It’s one of the most chaotic days of the year aside from an actual natural disaster. People line up in lines that seem to go for miles in the hope they’ll score an awesome deal on some gift for the upcoming holiday season. All that is sacred is thrown straight out the window as people literally beat the living snot out of each other in order to score an Xbox 360 bundle for $199. Crowds in stores turn into gladiator matches, with people yelling, kicking and punching their way to the front of the line.

Every year it seems some poor bastard gets killed in one of these mobs, and all for what? The biggest deal of the year. Is getting a new flat screen TV for the family worth dying over? Apparently for some people, it is.

This year, mobs waiting for the doors to open at a Walmart managed to somehow unhinge the front doors and break their way into the store. The massive flood of people trampled one of the employees, costing him his life in the process. How the hell you justify killing another person in order to save $100 this season?

In most ads, stores point out that they have a VERY limited supply of special sale products. How limited? Try only 10. It’s simply a trick to get people into the store with the hopes that they’ll buy something else while they are there shopping. But if people are willing to kill one another for a product, then something has to change. It’s simply just not worth it.

Then again, maybe it is to these store owners…

There needs to be a new method for dealing with Black Friday. Whether it be requiring stores to have a minimum quantity available by law, or dumping the stampede model for something a bit more sane.

Honestly, what do you guys think? Is Black Friday worth it?

It’s the most chaotic day of the year, complete with face punching, foot stomping, fowl mouth action! Ah, who doesn’t love the holidays? As stores advertise their lowest prices of the year, people line up outside the store hours before opening to get that awesome deal on some new toy they gotta have. It’s a tradition that spans back many years, and truly brings together the family. But do you have any idea where the name Black Friday actually comes from?

Interestingly enough, the name originally comes from a catastrophe in American history. On October 29, 1929, the entire Stock Market crashed, marking the beginning of what was to be know as the Great Depression. This dreadful day, filled with complete panic and chaos, came to be called Black Tuesday. People filled the streets and fought their way to the front of the lines trying to save their money, fortunes, possessions, and lives. Cars littered the streets in traffic jams, with everyone out for themselves that day.

Sound familiar? After the tradition of retail stores marking down products the day after Thanksgiving to signal the beginning of the shopping season begun, many people began to call the day “Black Friday,” since the chaos and rampages mocked those on Black Tuesday.

While the name become popular, many retailers did not like the idea of associating their sale day with the crash of the Stock Market. Instead, they pushed the idea to the media that the name actually meant something else. In accounting, red ink is used to show a loss in profits, while black shows a rise in profits. The name Black Friday, according to the stores, was actually referencing the huge profits stores would see thanks to the giant sales. With everyone shopping, the stores would be taken out of the red, and into the black.

It’s all image to them, but now you know better eh? Happy shopping! And don’t forget to bring a few shields!!

Today my MacBook Pro finally arrived, and I am completely in love with it! I also scored a great deal on it, thanks to eBay. After tax, this thing would have normally cost $2118.94, but I managed to score it for only $1599. Not cheap, but it’s still one hell of a deal if you ask me, especially on new Mac!

I look back at my desktop and wonder what I’m going to do with it. I’m definitely not going to get rid of the hardware anytime soon… but what should I do about Vista? Lately all Vista has been giving me is trouble. It seems like every other day I get greeted with another BSOD. I’ve run stress tests on all the hardware in both Vista AND XP, and everything so far has turned up 100%.

The issue is with Vista, and I’m flat out sick of trying to maintain it. Everything that can breaks…. breaks. The letter ‘V’ in the search box causes Explorer to crash. If I go into sleep mode, my wireless adapter refuses to wake up unless I reboot. None of the shortcuts in the Start Menu work. The sidebar wants to use 200 MBs of RAM (for 5 gadgets, ALL from Microsoft.) In some programs my right click menu goes onto the OTHER screen (dual monitors). T

he list goes on and on, and I’m sick and tired of going through trial and error, and randomly editing the registry time and time again. It’s a pain for me, so how the hell is an average user suppose to use Vista!?!

No more late nights with Vista. The next time it goes down on me, I’m wiping the drive and going back to XP. I’ve still got A LOT to learn about using a Mac, but even as a complete noob, the experience thus far has been amazing. Everything seems to just work. And that’s what I need for college. I wouldn’t trust Vista with something as important as a term paper.

As of today, I have gone Mac, and I AIN’T going back!

You’ve heard the stories from countless Windows users from around the world by know. Windows Vista sucks. There’s still a handful of people that will argue that Vista is perfectly fine, that it’s completely our fault if something doesn’t work. You could have years and years of experience, certifications and degrees in all areas of computer technology, but it’s still completely your fault if Vista screws up. When buying an operating system, you expect it to work out of the box. Maintaining the system should be easy, and to the point where even the most basic users should have no trouble using their own computer.

This just isn’t the case with Windows. Over the past couple of months I have helped countless people trying to get their Vista machines up and running either for the first time, or the 10th time. And everything I’ve done has been tediously complicated. Almost everything I had to do involved going into the registry and editing it. That’s a pain in the ass for most geeks, and surely no average user would know how to do this. And yet almost every support article I read from Microsoft involves editing the registry. It’s ridiculous how many things can break in Vista, and how complicated it is just to get them working again.

With the announcement of Windows 7, comes a new hope for PC users. Hopefully this time, Microsoft will ship the product that isn’t completely broken, and is actually fun to use. I managed to get my hands on the pre-beta of Windows 7, and I’m sad to say I’m pretty disappointed.

Window 7 is nothing more than Windows Vista with extra features thrown onto it. Microsoft claims that a lot of the features were shipped with the pre-beta, and they should come into the spotlight sometime in the public beta. When you first install Windows 7, I was greeted with in Windows 2000 box themed box. Right, the one with the small ugly buttons at the top right corner. Not a Windows XP theme and not the Vista theme. Windows 2000. It’s the same old crap running with new crap piled on.

At first it looks like Microsoft actually was going to update Paint, a next to useless program right now. But from what I’ve seen, there are almost absolutely no new tools to use. The only major change has happened is that the tool bar is gone and has been replaced with the Ribbon theme. That’s not the update we were asking for Microsoft.

If you’re thinking of Windows 7 is a completely rebuilt operating system think again. Developers have dove into the kernels, and found basically unchanged system files everywhere from Vista. Windows 7 in plain English is Windows Vista with a whole bunch of features tacked on. You would think at least it would work. But all I did was install Windows 7, and connected to the Internet, and I already had eight complaints filed.

Right now Windows 7 feels like nothing more than a new service pack for Vista. I hope Microsoft proves me wrong and somehow completely changes everything by the time the public beta is released. But right now I’m not impressed.

Thousands of protesters have flocked to the streets in California in a raging fury, and it’s all thanks to Proposition 8, which aimed to ban all gay marriages, and discard any that had previously existed in California.

In a show of complete intolerance and disregard to civil rights, Proposition 8 won a majority vote and is currently on it’s way to modify California’s very Constitution. While the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) has opened a number of lawsuits against the Proposition, calling it unconstitutional, a number of people have decided that they simply can’t wait, and instead have taken to the streets for their voices to be heard.

There are currently 2 main groups marching their way around. While their original spots where Hollywood and Highland, they have since moved on to Santa Monica and King’s Road.

While most of the demonstrations have been peaceful so far, a large number of Twitter users are reporting that some protesters grew out of control and had to be subdued by officers using force. A number have been arrested.

There are currently an estimated 2500 people marching for the cause, causing many streets to shut down. The LAPD has been put into a citywide tactical alert, requesting officers from neighboring areas to come in and assist.

Videos have already hit Youtube of the protest. A few are posted below…

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/HxxgKdKvOz4" width="350" height="288" wmode="transparent" /]

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/f-f30U10muY" width="350" height="288" wmode="transparent" /]

I wish them the best of luck. Prop 8 is an outrage, something that should have never existed in a country that claims to honor “Equal Rights.”