in my Shopping cart, So I just tried to go through the order and I got it through. My Paypal account was charged twice so maybe I am going to get both the Wii's (the earlier failed one and this successful one). I have even got the Shipped notification which means my order has gone through. AMAZING!!!!

After this happened I jumped like crazy telling everyone about it. I saved. I got a feeling of great achievement by doing this. There are few more days of Wii offer left and I will keep trying to get them for "gifting".

Merry Christmas to everybody and get the Wii as a Christmas present for your loved ones! ;)

UPDATE

I got my Wii today. The $14 shipping was super fast I got it within 1 day. They shipped on Dec 1st and I got it on Dec 2nd. Amazing! I also tried to get another Wii today (Dec 2nd) but missed by 1 minute. I will keep trying for another Wii until I get it for the same price ($99).

MY SWEET WIIIIIIIIII

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