Well, better experience this year than the last.

I wasn't planning going out this BF, but the curiosity got the better of me and I went to Walmart. Arrived there at 11:50, and almost all of the blu-ray was gone. Still, they had 1 or 2 movies left for some good movies, which I grabbed instantly.

Princess Bride (so glad I waited and not buy it from amazon)
Heat (again glad I waited)
(and the rest I only got it because it was $5)
Ice Age
Night at the Museum 2
Angels & Demons
Seven Pounds
Taking of Pelham 123
Day After Tomorrow
i, Robot
Passion of the Christ
Road House
Vantage Point
Mummy
Mummy Returns
Wrestler

I'm glad I got Princess Bride and Heat, but I don't know about the rest. I ended up spending way too much money for mediocre movies.

Too bad I couldn't get the Departed. I saw few people carrying it, but it was gone from the display case (and by 12am, which this was supposed to start, only about 5 bad movies remained in the bin)

And it took me only 40 minutes to go through the checkout - huge improvement from 3 hours last year.

My experience was pretty good this morning. I avoided the midnight crowd and went in before the 5:00electronics sale. As I walked in a 4:30 they were just moving out new pallets of blus and games. I was able to snag everything that I was looking for and hit the checkouts with zero wait. I think I'm going to repeat this strategy next year if they do it the same way.

Picked up at $5 each:

The Strangers
Superbad
Nine
Hellboy II

Interestingly enough, I got a free Blade Runner DVD. I gave it to the cashier, she ran it over the scanner, and put it in the bag. But when I got home and looked at the reciept, it wasn't on there.

I wish amazon would price match Bull Durham

no way in hell am I dealing with the crowds today

The Wii games were gone in the 5 mins I was looking through the DVD, there were a few more PS3 games but I don't remember what they were, also I didn't see any 360 games (I guess they could have been in the middle of the piranha pit of shoppers.

My wife was standing off to the side and watched as someone ripping into some music game set off the chain reaction everyone else saw. To be fair I was one of the ones ripping plastic wrap when the time came. She also eavesdropped on the employees pissed about how they were suppose to cut things open.

I feel sorry to the kids who get those crappy $7 Wii games for xmas.

A big thank you to every one who posted their finds this morning. I was able to know exactly what I was looking for and what it cost, so that made things much easier. I got to Wal-Mart at 9:30 am. The electronics department looked like it was hit by a cyclone. Big mess of buggies with random DVDs/BD/video games all mixed in together.

I spent a good 20 minutes wading through that crap with about a dozen other people and came out with a single copy of the Pineapple Express BD. I assumed that was it, but I asked the one employee who happened by if they had anymore $5 blus left. She told me to check the holiday department. Seems like nobody else knew to look there, because there was a big freshly stocked display that I had mostly to myself. Actually, there was one other guy who was leaving as I got there. He had the last copy of 'The Wrestler' with him. I actually trailed him for a little a bit to see if he would put it down, as he seemed to be debating his selections. No such luck.

Still, I walked out with 10 $5 blus (including 2 copies of Predator - oops!) and was through the checkout line in 5 minutes. Surprisingly great experience. I think the manager realized they needed to move the blu-ray display to an area with more traffic. He came with a pallet-jack and started wheeling the whole thing away before he realized I was crouched down looking through it.

Apparently my neck of the woods, the west suburbs of Chicago does not care about Blu-ray yet. Got there at about 10:30 last night and went to electronics and could not find anything so asked and they were slightly clueless but did direct me to exactly where they were up by the pharmacy. They unveiled all the boxes at about 11 that night and all everyone clamored about was the dvd and games. Got my blu's, had most of the blu's that everyone has listed here, was kind of bummed when they unveiled them and saw they had Mr/Mrs Smith and Predator in the $5 when I had gotten them earlier this week on Amazon but oh well. Was the 4th person in my line at register(all lines easily had 15+ customers already at that time with huge carts and here I was just holding 6 movies ) so out by 12:10 once the registers themselves would issue the prices at 12:01AM. I was in plain view of the racks while waiting and the supply of Blu's was doing just fine. And to the guys that saw Star Trek and Transformers 2, thx for the false info there guys. Unless you get pics next time please don't post

bought

Bull Durham
Simpson's Movie
Walk the Line (estatic when I saw this)
Princess Bride
Independence Day
Silence of the LLambs

The walmart in Los Angeles on crenshaw blvd was a freaking zoo. And to make matters worse none of the employees knew where anything was i was sent up and down all three levels of the store over and over again being told the blus were in one spot or another only to find out they were not.
Finally i stumbled upon the first 5 dollar blu display which was the WB titles. by this point was half picked through but luckily had the first main title i was looking for The Departed. then after going all around the store again finally found the second display which were the fox/mgm titles and I picked up 6 of those. Never did find the displays with the sony or universal displays and after 90 mins of running around searching (including 30 mins of waiting to get up the escalator back to the 3rd level cause the idiot employees sent so many people to the wrong locations for items that the escalater was clogged and they were sending up people in groups of 20 one person at a time.

I never found the sony titles i wanted like Pineapple express, vanishing point, and a few others.
heres hopeing amazon gets closer to that mark.

Yeah some people really have nothing better to do than mess with people.
I thought it was odd when he mentioned those. Ive owned them both for a long while but still if i didnt and i went in looking for them for 5.00 i would P O
about it.

There were a couple teen girls next to me in the checkout line. Their conversation went something like this:

GIRL 1: That guy's buying a lot of movies.
GIRL 2: Why are the cases all blue like that?
GIRL 1: It's, like, a blu-ray.
GIRL 2: What's that? Do I have that?
GIRL 1: I dunno.
GIRL 2: Hold on... (takes out cell phone) Hey, Mom, do I own a blu-ray thingy?

I went with my friend last night and two guys in front of us remarked that we were buying a lot of movies. (20 each at $5) Rocket scientists these guys were. They each had a copy of 'The Hangover' dvd. I can't see myself standing in a checkout line for over an hour for one damn dvd. It's 3.99 on Amazon anyway!

I went late this morning, so it was mostly picked over but I grabbed Stargate Ark of Truth and Continuum for $5 each.

I bought a few at Walmart for $5 Each
12 Rounds
27 Dresses
Angels & Demons
Armored
Batman Begins
Batman Gotham Knight Animated
The Box
Bull Durham (Blu-ray/DVD Combo)
Dark Knight
The Day After Tomorrow
Did You Hear About The Morgans?
Fighting
The Final Destination
Heat
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
I Am Legend
I, Robot
Independence Day
Jumper
Julie & Julia
Mr & Mrs Smith
The Mummy
The Mummy Returns
Night At The Museum 2 (Blu-ray/DVD Combo)
Nine
Notebook
Passion of Christ x3
Pineapple Express
Predator ultimate Hunter Edition
The Princess Bride (Blu-ray/DVD Combo)
Rescue Dawn
Road House (Blu-ray/DVD Combo)
Seven Pounds
The Scorpion King
Silence of Lambs (Blu-ray/DVD Combo)
The Simpsons Movie
Step Brothers
Superbad
The Taking of Pelham 123
Untraceable
You Don't Mess With The Zohan
Walking Tall (Blu-ray/DVD Combo)
Walk The Line
What Happens in Vegas

Also picked 2 $10 ones:
Diary of a Whimpy Kid (Blu-ray/DVD Combo)
Ramona and Beezus (Blu-ray/DVD Combo)

The Franklin Mills, PA store still has tons of $5 Blu-rays, and much better selection than the store in Cherry Hill. Picked up Julie & Julia, Hellboy II, I Am Legend, Pineapple Express, and Australia.

picked up for $5

the departed
hellboy 2
pineapple express
gran torino
i am legend


$1.96

observe and report
the notebook

I didn't see The Departed or Pineapple Express, but most everything else was available. I got there around 11pm.

I got:

$5 BR:
Dark Knight
Gran Torino
Independence Day
Heat
Live Free or Die Hard
Batman Gotham Knight
Silence of the Lambs

$10 PS3:
Killzone 2
Uncharted 1

In homage to The Comic Book Guy I'll say that this year's experience at my local Walmart was my "worst experience ever". I got there at 11:20pm looking for several specific items to pricematch (and a particular toy of which there were 3 (I hid 1) on Weds. night). All of those toys (including my hidden 1) and the majority of the games and BDs I wanted to PM that I had spotted and hid the day before were gone. There were fewer displays than last year and most had black wrap so you had to dig your fingers in to see what was inside. At 11:30pm people were already in huge groups around each display making it almost impossible to move around, and I needed a shopping cart for something else I was getting so it was really difficult. There was ONE display of video games and it was at least 5 people deep on all sides. I asked several employees which display had what and not one of them knew anything or cared. Since getting near the games was impossible, I went near the $5 BDs. When the frenzy began and people ripped the wrap off, DVDs and BDs starting spilling all over the floor and getting stepped on by people. I grabbed most of the BDs I wanted (sadly many I wanted that were in the "list of 60" simply weren't in any of the displays) and I was ready to move elsewhere in about 6 minutes. Unfortunately as my shopping cart was people-locked (like landlocked) I had to move away to see other displays and throw things in, and each time I came back after about 20 seconds people were stealing stuff out of my cart and I had to yell at them or grab it out of their greedy little hands. It then took another 5+ minutes to push my cart through the hellmess of people to the video game display which was completely bare except for some crappy PS2 games sitting on top. I did my best to look at the few other displays and went to electronics where in previous years they had all 3 registers going and I usually got out in under 30 minutes. Due to their wonderful remodel I think there is only 1 register in electronics and at 12:20am the line was 50-100 people and wrapped all the way around the back of electronics. I said forget this and headed toward the food section which was the only non-chaotic area. Then a small miracle occurred... out in the middle of nowhere near food was another empty display, but on top of it were the 3 $10 PS3 games I wanted the most and many $29 games (all of which I passed on being a cheapskate). So I turned the corner in food and the front checkout lines were already 3/4ths of the way to the back of the store. I then waited from 12:25am to 1:40am to get to a register and must have had the slowest line, but I couldn't see anything nor dared move to another. The cashier did all my pricematches of the few things I found and I was happy at that, but it required a CSM override who never showed up until the lady started yelling for somebody after 5 minutes. Then the CSM said "no pricematching allowed until 5am" and said I'll have void all of those sales. I then said that I talked to 2 asst. managers who very specifically told me they would allow it. I told her their names, she said she didn't know any such people working there, and I said get me a manager before you void them. Miraculously after a few minutes waiting for the manager who never showed up, the asst. manager I talked to earlier walked by and said do it because he remembered telling me it was OK. The CSM then whined and moaned that he wasn't supposed to do that, but I'll do it for you because he said so but I'm going to have a talk with his superior about this (i.e. she was so mad I was PM'ing a few items early that she wanted to get the 1 nice asst. manager in trouble... why should she care?). I felt like saying various colorful metaphors (to quote Spock) to her, but just considered myself lucky to get out of that hellzone after a total of 2.5 hours and getting less stuff than at any previous Walmart BF. Then I came home to see I had missed some of the Amazon lightning deals because of Walmart being so slow.

The rest of my BF shopping at other stores was vastly better and more successful than Walmart. When things have calmed down, I'm going to let a few managers know what I thought about my BF experience in hopes they'll do it better next year. They only had maybe half of the registers open at the front. Contrast that to Target and Kohl's who had every available one open.

And now I wish I could cancel some of my Amazon and FoxConnect orders, but I guess I'll be stuck with returning those since I saved more at Walmart than return shipping would cost. Whew! What an experience! So glad it's only once a year.

Wall of text crits you for OVER 9000

You die. Game over.

I wish Manzana wouldn't be so vague about details in his posts. Did those traffic lights or stop signs end up making your drive to Wal-Mart take more than 2 minutes?

Over 9000 what? Characters? I know it's a long post, but I didn't feel like spending a lot of time beautifying it... not to mention you quoted all of it which makes it worse.

It was a joke man. Perhaps I should start carrying around my Sheldon Cooper approved Sarcasm sign.

Bazinga

No, he means Bazinga

And by the way, BAZINGA

I wasn't offended. I was just trying to understand the crits over 9000 and game over you die comments.

No, if I have a lot to say and I'm in my proper ranting mode (as I was with Walmart today), then I'm probably the most cynical and the longest winded of anyone here.