While paging through the ads, I found an HP 42″ LCD HDTV for a reasonable price. We were a little nervous since HP isn’t well-known for making televisions, however, it turned out to be a great TV. Good picture, easy menu interface, good price. I like the TV better than our 52″ DLP upstairs, which we paid twice as much for two years ago.

It was probably a naughty purchase, but we’ve had the 27″ tube downstairs for quite awhile, and it was difficult to read the Media Center menus on it. We might as well enjoy living while we don’t have kids, right?!

Let me tell ya’, a 22″ widescreen LCD monitor gives new meaning to the term “desktop”.

My parents also scored a Lenovo (formerly IBM’s PC division) desktop computer with a 19″ widescreen monitor from Office Depot. It has some pretty nice specs, and it was a great deal. I hope it turns out to be a good machine.

We then went to Best Buy in Grand Chute. That place was chaos. I left very quickly because their setup was a total disaster. We went to the new Best Buy on the East side of Appleton. That store was much better – it had about 10% of the people in it as the Grand Chute location, and most of those people were in line, so you could browse the store at your leisure. I scored a 120GB hard drive for $29.99 AR and Nero 7 Ultra for $20 AR. We got a few other things, too, but they are Christmas presents so I can’t mentioned them here. Overall, we spent much more than we had intended, but we usually do.

After that, we met up with my brother for breakfast at IHOP. The last time I went there I didn’t like it so much (crowded, lousy table, food was sub-par). However, I think the redeemed theirselves today. The food, service, and table was all very good. The prices were a little higher than Country Kitchen, but it is Appleton (we don’t have a CK in the Appleton area anymore).

After breakfast, we went to several furniture stores to look for a stand for our new 50″ projection TV. We didn’t find much, and the stuff we liked was expensive, but we think we found one at American TV & Appliance that we might get. We’ll see.

One thing to note, it’s like people forgot how to drive today. Hello? It’s Black Friday. Speed limit is optional, and every man for himself. There were a lot of cops out too. You’d think they could give one day a year a break. Note to anyone who feels like sight-seeing and pokey driving at the wee hours of the morning on Black Friday – DON’T. Maybe we should have a requirement to get a driver’s license in Wisconsin where everyone has to live and drive in California for a week. Then they’d learn how to drive. The cops can go to hell for patrolling so heavily on such an important day.