The Thanksgiving and Black Friday 2024 Blog

Hey everyone, my how time flies, it's already Thanksgiving. I got an email from dogechain saying they were going to shut down completely and I had to back up my wallet or else I'll lose about $100 worth of doge I got back in college. I set-up my old college laptop, installed dogecoin core, and loaded my wallet information into it to import there. This required updating the blockchain, and it's been going for about a week now and isn't even 70% done. Whatever, time for the holiday. This year was kind of different due to my grandpa passing and aunt going to her brother's out of state instead of staying home, and my grandma no longer living independent and having even more mobility problems than normal, but even then a lot of things stayed the same. Wednesday was a normal work day, and then we went to the in-laws for the evening so we would be ready for the fun of the weekend. Pretty basic day, just spent a lot of the evening going through online black friday ads and watching some tv. Got a pretty good list ready. Something that caught my attention was Target selling an XBOX 360 for $75. I called IRA to see it since it was so weird, and he got excited since his 360 red ringed and he wanted a new one. OK add Xbox 360 to the list.

Thursday Thanksgiving day. I bought a news paper to get the black friday ads because I like to have the physical paper, but I think this will be the last time I do this because it didn't have any of the big players like walmart, target, meijer (I'm mid-west), BJs, gamestop, or others and that was kind of the same as last year. Oh well. About 1PM we went to my parents house for the party. Because of nursing home preferences and rules, we had dinner and celebrating a little early. Normally dinner is around 4PM and accordion sing along is around 6PM, but this year we shifted everything forward by about 1.5 hours. The moving is where things got kind of complicated. My grandma had broken her hip earlier this year and it just made it harder to move, and the dementia makes it all the harder to have her move herself properly (don't grab the walker handle, grab the arm rest, I said don't grab the walker handle, OK I guess we're using the walker but don't fight too much when we have to lift your arms). God bless her but it does complicate things by a lot. Dinner was great, ham and green beans for me, everyone else enjoyed that and turkey and stuffing and such. Great meal. Getting grandma back to her chair for the sing along was hard too, but this time we remembered that we had a wheel chair from my grandpa after he passed.

The sing along was fun like always, over the river, apple peaches pumpkin pie, and some other fun songs. After the sing along it was time for desert. Time for some comical problems. The accordion friend likes to bake and always makes a cake and a pie, and she forgot the pie at home; there was some confusion or something and the pie was left on the table in the garage. Whoops, oh well. There was some more visiting and after a while it was time for everyone to leave. Getting my grandma back in the car was a major production. We got her into the wheel chair and just walked her to the back door where it's easier to move, and then we just picked her up in the chair and carried her down the steps, just like what we'd do with my uncle who was always in a wheel chair. Brought back a lot of memories for us. Once we got her in the car we brought up my parent's Christmas decorations and assembled the tree. After that it was a calm early night at the in-laws because IRA and I had black friday shopping to do early in the morning.

OK, now it's the heavy time, early morning shopping. IRA woke me up at 4:30 so we could get to stores when they opened. Basically everything opened at 6AM except for gamestop opening at 5AM, so first stop on our loop was gamestop. We went to one that was somewhat close that had a target really close (same shopping district) at about 5:15, but when we got there they didn't have any of the games I was looking for, and directed us to go to a store that was further away on the rout but not exactly close. Change of plans, went to that store and found 2/3 of the games I was looking for (Hogwarts Legacy and Tomb Raider Anniversary). Score. Afterwards we went to the target that was fairly close and only had to wait in the cold for about 15 minutes. Because there was some big Taylor Swift promotion they had to have an employee come out and give us directions on what the limits are. Wild thing is the employee was someone I went to highschool with, He was one of vikingpolak's friends and I didn't really recognize him (and he didn't remember my first name, just my last), but it was pretty funny. I had no need for the Taylor Swift stuff, but the CD was under $20 and she's really popular right now, so I picked up a copy to try to resell later. I also picked up Kirby Forgotten Land, a pop socket for mom in law, and a bullseye squishmellow for mskate. We couldn't find the squishmellow and so we asked the highschool friend where it was, so that was pretty cool. As for the XBOX, when I asked the employee in electronics he said "we haven't sold xbox 360 in years, we're stopping XBOX ONE even, you'll have to go to a retro store for that." I then said "the ad lied to me, it said you had XBOX 360s for $75." It wasn't a console, it was a megablocks building set. Why the confusion? It shipped in a box that was a replica of the xbox 360 box, looks extremely close to an xbox 360 in a low resolution scan, and comes with a replica copy of halo 3. The employee said "yeah if we had them I'd get one just for nostalgia." Oh well. After Target we went to Walmart, I was looking for the basically half off gaming laptop since I need a new laptop (my current laptop is about 8 years old and is starting to fail, and I want a computer that can actually play all the games I get for free with prime), a cheap dresser unit, and a wire rack. All of them were online deals, dang, that was a waste.

We decided to give one more gamestop a try since I still was looking for roller coaster tycoon adventures delux, and so IRA looked up where the next closest gamestop was. He gave me the directions and when I got close I'm like "wait a minute, I know which gamestop we're going to, it's the gamestop right by where my grandma used to live, we'd go here back when it was funcoland." They had Roller Coaster Tycoon for PS4. I was hoping for switch, but PS4 works for me since I have a PS4. Since we were in a neighborhood I knew, we went to the dollar general that used to be the family video we'd rent movies from on Friday nights. I got us dawn soap, command hooks, pedialyte (mskate needs it for her electrolyte deficiency), and garbage bags. Since it was now like 9AM and were close to where the accordion friend lives, we called to see if they were up and able to give us the pie (they wanted us to have it to share with everyone). They were and we got the pie. After that we went to my grandma's condo just to look around since my mom had the house completely redone (new paint, no carpet, no furniture), and go to the bathroom. It was pretty surreal; it was familiar but completely foreign. Walked the house probably 1 last time. There was one more place, we went to the shopping center about a mile down the road from my grandma's house to go to 5 below to see if we could do the squishmellow $20 bag. They were completely out, it was just something for the first 100 people, but that's OK because we still have a big bag of stuffed animals from other big sales. That was OK though because there was a new retro store in the shopping center and they had some black friday deals. For me it was the buy 2 get 1 free on games, so I picked up 6 PS2 games and IRA got some movies on buy 2 get 2 free. On the way back we stopped at BJs where I got a new TV for the bedroom (our TV was the TV I bought for my dorm room years ago, and it's not very good) and some gift cards on discount (I think it was subway, disney, and uber). Once we got back I unloaded the car and took a nap.

Later in the day mskate wanted to do some shopping with us, and so we went out again in the afternoon. We went to bath and bodyworks, CVS, bjs, and the retro store again (because IRA decided he wanted to get an $80 used xbox 360 from them). At CVS we got a peanuts cookie tin for my dad since he likes Charlie Brown and Snoopy. BJs was just a couple more gift cards and filling gas. When we went to the mall with bath and bodyworks we found a store that was just gochapon. I looked for a machine with figures I would be interested in, but didn't find anything too interesting. IRA decided to though and got a digimon figure. At bath and bodyworks we got soaps and lotions for the moms on buy 3 get 3, and then got hand sanitizers for the workers at grandma's assisted living center. This is when we discovered that IRA didn't have his debit card, meaning he lost it. That was pretty bad, but we retraced our steps and went to the retro store where he last used it. That's where it was, and apparently he wasn't the first to do it. He got his xbox and some more movies, so crisis averted. Rest of the day was pretty low key.

Saturday was a simple day. We went to my grandma's assisted living to get her apartment all decorated and just visit. We already had a little tree set up, but it didn't have a lot of ornaments and we bought some garland to hang on the wall and put some ornaments on it. I'm glad I bought the command hooks because we needed them for the garland. We got it all set up while she was still at lunch, and once it was decorated we brought her to her apartment and just visited. We didn't have a lot to do with her, so I put on the wedding video I made for my cousin (the one we saw in Hawaii earlier this year). She doesn't know him, he's on my dad's side and she's my mom's mom, but she really likes little kids and half the video is just my 2 year old niece-cousin being cute, so it was a great little thing and she especially liked watching the part where we went to Disney Aulani for the character breakfast. After that we just walked her around her floor until it was time for their activity. It was a good little visit. The rest of the day was pretty calm, just unpacking the stuff and trying to find places for it. Later in the evening we went to a drive in theater to watch The Polar Express and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. We saw Red One and Elf the week prior, and figured out how to keep warm without turning the car on better than we did that time. It was a good fun time.

Well that was Thanksgiving weekend. Glad I can finally get this out at a reasonable time this year. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Thanksgiving and Black Friday 2022

Hey everyone, it's Thanksgiving again, which means it's time for my annual Thanksgiving and black Friday blog. Let's start things off with Thanksgiving. Every year my parents host and now we've started that we spend the night with my in-laws that weekend (mainly because their guest bed is comfortable and can hold 2 people). When we got there I started showing the black friday deals to dad-in-law because there were some things I figured he might be interested in trying to get, and while he said "oh that's really cool" a lot he didn't say "that's a thing I want you to try to get." Eh, no big deal. Thanksgiving morning was pretty low-key. I got my paper with all the circulars, and while it's a little expensive at $5 a paper, I ended up getting meijer bucks which saved more than that (but I'll get to that later). IRA and I went over all the things so we could know where we wanted to go. Mskate and her mom watched the parade and it was fun ocassionally getting called in to see a favorite character, but it's not exactly my thing (I've been to the Detroit Thanksgiving parade once and that was really cool, but just watching on the TV isn't super interesting). Whatever, after that it was time for the main event.

Mskate and I arrived around 1 or so I think, and this is where I had a lot of fun. In my lets play of TMNT Turtles in Time, I mentioned how my brother and I used to play this arcade game a lot whenever we went to the Wheels Inn, but were never able to get very far. Well, with the release of the Cowabunga Collection, we finally had our opportunity. I brought over my PS4, both controllers, charging dock, and the game, booted up the arcade version of turtles in time, and we played through the entire game start to finish. Under normal circumstances my mom would probably be encouraging us to spend time with more people, but she was there those 4 or so years and knows how big of a deal this was, and we were accomplished. This was probably close to 20 years in the making, but we finally beat TMNT Turtles in Time. I had beaten it a year or so prior, but never both of us. Now we just need to beat the NES game and all will be complete.

Before I get to dinner, I should talk about the other event. My grandma, TanMan's grandparents and uncle, and grandma's friends all came as well. Grandma's friend's wanted to buy some copies of Mskate's book, so we ended up having a little book signing which was fun. I got some pictures of the event for mskate to put on her book instagram and facebook page so it looks like it was a real book signing. OK, with the book and game out of the way, time for dinner. My parents made a traditional dinner with turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, and cranberry sauce, and then ham for those of us that don't like turkey (like me). Mskate and I have basically decided that our contribution will be brussels sprouts since we have a good recipe and it goes over so well, and then on like Wednesday I picked up a loaf of pumpernickel bread from the grocery store and brought that as a contribution. My mom was making a big deal about how "that is such a grown up food" (I'm kind of picky), and I was like "Mom, I've always liked pumpernickel bread, we used to get it every time we went to Frankenmuth [starting from when I was like 3]." Dinner was pretty good, I got my non-China plate like I do every year (now adays I could be trusted with the China, but I like to keep that "tradition" alive). After dinner grandma's friend always brings deserts, especially her lemon meringue pie. She said she had some trouble getting enough lemon and wasn't sure if it was going to be good, but what she lacked in lemon she made up for in sour so it was still a win in my book. 

After dinner we did the accordion sing along. IRA and mom-in-law joined us for that, and it was a fun time. Not long after it was time to go home mskate and I went back to her parents house and IRA and I watched some of the south park specials on paramount plus before bed. We had to wake up at 4AM because the first store opened at 5 and we had to make sure we got there.

After a mostly restful night, it's 4AM and IRA and I need to get going. I had pop tarts and a bagel and I don't remember what IRA had, but it was something on the road. Our first stop was Best Buy since they opened at 5 and had the most things we wanted. We got in line and it just so happened that the local news was there interviewing people. I got interviewed and showed off the loop and list of items we were out hunting for. The cool thing is we ended up on the news.

Once 5 hit we went to the movie section and started searching for what we were after. I ended up finding Spiderman No Way Home and Morbius, and IRA ended up finding some other things. After the movies we went to the videogames and I got Doki Doki Literature Club Plus and Death Stranding. I don't remember all that IRA got, but I do know he got TMNT Cowabunga Collection on switch, so that's good for him.

After Best Buy we went to Walmart because we thought it would be open at 5 according to the commercials, but there were people waiting and apparently they opened at 6, so we improvised and instead went to Kohls about a mile away. I had 2 things I was looking for, Harry Potter Defense Class Lego set and an Air Conditioner cover. Here's the problem I ran into, they were out of the Lego sets (they had them, but not what I was interested in), and the AC cover was only available online. I did end up finding some things, instax film for mskate and a winnie the pooh shirt for mskate's mom (and when I got home I ordered the AC cover).

By now it's 6AM and we were going to go to walmart but gamestop was close by, so IRA and I went there even though I didn't see anything of interest (I almost bought Sonic Frontier, but it was a little to expensive for my interests so I decided to wait it out), and I think IRA got something but don't really remember. The employees were kind of weird, saying they thought it felt more like closing time (probably just Gamestop syndrome). Anyway, after that we went to Walmart. There wasn't a lot of things I was looking for, but for my parent's new 4K tv I got them a 4K Roku for $20. IRA picked up some value DVDs that weren't on sale but were dirt cheap anyway.

After Walmart we went to Meijer. This is where things got kind of big. The main things I wanted to get were new joycons for my switch (because mine are drifting bad) and a new Disney welcome mat, both of which would utilize the Meijer bucks. By chance I saw a Nightmare Before Christmas puzzle which will make for a great gift for IRA at a later date, and a Lego Harry Potter Polyjuice set for mskate since the Kohl's set didn't work out. I also got some blue Christmas lights that I am using for a craft project, buy 2 get 1 free and $5 for 100 lights, which works out pretty well for what I need. We also got some Puperoni dog treats for Duke and Delila, so that will work out well. After Meijer because it was kind of close I picked up 4 poster frames for the puzzles mskate and I regularly do (70% off, great deal).

Now it's time for Target. The main things I was after were the apple gift card for the $15 rebate, pop socket for mskate, a second tree for mskate and I for all the Disney ornaments, and tide pods for the $5 rebate. IRA got some things I think, but these were the main things that made the trip worth it. After Target IRA and I went to Barns and Nobel because IRA was a little interested in the graphic novels, but didn't find anything. Since Bed Bath and Beyond was pretty close we went there and I got mskate a popcorn popper since she really likes popcorn and microwave popcorn isn't all that easy due to her allergies, so this is hopefully going to be a fun thing for her.

Now we're pretty close to the mall, and that means Macy's and Bath and Bodyworks. At Macy's I had 2 things I was after, the sterling silver Micky head pendant for like 75% off and the Micky and Minnie plushies. Since we were so close we went to the mall and to Bath and Bodyworks. The sale they had was buy 3 get 3 free, so we got 6 different $7.50 hand soaps. IRA ended up paying me for 2 of them so he could give one to my mom and one to my grandma, and the other 4 are basically going to go to those people as well (maybe my aunts as well). We stopped at the other target but I was running out of energy and interest, so I just stayed in the car while IRA ran in. He didn't find anything, but that was OK since we were tired and wanted to rest (it was like 9AM, we had been out for 5 hours).

After about a 2 hour nap I did some amazon black friday shopping (as well as getting the AC cover from Kohls.com). I ended up getting Ed Edd n Eddy the complete series (I know it's not "fully complete," but I love this series and it's complete enough and if they ever release the rest I'll just buy it separately like I did with Teen Titans and Teen Titans Trouble in Tokyo), nerds ropes, amazon fire stick and luna wifi controller (because my computer can't accept a controller while playing luna, and this would be good when traveling), the movie Used Cars, gaffer's tape for either my dad or brother, disposable rubber gloves for cleaning and crafting, apple juice, tomato sauce, and 4 different allergen free snack boxes for mskate.

After the shopping it was time to go put up my grandma's tree. VikingPolak and I went down to her basement and got her tree, and then everyone else just brought up her ornaments, lights, hip shaking santa, and pants down santa. I helped put the tree up and strung the lights, and put up the window lights while getting the timer set-up. After that I "did my part" and mskate put up all the ornaments. We had left overs for lunch/dinner, and that was pretty much that. After the tree trimming we went back to mskate's parents house and relaxed. IRA and I watched more south park specials, and then I passed out from being tired. We spent the night one more night and then went home the next day.

Nothing of major note happened on Saturday (mskate worked on our Disney tree, and I did some processing of things), so I'll just jump to my Aunt's Sunday Thanksgiving trip. We went to see my Aunt and Grandpa for the day, and after church mskate and I went to my parent's house to pick everyone up, and we all rode up in our truck. While we were waiting for my mom to get home from my grandma's house, I showed dad how to get to the Hallmark Channel on Sling, because I got the Hallmark Channel on our sling account to share with my parents since they cut the cord and my mom isn't the most technologically literate person (and when I first showed mom how to get to it she was surprised to see all the movies she had access too that aren't Hallmark).

Our visit was good. I was able to get my switch back after forgetting it at her house the month before. We filled them in on how Mskate's book and part time retail job was going. We fixed some things up for them since she is replacing all her smoke detectors and they're not the easiest to replace since the connectors are different, and she needed some blinds put up in her sewing room and they were kind of complicated. We had a combination of left overs from both of our dinners (aunt made some stuff for her and grandpa, so dad brought some of what he had as well). I brought what was left of my pumpernickel bread and grandpa enjoyed it. It was a good visit. This was a good Thanksgiving. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Thanksgiving and Black Friday 2012

Hey everyone, hope you had a happy Thanksgiving. I know I did. Since my grandpa isn't able to travel like he used to, we've spent Thanksgiving at my aunts who's about halfway. It was great to see them again. We talked about how my year was going, and how they were doing. It was good fun. Since I don't like turkey, previous years I'd just eat rolls and stuff and then eat later, but because I'm in college and my dorm food is survivable, I had my grandma's beef. It is so great. It's hard to describe how amazing it is.

We left at about 6 because it was getting a little late for my grandpa. We went to black Friday after that. Now I know what people say, "black Friday is outrageous. People are crazy there. Try to avoid the stores if you can. ect." To that I say, "but that's the best part." Yeah, I love the crazy fun of black Friday at Wal-Mart, best buy, and GameStop. At Wal-Mart, I wanted some blu-rays and tried to get big bang theory season 5. I did get the blu-rays but wasn't able to acquire big bang. I tried reaching for BBT at 8 when the wrapping came off but missed out. My brother and I are just looking at other blu-rays, and not to much craziness on those. We got to enjoy the crazy from a safe distance. People were fighting each other for 50% off Black Ops 2 and such. They were rabid and fighting and such. There were some blu-rays that I wanted that were right by the games, so I'm just reaching down, trying to grab them, while people are fighting right next to me. Quite fun. I met up with my mom to give her our finds.

After checking out, here's the best part of the night. As you probably already know, I wear a safety vest for fun all the time. Well Wal-Mart employees wore similar vests so people would know that they work there. I was asked to remove it, and then I was radioed over the walkie talkies as a suspicious character. The employee said "alright I got him to take it off. He's also wearing a green striped shirt and a hat. It's not everyday that you're a suspicious character at Wal-Mart. Hehe, that was funny.

After Wal-Mart my brother and I went to GameStop to get a PS3 with their great deal. It came with 4 or 5 games, and they were uncharted and infamous, so it's not like they're crappy games. That's like a $100 value for free, also with a couple months of PlayStation plus, so $20 value free as well. It's quite a deal on the PS3 since we payed like $80 for it if you take away the games and plus. That's pretty cool. What added to the fun was that my friend Max joined us. He's always fun to hang out with. My brother and I were already camped out there, and it was like 10:30 when we got there, and he got there at about 11. GameStop opened at 12, and we were the first ones in line.

After GameStop we went to Best Buy. The line wasn't nearly as long as it was last year. It makes sense since we got there 30 minutes after they opened and all the door busters were gone. All that was left was our vulture scraps. I went there primarily for the deals they were having on blu-rays, but when I got there they didn't have as many that I wanted as I thought they would have. I did get a couple and it was just fun hanging out with Max. It was fun either way. Also remember how I said I wasn't able to get Big Bang Theory at Wal-Mart? Well they had it at Best Buy for cheaper. So I got mine there.

Now for a little rant. I think it takes away from the whole "black Friday" thing when stores open before midnight. I mean, it's technically Thursday, not Friday. It was only Wal-Mart for me that had deals before Friday, but still. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.