2013 D-Bag Awards Round Two: The Fellowship of the D-Bags

• Mother Nature
• Humanity
• Congress
• Hollywood
• The Brothers Tsarnaev
• George Zimmerman
• Aaron Hernandez
• Black Friday
• Phone Companies

There are your nominees for the biggest douche bag in 2013.   Look at them.  Each one deserving of the title, but only one will walk away with the right to be called as such. 

It’s been a long year for us.  We’ve survived natural disasters and possibly being shot by George Zimmerman or Aaron Hernandez.  The Boston Marathon bombing taught us not only that we are strong as a society but severely flawed in our hatred and stupidity towards those people and things we think are different.   We elevate stupidity to lofty heights and reward companies for being douches by raking honest working people for a buck.  We’d call our congressman and tell them what’s up, but they already know what we’re talking about anyway and they’re probably on recess anyway and not going to listen.  I guess you could say it sounds just like a really bad movie involving sharks and tornadoes, but that would never get made, RIGHT?

So, looking at that list of nine entries, it’s hard to narrow down one particular contestant and say that THEY are the biggest douche bag.

Then again, maybe it isn’t that hard.  Maybe the answer is pretty easy.  Look at that list.  Everything boils down into two columns; Nature and People.  Mother Nature tore Death a new one in the last round, but it’s still nothing compared to the sheer force of hate and stupidity that is humanity.  This year, with all of the issues: same sex marriage, racism, bullying, rewarding stupid famous people, and sharing it all on the Internet, we have sunk to new lows.   We hate with more vitriol than I think we have ever done so, before.  We have gone to greater lengths to screw one another over, keep each other down, and simply just hate.   And it’s not that there isn’t a bright and shining center in all of this, but it’s so clouded over with the general blech of people being spiteful and entitled and bratty.   The entire human race needs a good spanking and for that the 2013 D-Bag Of the Year Award goes to us.

We deserve it.   Next year, let’s try harder to not be such assholes.

2013 D-Bag Awards Round One: Thanksgiving Sale vs. Black Friday

Second heat in the race to ultimate douchebaggery!

Thanksgiving Sales vs. Black Friday

Retail nuttiness is afoot.  On the one hand we have the constant threat of encroachment on the family.  Thanksgiving shopping is almost as bad a word as Holiday when it comes to the fundamental nutters who think the decay of civilization begins and ends with the destruction of the family unit.   Stores that choose to open on Thanksgiving are blasphemous in their capitalist quest to get all your monies.  How dare they!  “We should be home with our family, not pumping money into the coffers of their evilness.”   Meanwhile, they shop online, play games and bitch about it all on social media.  What they don’t realize is that some people have no families and don’t mind working on Thanksgiving.  Not to mention, all of those other things they do mean that support staff probably need to be on hand to keep technology running smoothly, instead of being at home arguing with their dysfunctional families over why they haven’t settled down with the right member of the opposite sex. 

On the other hand is the continued myth that the best shopping deals are on Black Friday.   In the past, I’ve found that the prices vary on certain items.  In fact, I used to get emails about Black Friday deals and would compare the prices set for that day vs. the current price.  What I found was that in a lot of instances, the prices were better before and it was for newer models of the equipment being touted as a deal.   Black Friday is way for stores to clear out all of their old inventory from the past year or two.  Do you really think a store would make a crap ton of money on the latest and greatest items at a reduced amount?  No.  That LCD HD set that’s on sale… usually it’s last year’s model.   The manufacturer’s website doesn’t even show it anymore, I bet.  That Blu-Ray player?  You can find a better quality model at the same price three weeks before Black Friday.   Let’s also not forget how stupid people get when they have the stores ramping up the stakes.  “The economy is bad, the sales are good.  You need to save money because the government keeps taking it!  Come down to our showroom, punch another human being out and SAVE! SAVE!  SAVE!” 

Winner – Black Friday!

Shopping on Thanksgiving is bad.  I’ll concede to that, but who cares?   If a retail outlet chooses to be open, so be it.  Plenty of services have to be open.   Nobody bitched when I had to work a family buffet at a hotel on Thanksgiving three years in a row.  Where was the outrage?  Stay at home and cook you lazy bastards!  This is a stupid tactic by people that have nothing better to do than bitch about everything.   Thanksgiving is not a religious holiday, nor is it even a proud holiday at that.  You want to talk about illegal immigrants taking everything from those that belong in the country?  

“Families should be home on Thanksgiving, not in a store making money for the man" is not a good excuse.  Meanwhile, you’ve been watching football all day long while the NFL rakes in money.  Hypocrite much?   

As for the winner, it’s a tad ridiculous and even though there have been less than five deaths each year due to Black Friday, the idiocy that goes on is not worth the savings.  You’re being mind raped by the retail world.  Open your eyes.

Prices Might Be Cheaper Now Than On Black Friday

This information is based on one example and current to 11/03/2009.

I get regular email alerts from Black Friday.Info on sale ads for the coming holiday season and with Halloween over, the frequency of alerts is starting to increase. Since I am always in the market for a cheap deal on anything from a good power tool to a man cave LCD HDTV I thought I would check out what was recently posted for Sears.

If you scroll down to teh television section you will see that BlackFriday.Info lists the Sony Bravia 46" LCD HDTV Model # KDL46V5100 at $1239.99 for Black Friday, which for any of you in a coma is the day after Thanksgiving. Just thought I’d clarify for those playing at home. Now, the description of the television is hyperlinked so if you click on it you get redirected to the product on Sears' website. Because of the sale, you have to click on Add to Cart to see the price. Once you do that you'll see that the television is listed at $1039.99, discounted down from $1599.99 through 11/07/09. If you think that's cool, go to MySimon and do a search on the model number and you can find it $40 cheaper on JR through 11/06/2009 with rebate.

So, what does this mean? For the frugal shopper, it can mean a great deal. If you always wanted to see what the hype was about when it comes to getting up at 4 AM for door buster prices and the random trampling of grandmas in order to snag that cheap DVD player you might want to consider staying in bed and working off that tryptophan kick.

Do some research on Black Friday sales and even subscribe to some alerts if your inbox can handle it. Make up your list, check the sale price for Black Friday against the current price of those big ticket items you think will be drastically discounted during the sale. Also check at different retailers and places that do the work for you like My Simon. You might just find that it’s on sale now for even less. The difference alone between the sale price now and the sale price on Black Friday is $200. Just think what you could spend that extra $200 on between now and Christmas. With the economy like it is, every little bit helps.