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Black Friday 2005 Review

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There was a lot of good and bad things that happened yesterday – let’s review!

The worst part of the day were the lines at Circuit City. Someone at Circuit City has got to get their act together and NOT have a bunch of unprepared kids running all five registers in the place. First off, you don’t have enough registers for the crowds – fix that. Second, you’ve got a bunch of kids that are more concerned about their appearance than telling Mr. and Mrs. Asshole in line that the $100 box set of their favorite musician is NOT on sale for $9.99! It’s Black Friday – get your act together Circuit City.

That’s my only criticism of Circuit City. On the flip side, they had some tremendous sales! Good job on being able to lure the customers in to the store with promotions! You gotta respect a company that knows how to put together a good Black Friday marketing scheme. I applaud Circuit City for their DVD prices – but someone really has to get a completely new checkout system over at that place…

Best Buy was alright – much better checkout situation. Nothing like the 45 minute line that my Mother and I waited on at Circuit City. The sales at Best Buy were alright – nothing crazy.

Same goes for Wal-Mart. The lines were alright, nothing too terrible. The best part of the Wal-Mart promotions that I saw was at the third Wal-Mart that I went to (you have to shop around at these places!) – they were selling box sets for $20. I was going to get the box set of Smallville because I heard it was a great series. Anyone have any thoughts on that? They actually have seasons one and two for $20 each…

I didn’t go into any actual in-door malls today because in my view, they can’t compete with the discount stores like Wal-Mart, Circuit City, and Target. Ah – Target! I went in there today and was completely unimpressed. It reminded me a lot of Black Friday 2004 in Wal-Mart – lots of hope and nothing to show for it.

All in all, I got 16 DVDs for under $100. Some of these movies are pretty good (Kingdom of Heaven, I Robot, Robots, Anchorman, Arrested Development Season Two) and some are pretty funny just to own (Masters of the Universe starring Dolph Lundgren, Jeff Foxworthy: Totally Committed). I was hoping to get more movies today, but I guess that sixteen is a good start.

Of course now that I’ve shopped for myself, I should probably make some time to go Christmas shopping for the family and friends…there better be good sales coming up in the next few weeks!

Oh, and what was the deal with Kohl’s today? I went in there and the line was literally wrapped around the entire store! That’s ridiculous! I don’t know how long some of those people were waiting in line, but there was no WAY that I would have waited there! I’m one of those big “Cyber Monday” folks…in other words I see a ton of people in line at Kohl’s on Black Friday, I say screw it – I’ll buy whatever I was looking for online when they offer free shipping (which is usually this Monday).

I hope that you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving and Black Fridays! Starting Saturday morning it’s back to the hum drum of plowing away at papers for Rutgers, beating myself up at the gym, and trying to find time to plan out my volunteer-based events. Fun!

Roxbury Football Rolls Into the Top Four

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I got back a little while ago from watching my younger brother play some state sectional playoff football in Ridgewood. He’s one of the captains of the Roxbury football team and he and his teammates did a good job in upsetting two-time defending Section 1, Group IV champions, Ridgewood.

As far as reflections on the game, from a football standpoint – the Roxbury football team has really come into their own. They played an outstanding 4 quarters of football on an opponent’s turf and walked away with a clear victory (21 to 7). I take nothing away from the Ridgewood team – they seemed to be well-coached and well-fired up for the game. However, the Roxbury team finally seems to be getting back to basic Roxbury football – pretty much a “going to work” attitude where you eat up the clock on offense, and send your opponents three-and-out on defense. Really a terrific job by Roxbury this afternoon.

I can’t wait to see them play against Montclair next weekend (another Saturday filled with driving for me, huh?)!

If anyone out there has a chance to go and support your home team in the football sectional playoffs, you really should go and cheer them on. The end of my younger brother’s Roxbury football career (which will happen either after he wins a state championship or after his team is eliminated) will mark the end of a nearly fifteen year run for my family in Roxbury football. My older brother played in the pre-high school league and eventually went on to play for the high school. He was followed by myself and my cousin (same age as I am). We both were on our high school’s only state championship football team. And now we have my younger brother who is one game away from a state championship final game.

Yeah, it’s pretty exciting, but it’s also weird to know that next season there won’t be a family member playing football for Roxbury. Besides one of my good friends who coaches over there now (former state championship member, my age), after this season is over, there will be little left tying my family to Roxbury football games.

I have a feeling, though, that we’ll be there in the stands again at some point watching the boys play in the IHC-Iron Division. We were talking today and I think my Mom has watched something like close to 150 Roxbury football games. That’s insane! But I’m sure that she, just like the rest of the parents who have watched generations of their family play football at the rest of the schools in this state, will still want to go and be a part of that mysterious “Go Team!” feeling that is a local high school football game.

Anyway – go out and support your home town team! High school football in New Jersey is great!

The Lady at the Gym Scolded Me

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So as I was leaving the gym this morning, one of the ladies who works there says to me, “How are you doing?” I figured it was a polite gesture as is the norm in our society.

I was wrong – she got me good.

I answered, “Good. Thanks.” Then I grabbed for my keys and began to turn around and she says in that don’t think I haven’t noticed voice: “You haven’t been here in a while.”

This woman (who could easily be 20 years or more older than I am) had that look that your Mom or girlfriend gives you when she expects an explanation. Now, I have – in fact – been at the gym. Sure, due to the end of the summer being crazy and the beginning of the school semester being nuts, I’ve had to cut back to maybe going 3 out of the 7 days of the week, but I’m still getting to the gym and working out.

However, being a well-brought up young buck I had no choice but to bow my head and say, “Yeah, I’ve been really busy lately.” Almost as soon as I said those words I knew what was coming next.

“You have to make time to workout.” At this point a second woman behind the counter began “Mmmm Hmmm”-ing her in agreement.

My response was all I could say (staying honest): “Yeah, I’m trying to squeeze in gym times as much as I can, whenever I can. That’s why I came in here today at 7am.”

I think that satisfied their needs – the older woman said, “Well that’s good. I’m glad to see you’re trying to get in here more,” as the other woman chuckled in agreement to my assertion that I was trying to workout whenever I could.

I’m just glad to know that the $51 per month that I pay for my gym membership is at least being spent on people who appear to give a damn. I enjoy that. Good for them for taking an interest in their customers.