I’m a self-proclaimed shopaholic. I’m always a sucker for coupons, sales and deals and that somehow takes off the ‘guilt’ from buying too much! I shop online all the time and what gets me to pick a particular online store over another is free shipping or pick-up-in-store deals.

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As of 8:30 pm November 26th- Thanksgiving day, this was the line at a Best Buy store in Darthmouth, MA. Some said they’ve been there since noon time (gave up on Thanksgiving dinner altogether)! Calling my sisters in Sacramento, California, they said that there were people camped out in front of the Best Buy stores early on as well.

What’s interesting with Best Buy is that they only have minimum of 5 to 10 items of each product per store as advertised yet they seem to draw campers who are willing to spend the night in the cold. Based on our experience, the ad isn’t entirely true because some stores only really have one or two items of the more popular products on sale. So by the time the store opens at 5am, there would have been 300 people in line fighting for one to 2 items of those products!! Case in point, the HDTVs and the laptops.

Why people would camp out in Best Buy stores, I could never understand.

Passing through Wal-Mart in Ashland, MA there were at least 10 people camped out by 9:30pm. You guys must realize that the stores are going to officially open at 5am the next day and people are camping out overnight some spending 17 hours outside the store– just to get the deals they want! How far would you go?

I am not sleeping tonight. I am online shopping for deals as I write this and at 3am, I am heading over to Staples to go get in line and try my luck there. Always do get most of the items that I eye for… They’ve always been great with their prices and stocks and yet no one would camp out in their stores. Works for me because I am not willing to spend the night in freezing Massachusetts weather to get my deals. I think 3 hours of wait is already ridiculous, 17 hours wait time would be unjustifiable. Then again, here I am wide awake as I watch my clock for 3am to go to Staples. At least I am warm and cozy in my PJs! My sisters are leaving at midnight to head to a Fry’s store near them in CA… Yeah, we’re all suckers for sale like that.

That’s Crazy Black Friday, day after thanksgiving sale for you! Only in the US…

Here’s what people are camping out for in Best Buy Black Friday Sale:

At Staples:

I talked about Black Fridays here in America quite a bit last year. It is the country’s ONLY biggest sale of the year! Supposedly. With the ongoing recession, it is looking bleak and dreary for both retailers and consumers.

Black Friday is the day when most people shop for their Christmas presents because it is the time, you are assured to get the best deals before hitting that Holiday rush in December.

For an ailing company, how do you offer bargains to your customers when you’re buried in debts? For a consumer, how do you head to the store and shop when you’ve lost your job or unsure if you’ll still have your current job in 2009? How do you splurge on a new notebook or HDTV when you don’t know where to get the payments after swiping it on your credit card?!

It was a crazy and ridiculous Black Friday last year when people literally camped out with tents and sleeping bags for 17 hours outside the store to get ahead of everybody else. I was in the mall myself at 2 in the morning, amidst bitter wind and freezing cold waiting for the store to open at 5.

That was enough to raise doubts in my mind if it’s even worth going again. How much is your time worth, I asked? I wasn’t willing to risk hypothermia for a bargain!

But this is a different scenario today. I feel I don’t really need to shop on Black Friday this year. It just doesn’t seem right for me to do it with too much uncertainties around. Even Circuit City, my most favorite store for electronics filed for bankruptcy and will be closing 155 of its 700 stores by the end of this year! Linens ‘n Things, another store I frequent filed for bankruptcy in May and are closing all stores by the end of the year! Sigh.

After seeing some of the ads for Black Friday 2008 which sucks, I think I’m going to have to skip on this one. The deals the retailers are giving aren’t really giveaways! Where is the thanks in Thanksgiving?? They’re supposed to give their annual thanks to its consumers for the patronage but most of these stores aren’t doing very well and some are really in the hole. Understandably so. Therefore, I’m skipping it this year and look forward to sleeping in Friday morning. So long, Black Friday! I’ll see you when you don’t have “bleak” attached to your day…

elieve it or not, there’s only one exclusive Filipino Food Store in Massachusetts (MA).  With a Filipino population of a little over 10,000 scattered in and around Boston, that may not be not surprising (MA total population: 6.4 million). But with the Filipino’s innate entrepreneurial spirit, I find that unbelievable. I’ve always thought Filipinos created the concept of sari-sari stores (literally means mix-mix; a small assortment store selling goodies and what have yous).

a sari-sari store in the Philippines

photo credit: chitomadrigal.org

Naturally, I would think wherever we are in the world, no matter how small the number, there will always be one or two (sari-sari store) in the neighborhood. I guess it is only true in many parts of the West Coast (California et al) where there are over 1 million Filipinos therefore tons of market; therefore tons of Filipino stores!

Since there’s very little supply and demand in Massachusetts, we’d have to contend with one! There are plenty of Asian stores, my favorite being the Super88 Market with 6 branches in Boston- selling some Filipino items like condiments (Silver Swan soy sauce and vinegar, Mang Tomas, Rufina Patis) and others (Sky flakes crackers, Lucky Me noodles) but none like the Sure Pinoy Food Mart located in Quincy, MA where one can find tons of Filipino goods.

Being the ONLY one should have its many advantages- primarily, captured marketability! It is about 20 miles from where I live, with normal traffic that’s about half an hour drive. It’s not far but it’s not close to home either! It’s not the same as in the Philippines where in our street alone there are 10 sari-sari stores! (I’m not exaggerating. if you’ve been to the Philippines, that is even a conservative estimate!) So back home, it’s a matter of walking maybe 10 steps from your gate and you’re in one of the sari-sari stores. Here, you’d have to drive distance.

Being the only Filipino grocery store in MA, the store should literally be flocked with hundreds of Filipinos everyday! I’ve been to Sure Pinoy Food Mart with some friends just twice since they opened in February 2006 and each time, we were the only ones in the store with one or two more customers coming in to buy one item. I am not “sure” why but here’s what I know: I am really unsure about this Sure Pinoy Food store! Their service is mediocre at best! The staff are unfriendly. They seem to be disinterested and detached to the customers and would rather really watch the current teleserye (soap opera) playing on their The Filipino Channel (TFC) subscribed TV (at that time it was the Judy Ann Santos show, the title escapes me!).

The prices are a bit high but that is almost expected because except for clothing (if you know where the bargains are), everything is expensive in Massachusetts or the United States for that matter. The store itself is so-so- very basic and cheaply done. No aesthetic design or concept and the shelves while organized, full and in stock doesn’t appeal to me at all.

This kind of store make up and design- if you can call it a design at all, is very common to not only Filipino stores but to most Filipino restaurants here in America. I’ve traveled extensively in the East coast and in Sacramento, CA area and it is unfortunate that most of these establishments would really opt for cheapness over presentableness and ambiance! And we still wonder why with 4 million Filipinos in the United States, our classic famous Filipino food (such as Sinigang, kare-kare and Adobo) is as unknown as where exactly the Philippines is located and how to spell it! We can not compete globally if we think locally! We can not compete with world class standards if we have in mind as target market- Filipinos only!

No way! We shouldn’t settle for this kind of second-rate stores when we are in the first world country! We’d have to attract NOT only Filipinos but most especially other nationalities! I wouldn’t take American friends to OUR restaurants because I don’t want to give them the wrong impressions about us!  Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Indian restaurants here in the United States are flourishing! They are competing head on with American, European and Italian cuisines! And we would rather patronize these restaurants than the Filipino restaurants. (I think I even cook better than most of these Fil-restos to be honest!) Why are other Asian restaurants gets the nod and thumbs up? Because they know better! Their restaurants have nice, clean, comfortable layout. The restaurants have a friendly overall atmosphere. The food quality and presentation are tops.  It’s a shame. Why can’t most Filipino restaurants do the same?

I would have given the store a much nicer review had they been more open and friendly. I also asked kindly if I could take photos of their store because I wanted to feature them in my blog as a promotion, they started getting defensive and almost didn’t allow me! So instead they are getting a rant from me! They have a website by the way with the same lackluster quality as their store. I’m no web expert; but the website sucks!

I am quite disappointed over this store and so would rather shop at Super88. My friends and I go through lengths to find a bargain and would drive for hours to go to a good store. And we could have been a regular shopper in Sure Pinoy Food Mart easy instead we’re not shopping there.

I’m going to give this store one more chance. I don’t know when I’d have the energy to drive there but I will in the coming months. Hopefully they’re still open by then, huh.

Won’t stop you from visiting the store, maybe they have read this review and ‘changed’ Store is open 7 days a week, until 8pm. They’re located at:

145 Water Street
Quincy, MA  02169

Thanksgiving Day 2007: Circuit City @ 8:00pm

@ 2:30 am!! The First group in line. I hate you guys!! Lol

Black Friday madness continues…

To my horror, there were in fact tents by the side of the store!! All of a sudden the shopping mall looked like a camping ground or more like a place where homeless people go. So it was true, the first group on the line were guarding their spot since noon! One was buying a 50″ LCD HDTV and the other, a 32″ which would save them about $500. The other, the $300 laptop I was also eyeing! There were about 20 tents there and about 50 people. They gave up their traditional Thanksgiving holiday to sit out in the cold and wait 17 hours.

Circuit City @ 3:00 am: Camping out for Black Friday Sale

The line stretches out to 8 stores and counting…

I went home quite disappointed yet resigned to the fact that I am not going to get that notebook I was gonna give to my sister. I spent my night looking for good stuff online, bought some and even managed to watch a movie and then it was time to head to the store at 2:30 in the morning. I am crazy for still going out as early as I did but I’ve waited 4 hours for a standing only tickets for the musical Jersey Boys in New York, I can handle 2 and a half hours easy. I’m just NOT going to wait 17 hours! Though I did not sleep through out the night, I was warm and cozy at home and I get to do other stuff- beats lying on a cold pavement, staring at a nylon tent.

The Best Buy Line @ 4:00 am. Am not sure why Best Buy draws this kind of line when only the first 20
or 30 people actually get the better stuff. The rest are so-so…

Overall, I’m still pretty happy with my finds! I bought a colored laser printer for $120 (originally $250), 2 500GB external hard drive for $100 each (was $180 each), Magellan GPS for $125.00 (regular tag $300.00), DVD TV sets for $12.00 ($50.00 tag), DVD-Rs for 5 bucks (from $30), Belkin hubs for $6.00 (from $30). I’m still on the look out for a good Laptop price and I will continue till Monday for another major sale, this time exclusive from online retailers which they dub as CyberMonday. If you’re interested to check out prices on specific items or to buy, I suggest Amazon, Circuit City, Staples, Officemax and CompUsa. Those are the sites I usually visit!

How far are you willing to go to get an item at the price you want on Black Fridays? Would you miss the special holiday, skip meeting family, instead camp out and spend a cold night outside the store? Or are you going to get a good meal in, have small talks with family, and stay home surfing for finds online in your pjs? What’s worth your while? How much does your time cost? When you break it down to say the $500.00 saving for a TV- their waiting time costs about $30.00 an hour. I guess if you’re earning $10.00 an hour in your day job- 17 hours certainly is worth your time! As for me, maybe I’ll give it one more try next year. I will not skip Black Friday but I am NOT spending 17 hours for it plus about 8 hours of shopping. I realized that night, I maybe a shopaholic but I am not that desperate for a bargain…

*The only 2 days ALL the stores are closed in America are Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day, no Holy Week holidays.

© 2007

When I moved to the United States I had no clue what Black Friday meant. As born and raised catholic, I only know of Black Saturday the day after Jesus’ death; and Good Friday for the day of Jesus’ passion and death. So when I came across the term I was like, there’s a Holy Day in November?!

Goodness, I got all hyped up and excited upon learning what it meant! Black Friday is THE day after Thanksgiving. It’s not any other day. It’s THE day of all days! It’s the biggest, craziest sale of the year! It beats even the Christmas or year-end sales! Shopping galore to the max! This is when Christmas shopping officially starts. It’s when retailers and manufacturers give their big thank you’s to consumers by practically giving away their stuff! And when I say giving it away, I’m not kidding! The items are so cheap it’s unbelievable!

current Circuit City ad, Black Friday 2007

I almost never pay for my rewritable DVDs and CDs because I buy them on Black Friday and get it free after the rebate and most stores allow you to buy up to 10 units of the 50-packs (that’s 500 pieces of DVDs! All you can burn movies and mp3s!). Headsets? Webcams? you get branded ones like logitechs for free after rebate or as cheap as $5.00! Memory cards? same! 1GB of SD for $2.99! Digital cameras? half the price plus free printers! Printers by itself, free after rebate! Notebooks? an intel-core duo Compaq with everything on it for $300 after rebate plus Vista original OS, free anti-virus software, free printer and free router (marked price at $800)! Mp3 players? 30-50% off! GPS for more than half the price! DVD movies for only $3-5 each! Boxed set DVDs like House, MD for 12 bucks (regular price $50.00)!

Notice how I’m only talking about electronics and gadgets? Well that’s all you should be concentrating at because clothes are always on sale and sells for cheap anytime of the year. So I don’t even bother to go clothes shopping. Circuit City and Staples are my main stores for this. They’re pretty great with their inventory. Radioshack is ok. Best Buy? Forget it! They’re ridiculous with their set-up like you need a ticket to get an item. Their sale items are so limited that even if you go there early, you still get out empty-handed. Not worth your time.

current ad, Staples Black Friday 2007

Of course almost every one in the 50 states are already planning and scheming their moves for Black Friday as early as last Monday. I have been. You can’t go to the stores unprepared or you’ll get nothing! The night before, you should have finished that list or encircled the ones you want from the store ad. To get the most of the sale, you have to be relentless, rude and aggressive like everybody else. Forget manners and decorum because even the most elegant of all shoppers let their hair down on this day and become vultures! You don’t think, you just grab and put the items on your cart. You can’t leave your cart unattended for people will take your items from your cart if you’re not watching! You don’t linger in the store; you pay for your items, get out as fast as you can and head to the next store! Time is of the essence!

The thing with Black Friday is the sale for major items are timed and they call it doorbuster prices! When I first got here, some store offer it between 7am-11am, then the next year, it was 6am-10am and then now it’s 5am-10am! To get the major items like the laptop I was talking about, you have to be among the first people in the line- like the first 20! If the store opens at 5am, that means you have to be outside the store by 2 in the morning! It’s that crazy! People camped out overnight to get the xbox 360 when the latest version came out this year or when the apple iphone was introduced to the stores.

…to get the most of the sale you have to be relentless, rude and aggressive like everybody else…

Last year, Compusa started their Black Friday on Thanksgiving night at 9pm-12mn (They have great sales too, unfortunately the store near me closed! The nearest store is 2 hours drive! So it’s not on my list this year). After the thanksgiving party, people head out to the store. I was outside Compusa at 7pm along with hundreds already lined up waiting for the doors to open. It was dark, raining, freezing cold and we were all wet yet nobody seemed to mind. By the time I got home, it was almost midnight. Then I started my online shopping trying to get deals from Amazon and others! At 3am, I start to head out the door to get to Circuit City!

Did I mention sleep? Oh no, you don’t get to sleep on the biggest day of the year! After being awake for more than 24 hours since thanksgiving day, I was beat up by noon time and I was done. Then I slept. Only to do it all over again the next day if you still have energy or money left! Most stores offer 2-day sales but Saturdays sales are usually so-so that I just skip that altogether and look for more online finds instead.

That’s what Black Friday is. To know the history behind the term, go wiki it here.

Thanksgiving.

What can I say other than the first Thanksgiving Day was celebrated here in Massachusetts in 1621?! Thanksgiving Day is basically a day to give thanks for what one has at the end of the harvest season in preparation for winter. It is an annual holiday exclusive to United States and Canada (Canada celebrates it every October). Over the years, it has become a solemn tradition for families to come together in a formal dinner to thank each other and talk about good times. It’s usually a reunion of sorts for families who are scattered around the US.

I’m sorry but sometimes I couldn’t relate to it because I find it a personal matter. You have to grow up in the United States to feel its impact. I don’t have my family with me and I feel like a stranger amidst the people I’m eating with during that formal dinner. And I have to do it again during Christmas day. Perhaps I could compare it to our way of ‘celebrating’ All Soul’s Day and All Saint’s Day where we, Filipinos usually take the occasion to reunite with families and give respect to those who came before us. Come to think of it, it’s one of our biggest holidays in the Philippines, when offices close down from Oct 31 to Nov 2nd sometimes up to 4 days off! They don’t celebrate Nov. 1 and 2 here like we do. It’s an ordinary day for Americans and it just passes like nothing.

We have lots of celebrations in the Philippines and being thankful to family and what you have is always part of it. We don’t have a day for it but we make every opportunity a thank you day! Hence, I can’t relate to Thanksgiving Day yet living here I’m sort of forced to…

Turkey

(istockphoto)

A whole oven-baked turkey is the traditional food prepared on Thanksgiving Day with cranberry sauce (I don’t even like cranberry sauce!), stuffing (pass), gravy and mashed potato. Could I have white rice with Mang Tomas (pork liver gravy sauce for lechon, a roasted pig) instead?! And I don’t even really like turkey! I find chicken better in terms of taste and meat. Turkey has tryptophan (an amino-acid that induces drowsiness) so high, it really makes you drowsy and fall asleep after eating. What I want is lechon! Yeah, cholesterol, bring it on! Why turkey? I don’t know, same reason as I don’t know why Filipinos love lechon! Google it! What I know is millions of turkey are served every year just as millions of pigs are roasted all through out the year in the Philippines.

Now you know the order of the title was according to its importance to me. Excuse me if I find Thanksgiving Day more commercial than its significance. My name is Mae and I’m a shopaholic! I haven’t been sober in 365 days… Happy Black Friday everyone!

© 2007