Dark Deals

It's Black Friday, also known as the Day After Thanksgiving. It marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season, and retailers all over the U.S. offer a lot of sweet deals on just about everything. In fact, their offers are so enticing that a lot of people camped outside their stores since yesterday noon, in the cold, entirely missing Thanksgiving, just so they could snag that door buster/early bird item. Most of them are doing it out of necessity though -like buying a laptop for school or a new vacuum cleaner for the house- so I don't blame them.


I, however, decided not to go to the stores this year. My reason is because, while the early deals are good, it can get pretty scary out there. This is the time of the year when people fight and die over a parking lot or the last PS3 bundle, you know. Then there's also the loud and obnoxious shoppers, who seems to always want to stop and talk in the middle of the aisle, completely halting the flow of the mob, you being stuck between the sea of consumers. In addition, I didn't feel like getting up early and there isn't any good Xbox 360 deals .

But I didn't avoid Black Friday, no. I worked 22 hours of overtime in the past few weeks and to not let that extra money I earned go to waste would be a shame. I toiled hard for it, I have to spend it and help the economy. So I went to shop digitally, and it was awesome. No crowds, no parking lots, no more Christmas songs with subliminal messages that urges consumers to spend more. Just me, with a large supply of assorted caffeinated beverages, leftover food from the day before, and my computer.

I didn't visit a lot of sites, however. I only limited my stay at Amazon, Steam and New Egg. But I found some great deals on these sites. Steam is by far the best. They slashed the prices of their games from 25% off to 75% off. From them, I snagged Majesty 2 ($9), Left 4 Dead 2 ($38) and Plants vs. Zombies ($5). From New Egg, I got my godkids some DS games -Chrono Trigger and Elite Beat Agents- for $10 each. Then I bought 3 books for the price of 2 (as stocking stuffers) at Amazon. I also got the hardcover edition of Beautiful Creatures and Catching Fire (sequel to Hunger Games) for less than $10 from them, sweet deal.

All in all, today is the one of the pleasant Black Friday experiences I had in years. Not because there was no mob to trample me (truth be told, I actually missed them). But because I didn't spend a lot (I still have $80 left on my Black Friday budget), and I mostly bought things for myself. So it's all good. Now I have 2 books and 3 more games to keep me entertained throughout the coming winter.

P.S. On a serious note, people do get killed on Black Friday (check here).

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