Day after Thanksgiving shopping, 2005
On Thanksgiving Day, I spied over the rainbow assortment of glossy ads supplied in our bulging local source of liberal propaganda. Being a techie, I went right for the OfficeMax, Office Depot, Best Buy, and CompUSA ads.
CompUSA is starting their day-after Thanksgiving experience right at midnight. Nothing in the ad was tempting enough to draw me down to their den of theivery at such an hour, not even the $299.99 laptop PC offer. I was tempted by the laptop, until I spied the "...with AOL subscription" in the fine print.
Okay, so I let my wife do the whole 5 am thing, and I wait until she returns, around 10 am or so. I head to Office Max and hook up on a vinyl CD holder, holding 64 CDs. I then cruise to CompUSA, and pick up a 200gb Seagate ATA drive, and a 160gb Hitachi DeskStar SATA drive. I then head to Office Depot to buy a $349.99 laptop, which had no mandatory AOL.
OfficeMax, CompUSA, and Office Depot. Three stores, three tales of woe and whackiness...
OfficeMax: I have had poor experience with rebates from OfficeMax. The CD case I picked up for $16.99 is supposed to have an $8.00 rebate. Now that most stores print out the rebates right at the register, I have a roll of paper to go through at home. The OfficeMax rebate, like the others, states the rebate amount on the slip. The rebate amount? $0.00. Zero dollars, zero cents. I'm not sure why I bother filling it out, since I'm sure it won't pay out the $8.00 it's supposed to be. Just to be sure, I staple a copy of the ad to the paperwork I turn in, but my experience with OfficeMax has led me to believe they are not interested in paying on rebates.
CompUSA: I have seen CompUSA often have product on the shelf, with the shelf tag saying "Rebate" and the product not being the right stuff. Well, in the hustle and bustle of the shopping experience, I saw this guy in front of me look at the shelf tag marked "30 cd printable, 3 pks for $7.99". There were five remaning. The guy looks (at me, I think) about and picks up the last 3, since having two isn't 3, is it? Okay, buddy, fine, fine. Well, I find a few more of the same CD packs on an adjacent shelf. I grab three of 'em and head to the Customer Service counter, and have the person check if those are the rebate ones. They aren't. So, I guess that guy who thought he was scoring the last good set is in for a rude shock.
I bought a Seagate 200gb ATA drive, but have some feelings about Seagate. I'vedocumented my last Seagate purchase here, one I got from Best Buy, which first came with some other dude's data still on it. Anyhow, that Seagate drive died last month, just eight months out of warranty, naturally. So, I'm leery of Seagate anything.
Now for the Hitachi DeskStar drive. We use a lot of IBM gear at work, so I'm fully aware that IBM sold their hard drive business off to Hitachi. One of the lowest points of IBM's comnsumer goods history is the sordid tale of the infamous DeathStar, or should I say the DeskStar. If you google for "IBM DeathStar", you can read the tale for yourself. Anyhow, I note that Hitachi is using the infamous DeskStar moniker. Didn't they get the memo? Anyhow, I got the drive stuffed into my PC and lit up without any difficulty. Only time will tell if I have the DeskStar, or the DeathStar.
Office Depot: So much for the $349.99 laptop PC. As I drive up, the note on the door says it all. The ad in the paper failed to mention that there were only 15 laptop PCs available at the aforementioned price. The strange part? The computers are made to order by Compaq; they aren't in the store in the first place! So why the limit of 15? Whatever.
