Boycott Best Buy

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. It was pretty quiet around here; the three of us ate turkey. Then, I left the house at 12:45 to hit Black Friday sales with a few friends in Amarillo. We hit Target, Toys R' Us, and Kohl's, got everything we wanted (and then some) and finally got home around 10:00 AM MST.
Unfortunately, my brother Matt didn't get what he wanted. Best Buy advertised $180 laptops, so my brother went to get one for his wife at 9 PM Thursday night. The ad said that there were plenty in stock, and that the store would be handing out tickets for the items at 3AM. After waiting for a few hours in the cold, when store employees came out at 3AM they only tried to get people to sign up for credit cards. Matt asked about the laptops, he was told they had "plenty". At 4:30 the store finally handed out the tickets for the laptops, all 10 of them. Then they had the gall to try to sell everyone else $600 laptops. Matt was mad (he refused to even go in the store), but not bnearly as made as guy #11 who had pitched a tent in front of the store for 2 days. That meant store employees passed him on the way out Wednesday night, and no one had the common decency to tell him to go home and spend Thanksgiving with his family, since they knew full well there were no laptops.
Now, I understand that Best Buy can run its sale anyway it wants. I get that they only offer a few deeply discounted items to get people into the store. Making people wait in line for days for products they know they don't have in stock, however, is just wrong. Furthermore, not telling people that they were out of those items at 3AM, as their ad said they would, is illegal. Did they really think that the kind of people who skip Thanksgiving for a good deal were going to be upsold several hundred dollars in a moment of panic?
And before you say something, yes, my brother tried to buy one online at 3AM. He went to the website at 2:45, and the deals weren't posted yet. He kept refreshing the page until 3 AM, when the website was mysteriously "down for maintenace". At 3:02 it was up again, but all of their specials were listed as "out of stock".
Matthew has sworn to never shop at Best Buy again, and I told him I would support his boycott. Granted, the nearest Best Buy to me is 135 miles away, but I'll never shop there again. Neither is Dan. For video games, we'll go to EB Games. For appliances we'll go to Lowe's or Sears. For movies we have Netflix, and for music we have I-Tunes. Who's boycotting with me?

Back from Roswell

We went down to Roswell last week while Justin was visiting. I'm so jealous of Roswell. If those two farmers sixty years ago had just thought to go north to get to a phone instead of east to report that they saw an alien spaceship, Clovis could totally have a Target now. Oh well. At least I finally found a tablecloth for my dining room table. Unfortunately, I found it after I spent $35 on the fabric to just make one since I looked everywhere and couldn't find one, but I figure having two won't hurt.
Elanna liked the aliens a lot more this time than when we took her last time. She pointed at all the alien model sin the museum and said "click, click, click". I taught her that was what her stuffed alien said around the time I was teaching her animal sounds. I figure it's never too early to start learning another language.
My goal for Christmas is to avoid making the drive to Lubbock or Amarillo. When I looked at the calendar, I just didn't see where I could fit in another trip tot hose cities, and I know the malls are going to be ridiculously crowded. This is the only area of the country where no one has really been affected by the recession, but we're too small to have on-site retail buyers who can figure that out. When we dropped Justin off at the airport I noticed that the store shelves at the mall were already looking empty.

Changed it Again

So Idecided to change the look again after I got a bunch of people asking me what "565" meant. I didn't even see it at the top of the page until I looked for it; I should probably pick out a new template on more than just color. Turns out "565" was the selection number for the template, so if anyone really liked it, they could get one to match. Since I couldn't get ridc of it, we're trying something else new.

A Few Changes

You may have noticed I changed a few things since you've been here last. Basically, I'm just trying to clean up my list of articles. I've writeen a lot, and the list was just too long for anyone to really navigate. So I'm going to try to make a few different lists, one of just my most recent stuff, one of my most popular stuff, and maybe one more of seasonal stuff.

In other news, we all tried to go to Applebees today to get Dan's free meal for Veteran's Day. There's a problem with being the only restautrant in a 150 mile radius offering a free meal to anyone in the military. We decided to give up after we were told to expect a three hour wait. People filled the lobby and a line ran out into the parking lot. We were the only ones who left, though. Once again I am amazed at what people will do for a free cheeseburger.

Our friend Justin is coming to visit us tommorrow, so I won't be posting anything for a few days. I'm hoping to have a great time in Roswell!

Dan's Back!

Dan made it back! He got in yesterday, so I've spent most of today doing laundry. While Elanna's taking a nap and he's on base filling out paperwork, I've managed to find a few minutes to get other things done.
Among those other things, I've copies a few of the pictures that my sister-in-law Tracie took while we were in Disney World. You can go to my facebook page to see them (eventually I'll figure out how to post more pictures on this blog). I also got a few articles published regarding Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving (see the sidebar), but I'm still working on ones about thanksgiving games, and of course, Thanksgiving food. I'm hoping to be done by next week so that I can start on Christmas articles.
By the way, if you're looking for my article on free stuff and discounts for the military on Veteran's Day, I posted the link up above (as well as over in the sidebar). I just started writing for examiner.com, so let me know what you think!

We're Recovering

No, I'm not planning on tuurning this into a once-a-month blog, but we have had a lot of drama over the past few weeks. The day after we got back from Disney World (which was a little crowded, but fun) I got a concussion while cleaning the house. For those of you who are thinking, "Wow, I knew Sarah was a bad housekeeper but . . .", let me assure you that it was Elanna's fault (just kidding). The kid dropped a can of play-doh on my head while I was picking up toys. Yes, I realize this is a ridiculous story.
Anyway, I recovered, but Elanna got sick three days later with H1N1. She spent the next three days throwing up and whining. After taking care of her, of course I got it, but I got so sick I had to go into the hospital for a few hours for dehydration. My last dose of Tamiflu will be taken tonight, but I think I'm through most of the bad part.
Elanna and I celebrated Halloween last night. Elanna was a dragon (I'll post pictures later), and I think we were visitied by every kid in all of Clovis. I appreciate that parents want a safe place for their kids to trick-or-treat, but I think it' time our town got together to put on a carnival or something. I went through over 120 full-size candy bars and 7 lbs of tootsie rolls. There were literally school buses full of kids pulling up to my house. I ran out of candy at 8:30, and after I turned off my lights there will still kids ringing my doorbell. I guess I'll have to buy more candy next year.