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When you've turned nothing into something once already, you tend to feel like you can do it again. There's faith your luck will turn. Perhaps it's delusion. But for a professional poker player, self-confidence is essential. So it is for Walter Wright, who now finds himself in Costa Rica. He left his wife and two children behind to redeem their failing finances and faltering marriage by doing something that's now illegal in the United States—playing poker online. Wright's life began to change in 2005, when he followed his then-girlfriend from New Orleans to Virginia, where she was beginning law school...

  A new weekly feature from Lloyd Marcus... Lloyd's Life Lessons: Getting What You Give According to news reports, Black Friday shoppers were rude, crude and out-of-control. People were assaulting each other with fists, pepper spray and one incident even involved a gun. It sounded pretty threatening and crazy out there in Shopper's Land. Brave soul that I am, I found the courage to venture out Black Friday to hunt down the stuff on my list. While shopping, I cut off a gentleman who was pushing his cart to the checkout. Realizing my rudeness, I bid the gentleman to go...

Earlier we just got confirmation out of Best Buy that one can not, as expected, offset negative margins with near-infinite volume (as the stock tumbles). Now we get advance retail sales proving that all speculation about a record Black Friday was just that. Oh, and a lie. In short - everything missed. Advance retails sales in November (including Thanksgiving) came at 0.2%, on expectations of 0.6%, and down from a revised 0.6%. Retail sales less autos was 0.2%, half of the expected 0.4%, while ex Auto and Gas also printed at 0.2%, also missing big. So... where did all...

A California woman who won't face felony charges for pepper spraying Black Friday Walmart shoppers is considering a lawsuit claiming that the national retailer didn't provide enough security for the post-Thanksgiving shopping spree. Elizabeth Macias, 32, said she fired the stinging spray after shoppers attacked her two teenage children as they tried to obtain X-Box video game consoles for purchase, attorney Michael Champ, Macias' lawyer, told CBS News' Los Angeles station KCBS Friday

Submitted by National Shooting Sports Foundation on Dec 1, 2011 Data derived from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) shows that November 25, 2011, Black Friday, Data derived from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) shows that November 25, 2011, Black Friday, had the most background checks for firearm purchases in a single day (129,166) with a 32 percent increase over the previous NICS high (November 28, 2008). Federal law requires FBI background checks on all individuals purchasing firearms from federally licensed retailers. These statistics represent the number of firearm background checks initiated through...

The holiday shopping season got off to a strong start on Black Friday, with retail sales up 7 percent over last year, according to the most recent survey. Now stores just have to keep buyers coming back without the promise of door-buster savings. Buyers spent $11.4 billion at retail stores and malls, up nearly $1 billion from last year, according to a Saturday report from ShopperTrak. It was the largest amount ever spent on the day that marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season, and the biggest year-over-year increase since 2007. Chicago-based ShopperTrak gathers data from 25,000 outlets across...

A woman suspected of showering Black Friday shoppers with pepper spray surrendered to authorities but was released pending further investigation after she refused to discuss the incident, police said Saturday. The woman, whose name was not released, is suspected of firing pepper spray into a crowd in order to clear a path to a crate of Xbox video game players that were being unwrapped late Thanksgiving night at a Walmart in the upscale Porter Ranch section of the San Fernando Valley. The suspect got away in the confusion, and it was not known if she bought one of the Xboxes....

SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- A man collapsed while doing some Black Friday shopping in a crowded store, and people nearby continued to shop. Witnesses tell WSAZ.com some shoppers walked around and even over the man's body. Click here to find out more! Family members tell WSAZ.com that Walter Vance, of Logan County, W.Va., passed away after being taken to the hospital. It happened at Target in the Southridge Shopping Center in South Charleston about 12:15 a.m. Friday. Vance got sick and collapsed on the floor while shopping for Christmas decorations for his newly remodeled workplace. Vance started working at...

The holiday shopping season got off to a strong start on Black Friday, with retail sales up 7 percent over last year, according to the most recent survey. Now stores just have to keep buyers coming back without the promise of door-buster savings. Buyers spent $11.4 billion at retail stores and malls, up nearly $1 billion from last year, according to a Saturday report from ShopperTrak. It was the largest amount ever spent on the day that marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season, and the biggest year-over-year increase since 2007. Chicago-based ShopperTrak gathers data from 25,000 outlets across...

SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- A man collapsed while doing some Black Friday shopping in a crowded store, and people nearby continued to shop. Witnesses tell WSAZ.com some shoppers walked around and even over the man's body. Family members tell WSAZ.com that Walter Vance, of Logan County, W.Va., passed away after being taken to the hospital. It happened at Target in the Southridge Shopping Center in South Charleston about 12:15 a.m. Friday. Vance got sick and collapsed on the floor while shopping for Christmas decorations for his newly remodeled workplace. Vance started working at the Aracoma Drug Company store in...

Despite a lagging economy and high unemployment rates, retailers are reporting this year is one of the best for sales, with 152 million shoppers expected to hit stores this Black Friday. Early reports suggest that bigger crowds were found at the nation's malls and stores as retailers like Macy’s and Target opened their doors at Midnight. It what seems to be a burgeoning Black Friday tradition, reports of violence erupted throughout the country....

Woman who drove into Palm Beach County canal had just finished Black Friday shiftA tired Target worker who was heading home after an early morning Black Friday shift had to be rescued by a deputy after she drove her car into a canal in Pahokee. The unidentified woman somehow lost control of her car and drove into the canal near Much City Road and Connors Highway at 7:46 a.m., Palm Beach County Sheriff’s spokesman Teri Barbera told the Palm Beach Post. Luckily, Deputy Frank Mayo, who was also on his way home after working his shift, responded and jumped into...

In what economists are hailing as a clear sign of economic recovery, Walmart customers across the USA jammed into stores on Black Friday, sometimes killing each other to buy useless ----.

I confess, I despise “Black Friday.” I hate the way consumers are urged to haul their Thanksgiving-exhausted selves out to stores — away from family members who have often traveled some distance to come together — so they can surrender their human dignity or assault the dignity of others in order to snag a ten-dollar sweater and a waffle-maker for $9.99. And I hate the way consumers go along with it. I hate the way the mad buying and bad behavior is attached to Christmas — the coming of the Christ was meant to set us free, and yet...

The Buckeye incident is catching national attention this morning. According to news reports, a crowd of fired-up shoppers at the Walmart were clawing at a box of videos games when a little boy was "trampled" and cut his lip. The boy's grandfather then tried to lift the kid, first sticking a video game he was holding in his waistband. The guy reportedly had $600 worth of other merchandise with him he intended to buy -- not exactly the shoplifter type. One witness of the incident quoted by Channel 10 news (KSAZ-TV) seems to indicate that police wildly over-reacted: "You would...

BANGOR, Maine — Canadian shoppers arrived early Thursday to get in line at Walmart and were surprised that the doors didn’t open until midnight. Maine has a law that bars big box stores from opening on Thanksgiving. “We thought it opened at 10 p.m.,” as advertised nationally, said Wanda Myers, a Saint John, New Brunswick, resident who arrived at the Brewer Walmart Supercenter at 6 a.m. Thursday and stood first in one of the store’s two lines. A convoy of Canadian shoppers drove 3½ hours to get to the Bangor area for Black Friday deals. “I was absolutely shocked” that...

Black Friday took an ugly turn at a Los Angeles Wal-Mart when a female shopper -desperate to get her hands on discounted electronics-pepper sprayed a crowd to keep them away from the merchandise she wanted. At least 20 shoppers suffered minor injuries and police are still looking for the woman. The melee began shortly after 10:20 p.m. Thursday as shoppers prowling for Black Friday deals were let inside the store. The suspect began shooting the pepper spray when the coverings of items she wanted were removed, according to police. "Somehow she was trying to use [the pepper spray] to gain...

Twenty people, including children, were injured when a woman at a San Fernando Valley Walmart store used mace against other customers in what authorities referred to as a "competitive shopping" incident.

The holiday shopping season starts in earnest on Thursday, with retailers anxious to see if U.S. consumers are willing to spend despite an endless stream of scary headlines about the fragile economy and their own precarious finances. However, in the eyes of retailers, the shopping period has been churning along for some time as retailers like Walmart Stores [WMT 56.64 -0.21 (-0.37%) ] and Toys R Us started early by offering layaway programs, and others offering major deals to lure shoppers. These incentives have increased the stakes for retailers, and when Americans are done with their turkey dinners on Thursday,...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Attention holiday shoppers: your cell phone may be tracked this year. Starting on Black Friday and running through New Year's Day, two U.S. malls -- Promenade Temecula in southern California and Short Pump Town Center in Richmond, Va. -- will track guests' movements by monitoring the signals from their cell phones. While the data that's collected is anonymous, it can follow shoppers' paths from store to store. The goal is for stores to answer questions like: How many Nordstrom shoppers also stop at Starbucks? How long do most customers linger in Victoria's Secret? Are there unpopular...

<p>Check the list of stores that will donate 1% to 15% of the purchase price of whatever you spend on Black Friday to the Texas Democratic Party.</p> <p>If they’re doing it in Texas, they’re likely doing it in other states too.</p>

Last year about this time, I posted all the Black Friday (or earlier) sales that were gun, knife, tactical, or outdoor related that I could find. Here is the 2011 edition. I have included any coupon codes that are needed. If you find others, please share them in the comments section. Brownells Brownells will again have their Black Rifle Friday featuring special pricing on a number of items. It begins at 12:01am on Friday. MidwayUSA Every day from Monday, Nov. 21st through Monday, Nov. 28th, MidwayUSA will be offering special deals daily. For non-sale items, they are offering $15 off...

I am thankful for the Friday Silliness Thread....especially when it comes early......(like on Wednesday, because Friday most people won't be around, because they'll be recovering from Thanksgiving....or worse......shopping!) So...here is some Thanksgiving humor Horn of Plenty When a music student brought his French horn to my shop for repair, he complained that the instrument “felt stuffy” and he couldn’t blow air through it. It’s not unusual to find partial blockages in brass instruments if small items get lodged in the tubing, but when I tested the instrument, the horn was completely blocked. After much probing and prodding, a small...

Washington, D.C. (Nov. 20, 2011) -- Best Buy says it will sell a Sharp 42-inch, 1080p LCD HDTV for $199. Hhgregg says it will sell an Internet-enabled Samsung Blu-ray player for $39. And Target plans to sell a Westinghouse 46-inch 1080p LCD HDTV for $298. These are just some of the incredible deals that retailers will offer on High-Definition TVs and related high-def products on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving (Nov. 25). However, this could be the most competitive Black Friday ever -- thanks to the economy and smaller inventories at retail stores. It's quite possible that some of...

Washington, D.C. (Nov. 15, 2011) -- We've now reported on the upcoming Black Friday deals from 10 different retailers that sell consumer electronics. Whether it's CE giant Best Buy or discount specialist Walmart or the regionally popular Hastings entertainment chain, America's favorite retailers are hoping to woo the discerning Black Friday shopper. But which retailer will offer the best Black Friday deals on CE products and High-Definition TVs? After a careful study of the discounts being planned by the 10 retailers, we have ranked the stores in order based on best price and the uniqueness of the items they will...

Okay, less than two weeks until Black Friday and I am already seeing some terrific deals, some of which I shall list below. I invite you to list your own Black Friday deals as well. Personally, I have a rather modest Black Friday goal. I just want to get a really good deal on a Lexmark 730 inkjet cartridge. As for the electronic stuff below I am guessing you will need to get yourself a chair and wait on a line all night, something I am not prepared to do. So here are some of the really good deals I've...

Around the country, night workers at Walmart stores are being told to come in five hours early ON Thanksgiving. After having work until 7am that morning, they must get whatever sleep they can and then reutrn to work at 5pm for a 12 hour shift. How much time does this leave for them to spend the holiday with their family? Walmart wants to call their employees associates. No, they are just workers.

Washington, D.C. (September 13, 2011) -- In roughly 10 weeks, Americans will crowd into retail stores looking for 'Black Friday' bargains on everything from appliances to apparel. Retailers traditionally offer deep discounts on the day after Thanksgiving (Nov. 25), better known as Black Friday, the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season. The discount prices are often available for one day only -- and may include restrictions on time and supply. Discount hunters also have to contend with the frenzied atmosphere of Black Friday which some shoppers view as a day of combat. But here at TVPredictions.com, we believe in...

Our cameras caught the chaos as Black Friday turned violent at the Target store in north Buffalo. This story has had quite an impact nationwide. It's had more than a quarter-million hits on our website. Now we're meeting a man who came to the aid of Keith Krantz to try and save him from a frenzied mob of shoppers. By now, you've probably seen the dramatic footage of the uncontrolled crowd of shoppers surging into the north Buffalo Target Store for Black Friday specials. 28-year-old Keith Krantz, who had wanted to buy a flat screen TV as a gift for...

HARPER WOODS, Mich. – A dispute between two rival groups of teenagers escalated into gunfire Saturday when members of one of the groups opened fire inside a shopping mall, critically injuring one teenager and a clothing store worker as holiday shoppers dashed for cover, police said. The shooting happened around 6 p.m. at Eastland Mall, east of Detroit, on the heels of Black Friday, traditionally the kickoff for what retailers hope is the busiest weekend of the holiday season. The mall was closed for the night as police searched for suspects, said Harper Woods deputy police chief Jim Burke. The...

Black Friday Insanity Toys R Us: Woman Arrested - Threatened To Shoot Shoppers (Cannot be posted per FR rules)

Madison police arrested a 21-year-old woman after she allegedly threatened shoppers while trying to cut in line at a toy store. Police say several hundred shoppers were at a Toys R Us just after 10 p.m. Thursday, when the woman attempted to move to the front of the line. The store opened for Black Friday shopping at 10 p.m. Police say other shoppers confronted the Middleton woman and she threatened to retrieve a gun and shoot them. No gun was found but police arrested the woman on a tentative charge of disorderly conduct.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - Shoppers waited out in the cold wet weather for hours. When the doors opened at 4 a.m. the Black Friday chaos turned ugly. *** VIDEO at the link *** Seconds after the doors opened, something went dangerously wrong. Crazed Black Friday shoppers began piling up on each other. "It went from controlled to a mob in less than five minutes and it just got nasty," said a shopper. When officials heard the screams, they ran over right away to help. Shopper Rich Mathewson said, "It was a lot of angry people just jumping in after we...

Here’s a bit of trivia that will help you win bar bets. When is the only time of year in which you can see women acting like idiots on television commercials? “Black Friday” sales announcements. The remainder of the year is given over to men to play clueless fools. But for a spare week before this great national holiday, which now surpasses in festive spirit the day of feasting and family which used to be Thanksgiving, women are portrayed as rabid, raving lunatics whose only goal in life, whose very purpose for being, is to march bleary eyed to our...

Okay, I have my own ideas but I am definitely open to any great Black Friday deals and/or strategies that you might know about. My own strategy for this Friday is to buy stuff with coupons at Walgreens this Friday that will enable me to build up a vast reservoir of Register Rewards...hopefully a thousand bucks worth. Then when the big weekend buying rush is over, return to Walgreens and use the register rewards to buy myself a Blu-Ray player along with a ton of other stuff.

Agitation to restore the Second Amendment right to open-carry legally permitted firearms continues to surface in the form of proposed legislation in state houses nationwide, as well as in public demonstrations. Among those demonstrations is one planned in downtown Indianapolis on the day after Thanksgiving in which gun owners will openly carry rifles and handguns around Monument Circle and the Circle Centre Mall to "see how long it takes to get asked to leave." According to discussions on IndianaShooter.com, the purpose of the walk is to "educate our fellow Hoosiers about our rights to lawfully keep and bear arms." However,...

Retailers are expected to announce Black Friday deals soon (to those of you that hate standing in line at 4AM of BF). A few of the links I have are the following: ___________________________________ From http://bfads.net/ For the entire month of November (until Black Friday), we will be giving away daily prizes every weekday (Monday-Friday) to visitors who enter our 3rd Annual November Holiday Give-Away Contest. This year the prizes total over $10,000 and include digital cameras, MP3 players, Blu-ray players and movies, GPS devices, video games and video game consoles, a HP dv7t laptop (contributed by HP) and a Dell...

Retailers hold Black Friday-style summer sales for Christmas shoppers By Ylan Q. Mui Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, July 23, 2010; A14 Looks as though Santa's summer vacation is getting cut short. Retailers are trying to drum up some Christmas magic five months early with Black Friday-style sales that they hope will put shoppers in the spending spirit. At Target, the clock begins ticking on its 24-hour sale Friday. Toys R Us had daily mystery discounts this week and bonus promotions Friday and Saturday. And Sears and Kmart, owned by the same company, have brought back Christmas-club savings plans. Some...

Joy Behar is supposedly a comic. It’s hard to tell, as the only time she’s really funny is unintentionally. Can you really build a career from that? With a voice that makes The Nanny sound as sweet as Ella Fitzgerald, and a manner that makes a frontier mining camp madam seem like Grace Kelly, Behar has turned irritating into an art form. And if you really want to hear her at full-out bray, just bring up Sarah Palin. Here are a couple of notable examples. “She is SO dumb” “She is not coherent. The woman cannot construct a sentence.” So...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Cash was king for consumers who shopped over the Thanksgiving weekend, according to survey results released on Sunday, and that factor could have cost retailers additional sales. Only 26 percent of people who shopped over the weekend said they used credit cards for their purchases, according to a poll conducted for Reuters by America's Research Group. "That's an amazing shift in consumers' habits," said Britt Beemer, founder of America's Research Group. Consumers shunning credit cards is a bad sign for retailers, since people who buy gifts with a credit card tend to spend anywhere from 20 to...

Paltry growth indicates we may be looking at one of the worst years in all time. If you were counting on what Glenn Reynolds calls "the retail support brigade" to come riding over the hills, you might want to rethink. After last year turned in one of the worst holiday shopping seasons in decades, people were hoping that things might perk up this year, but Black Friday's results don't look too good for retailers. Sales were up a paltry 0.5% from last year, and that only because a lot more people came out bargain-hunting. Sales on the day after Thanksgiving...

This year, the Muslim holiday of Eid El-Adha fell on the same weekend as Black Friday, the famous shopping spree tradition. Best Buy, one of the retailers participating in the event, posted a season’s greeting on one of their flyers: a little circle with “Happy Eid El-Adha” above the giant “Thanksgiving” greeting. It was a gentle nod toward a minority group whose holiday happened to fall on the same day. It was a great gesture toward inclusiveness. No one could possibly spin glad tidings and season greetings into a negative thing, right? Think again. The noble gesture has caused quite...

American consumers shopped more for bargains at the start of the U.S. holiday season and spent significantly less than a year ago, according to early data released on Sunday. Consumers said they will have spent nearly 8 percent less on average, or about $343 per person, over the weekend that includes U.S. Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and runs through Sunday, according to the National Retail Federation. American consumers shopped more for bargains at the start of the U.S. holiday season and spent significantly less than a year ago, according to early data released on Sunday. Consumers said they will have...

US Shoppers Spent Less Over Black Friday: NRF US, RETAIL, ECONOMY, SHOPPERS, SHOPPING, BLACK FRIDAY, TARGET, WAL-MART, GAP, SAKS Reuters | 29 Nov 2009 | 03:41 PM ET American consumers shopped more for bargains at the start of the U.S. holiday season and spent significantly less than a year ago, according to early data released on Sunday. Consumers said they will have spent nearly 8 percent less on average, or about $343 per person, over the weekend that includes U.S. Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and runs through Sunday, according to the National Retail Federation. While traffic to stores and retail...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - American consumers shopped more for bargains at the start of the U.S. holiday season and spent significantly less than a year ago, according to early data released on Sunday. Consumers said they will have spent nearly 8 percent less on average, or about $343 per person, over the weekend that includes Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and runs through Sunday, according to the National Retail Federation. While traffic to stores and retail websites rose to 195 million people from 172 million in 2008, the early data this weekend represents a worrisome sign for retailers, who had braced...

Vote with your Wallet -- Don't Buy Products from Companies That Support President Obama's Cap-and-Trade Policy Today the Free Enterprise Project of the National Center for Public Policy Research calls on patriotic Americans to vote with their wallets starting on Black Friday and avoid buying products from companies that are working with President Obama and liberals in Congress to impose cap-and-trade policies. "The only reason why cap-and-trade is on the national scene is because CEOs of major corporations are actively lobbying for the legislation. Every time we buy products from these companies our money is rewarding CEOs who are the...

Call it a wash. The biggest retail day of the year managed to match up against the sales figures from last year, eking out a 0.5% increase — perhaps not even enough to cover what little inflation may have occurred over the past year. Retailers took in $10.66 billion on Friday, but the news reports leave out an important question: Shoppers who endured long lines and sometimes-frigid temperatures spent only slightly more during their Black Friday shopping sprees than they did last year, according to data released Saturday by a research firm. At the same time, their pajama-clad counterparts, a...

I’d like to specifically request that retailers all over the U.S. stop saying “Merry Christmas” altogether. In fact, I want retailers to remove the word “Christmas” from all of their print ads, radio spots, TV spots, billboards, and in-store displays and decorations. I think it’s the least we can do for our Savior.

Another Thanxmas shopping season, another collection of news stories about social retards who don't know how to behave in public... People in other parts of the world fight over food, water or religious freedoms; we fight over DVD players and toys Store employees are to blame when two women get in a fight over a pair of discounted pajamas.  Just like... ... Teachers are to blame because our kids behave like spoiled brats, little sluts, and junior gangbangers. ... George Bush is to blame when people too benumbed by corrupt liberal governance don't know how to get out of...