DEPARTMENT OF REALLY, REALLY BAD IDEAS

The Great iBook Sale.

Do not miss the video.

(Thanks to Gizmodo, and the perky NBC12 News Team)

Comments

[crossgirl]

first. but happily not for that sale.

[KOW]

Just... WOW

[SunnyButt]

Surprise! People want to buy expensive things for cheap prices. Desparately.

[Sondra]

Geez, you would think they were selling lap dances, instead of laptops.

[LabSpecimen]

So, if there was a news crew there taping, police, and a life squad, does that mean that they expected something like this? But nobody bothered to mention it to the sale organizers so they could come up with some sort of plan?

[KOW]

Unable to see the video.

First, it insists that I intall RealPlayer which I HATE. This stupid application then proceeds to hijack all of my default settings for media, then it starts popping up annoying messages all over the place and insisting that I register (Imagine my shock to find that the e-mail address upyours@myob was taken. I just cancelled registration after that). After all the trials and tribulations, the server is CHOKED and I can't even get the video.

There is no justice. Really and truly.

Sorry, I needed to vent. I'm done now. I promise.

[VictoriaE77]

Reminds me of the day after Thanksgiving sale last year.

Poor kid brought out a pallet of DVD players, and before he could even set them down, people started climbing all over the pallet. I'm not sure how, but the pallet ended up on top of his foot while people were standing on it. Crushed several toes, and they had to call a squad in for him.

He was yelling for help, and people were ignoring him so they could get DVD players for $20.

[Mike]

The first 1,000 people also got their wrists slapped with a ruler. Metal edged hickory, no less.

[MOTW]

Bravo to Bair Hossai for going on the record that helping a human in need is worth more than cheap prices.

The organizers should have done a lottery to sell the laptops. duh

[Mahatma Kane Jeeves]

They had a casting call for extras for 'The Sopranos' here in NJ a few years back, thousands showed up in full attire, pretty funny . . .

[tophermo]

I gots mine. I had to run over my great grandpa (he wasn't going to beat any of em' nohow), And I had to run over my daddy's cousin's sister's stepsister's neice, to get mine, but I gots mine. I don't know what it be, but it was cheap and I gots it.

[Mike]

Victoria,
This was a Wally-mart, yes? I heard about that. Just before Christmas.

[Christobol]

That reminds me of that time they were selling cotton balls for 3% off when you also buy a Buick. Some people tried to use their baby strollers to stop me from stampeding them! The nerve.

I must have crushed thirty of them, even after I got my Buick and my cotton balls.

Just kidding. It was a Ford.

[Eleanor]

KOW - it didn't open for me either, but I also HATE Real Player and only use WMP, so thanks for t he warning!

*will not try again*

[ahhm Clem]

So now children and senior citizens being trampled in a stampede for an out of date laptop is funny. I don't get it. I find this stuff horrific. Dave you're getting old. Your funny bone seems to be fractured. Maybe you've lived in Florida too long.

[teeandesser]

i saw the yahoo story (different than the nbc12 one) and considered e-mailing it in but i was too lazy.

key indications of insanity: hitting people with a folding chair, wetting yourself to keep your place in line, driving through the crowd in a car. makes me a little ashamed to be a proud mac user...

[VictoriaE77]

I thought it was Meijers, but it may have been Wally-world.

My Mom-in-law was there. I wasn't, because I refuse to go to any store on that date.

People are animals.

[Christobol]

Clem,

Children and senior citizens being trampled in a stampede for an out of date laptop has always been funny.

Heard of Shakespeare?

Hamlet: Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: but what a moron! didst he not see how out of date that laptop was? Oh humorous fate, I giggle as I imagine him trampled with those children and senior citizens and puppies, and yes, Sally Struthers too!

Heard of Steve Martin? His entire stand-up act for 1976 was this:

Steve: Knock knock
Audience: Who's there?
Steve: A bunch of senior citizens and babies, and probably Sally Struthers, yes, Sally Struthers too!
Audience: A bunch of senior citizens and babies, and probably Sally Struthers, yes, Sally Struthers too, WHO?
Steve: A bunch of senior citizens and babies, and probably Sally Struthers, yes, Sally Struthers too who just got trampled trying to purchase an outdated laptop!
Audience: That's not funny, that's sad.
Steve: Well ExCUUUUUUUUUSE MEEEEEEEEE!
Audience: Wild applause and laughter, some spontaneous combustion, a kitten explodes.

[Somewhere North]

THAT is entertainment at its finest. Watching a bunch of el cheapos trample each other to get out of date technology that will probably crash and refuse to start as soon as they get press power on. Almost like a riot over a rubick's cube.

Me? I won't even stand in line for a movie.

[kaybee]

I am a MAC user, and we are usually not the stampeding, chair-hitting-over-the-head, car-driving-through-crowds type of folks...however, get us in a line, waiting for used laptops, and we go wild...wetting ourselves with abandon.

[Mahatma Kane Jeeves]

Fifty dollars? What if you don't need a whole one, can't they do it by the pound?

[Chris]

The story gets better if you read the MSNBC article. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8973616/

[KJP]

I like the last line: "NBC12 will have Apple iBook experts in the Call12 Center tonight from 5-6:30 p.m. to answer all of you iBook questions."

"Hello? Yeah, I trampled six people to get an iBook this morning and now I can't get it to work, can you help?"

[SunnyButt]

Clem,

It's true that these people are a pathetic embarassment to our species.

The difference between comedy and tragedy is distance. Time or miles.

Don't you laugh at the fools in the Indian govt. that hit each other with their shoes and have food fight during legislative meetings, and end up sending some to the hospital? Distance.

Were you in line and didn't get one?

[Mahatma Kane Jeeves]

"Whaddya mean, 'any key'?"

(an oldie but an oldie)

[Sondra]

Mahatma Kane Jeeves,

OMGWTFBBQ!!! Are there really people that stupid? And they buy computers? Why?

[Mahatma Kane Jeeves]

Son: Yes.
Yes.
I don't know.

[Mahatma Kane Jeeves]

(Guess I shoulda said 'Sond', instead of . . . aw, fuhgeddaboutit!)

[judi]

i've got one question: tarhonda?

that is all.

[judi]

another question: blandine?

[Mahatma Kane Jeeves]

As in: "At tarhonda's almost paid for . . "

[Mike "Mad's Dork" Weasel]

Wow, and I'm flying there tomorrow... good thing Mad wasn't there yet either. She's been wanting a new laptop.

[Jeff Meyerson]

Tarhonda Wilson? This woman's mother named her "Tarhonda"? WTF was she thinking?

KOW & Eleanor: don't worry, if you read the article it excerpts all the best quotes from the video. Of course you don't get to see the crushed stroller, but that's about all you missed.

(Whoops, sorry, I see judi also noticed 'Tarhonda' was one of the reporter's names.)

[Marie in Barcelona]

Blandine is a French girls' first name. I couldn't find a page in English about it, so here's one in Frogspeak.

[SunnyButt]

Oh, I thought Blandine was the female version of Bland. You know, like Geraldine...

[Eleanor]

Sunny: HAHAHAHAHA!!!

MKJ: I've heard the ANY KEY one before but it always makes me chortle! Thanks for reminding me of it!

Gee, I'm thirsty.
*zips out to look for milk*

[SunnyButt]

Eleanor,

Thank you, Thank you!

Which one?

Never mind. Doesn't matter.

*floats away basking in ...?*

Where did I leave that glass of milk?

[Eleanor]

Sunny: In case your mind got hung up on the "which one' question, which I'ver read can sometimes happen when - er - well, you know, it was mainly the Blandine/Geraldine, which is making me giggle just by typing it - or - could it be the milk I'm drinking?
Whatever...
*zips out humming Star Rockets in flight, Afternoon delight*

[MOTW @ home]

MKJ - "At tarhonda's almost paid for . . " ROTFL!
P.S. Glad yerbak ona riglar basis nowat th'blog's stopped the multiples.

[djtonyb]

*wanders in*

Y'all don't have to let RealPlayer hijack your settings, y'know... If you read the little instructions that pop up as you install it, you have the option of making it your default media player or not. You can also change your settings after the fact if it does hijack your media files. I am much more P. O.'d with Apple, who now forces you to download I-Tunes to get Quicktime. Nasty nasty nasty, considering I don't have an IPod and I don't intend on downloading music from them no matter what. Why should I have to do a 10mb download to view Quicktime movies in my browser????

[MOTW @ home]

Hi, djt! You tell 'em, Buddy!

[SaxMan]

All this... over Apples?

[AlanBoss]

"The situatuation is calm. But tense!"

[AlanBoss]

More people were hurt running away, when, after running out of iBooks, they started trying to give away PCs.

[WriterDude]

Based on my fervent hope that these (for want of a better word) people are first-time computer buyers, I offer my thought process while watching the video...

First thought: Oh, God, these idiots will be polluting the internet within a week.

Second thought: Wasn't the internet pretty well already polluted when I got on back in 1994?

Third thought: Oh, yeah, huh? That means it'll be months before they get bored with porn sites! Even if there are about 10,153,456 more of them than in 1994...

Fourth, final and hopefully redeeming thought: It's most unlikely that any of them are intelligent enough to wander over here to the blog, much less "get it". Or stay very long, even if they do.

Whew! Scared myself there for a minute or ten.

[kibby F5™]

Still don't "Get IT"!

And PROUD!

[ahhm Clem]

Tophermo,
Boy those racial slurs are funny. You're typical of why I don't find this story funny

[judi]

tony: same problem here. it sure will be great trying to explain to the powers that be why i have itunes on my work computer. i just decided to forget it. quicktime can do without me.

(of course, i used to feel the same way about non-text access to the world wide web ["there's no reason to have pictures," i used to say. "it just slows everything down!"], and that didn't do me much good either.)

[ahhm Clem]

This is what being poor and what being a hypnotized consumer is all about. The really "good" riots are yet to come. See link

[ahhm Clem]

http://www.drydipstick.com/