Bent Corner

If you despise those annoying commercials at Christmas time where the dopey looking man presents his wife or mistress a big fancy piece of shinny jewelry to keep her from jumping into his best friend’s bed when he’s not around, than this video is for you. Sarah Haskins from Current TV does a fantastic job at demonstrating just how stupid those commercials really are.

The family of Jdimytai Damour, the man trampled to death at a Long Island area Walmart, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Walmart:

The lawsuit claims that besides failing to provide adequate security for a pre-dawn crowd estimated at 2,000, Wal-Mart “engaged in specific marketing and advertising techniques to specifically attract a large crowd and create an environment of frenzy and mayhem and was otherwise careless, reckless and negligent.”

Not that I didn’t see this coming.  I just didn’t think it was going to happen this quickly.

Authorities investigating the case believe that Jdimytai Damour was placed on door opening duty because of his size. He stood 6-foot-5 and weighed 270 pounds. If that is true, it would seems Walmart knew the task of opening the door was going to be a dangerous one.

Walmart also likes to stress the fact that Jdimytai Damour did not actually work for them, but that he was employed by a temp agency. As if that fact makes what happened any better. I think it actually makes it worse. Why would they send someone who doesn’t even work for them to open the front door on the busiest shopping day of the year? I would think this task would be something for the manager to perform, unless of course it was something considered too dangerous to have the manager do.

In that case, send the big black man from the temp agency.

Some Black Friday shoppers at the Hagerstown Prime Outlets mall discovered upon finishing their shopping that their cars had been towed away.  There were so many shoppers at the Prime Outlets that all of the parking spaces were full.  Many people began parking on the grassy areas.

Evidently the Prime Outlets has a rule against parking on the grass.  The problem is, they do not post signs stating this fact.  They keep this rule to themselves.

Shoppers who had their car towed away were forced to pay a towing company $250 to get their vehicle back.

I know where these people were parking.  The only reason anyone would ever park there is because there’s no other place for them to park.  This is such a scam.  [MSNBC]

The New York Times has reported more details about the Black Friday stampede at a Long Island Walmart that resulted in the death of one of it’s employees.

The crowd on hand was estimated to be more than 2,000.  The doors were never actually opened by any of the Walmart employees. The mob began beating on the glass doors shortly before Walmart was to open at 5:00 am. A number of Walmart employees on the other side of the doors were attempting to push back against the crowd.  There were so many people pressed up against the sliding-glass doors that the doors bowed in and then shattered.

Jdimytai Damour, 34, was pushed back when the doors shattered and he was thrown to the floor.  Frantic shoppers then stepped on him as they were entering the store.  Other Walmart employees were hurled back and run over, but it was clear to witnesses that Mr. Damour was getting the brunt of the crowd.  Some Walmart employees fought their way to get to him.  Rescue workers tried to revive him, but he was pronounced dead an hour later at the hospital.

The pregnant woman that was also trampled only sustained minor injuries.  She did not lose her baby as reported earlier.

Nassau County police are reviewing the security tapes.  If any of the individuals can be identified, criminal charges for the people that stepped on Mr. Damour are possible.

I can’t even figure out what drew the mob to Walmart in the first place.  I remember looking though the circular, but I don’t remember seeing anything that would prompt me to go out first thing in the morning, let alone storm the front door with a mob of 2,000 other shoppers.

When I see an unruly mob of 2,000 people, I tend to go the opposite direction.

The New York Daily News has posted photos taken at the Green Acres Mall Walmart Long Island, New York where Black Friday shoppers trampled and killed a Walmart employee.  A pregnant woman was also injured. She lost her unborn baby.

It’s pretty clear from the photos that Walmart had a problem before the doors were ever opened. People were pressed right up against the doors. The manager should have done something instead of simply telling an unlucky employee to open the doors.

By looking at the photos, I’m not even sure the people at front of the mod could have stopped if they wanted to. There is a large crowd off people behind them who most likely pushing the mob forward. If they were to stop, they most likely would have been trampled on too.

New York Daily News Photo Gallery

A Walmart employee was trampled to death at a Long Island, New York Walmart as he was attempting to open the doors of the store this morning to allow Black Friday shoppers to enter. From the New York Daily News:

Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.

“He was bum-rushed by 200 people,” said Jimmy Overby, 43, a co-worker. “They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too…I literally had to fight people off my back.”

Nassau County Police are still investigating and would not confirm the witness accounts. Police did say there were several injuries but weren’t more specific.

The article also mentions that a pregnant woman at the same store was trampled and as a result, lost her baby.

Like a lot of Americans, I’ve been checking out the Black Friday websites for a deal on Blue-ray players.  From what I can tell, there are two different units from two different companies making an appearance early tomorrow morning.  One from Sony and one from Samsung.  From what I can tell, both players are essentially the same in that they play both high definition Blue-ray discs and standard definition DVD discs.

The two players are:

Sony BDP-S350 Blu-Ray Disc Player

• Best Buy $249.99
• Sears $179.99
• K-Mart $179.99

Samsung Blu-ray Disc Player BD-P1500

• Best Buy $199.99
• Circuit City $199.99
• Sears $199.99
• Wal-Mart $198.00

Best Buy being Best Buy of course has to charge more for the Sony player then K-Mart and Sears.  Wal-Mart being Wal-Mart has to get all cute with their price, charging $1.99 less than everyone else.

I hate Wal-Mart.

I don’t really want to go out this Black Friday.  I definitely don’t want to go out at oh-dark thirty and engage in hand-to-hand combat with shoppers looking for a deal. We might head out later in the day and see if we can buy one of these Blu-ray machines.  I’m thinking that Wal-Mart will stock up on Blu-ray players if for no other reason then to sell lots and lots of Blu-ray discs.  Maybe if they stock up enough, they’ll have them available even later in the day after the crowds thin out.

Last month I got an email from Borders that included a 40% off coupon on any purchase over $20. Coincidentally, there was a $50 book over at Borders that I wanted. Realizing that the coupon I had just received would take $20 off the book, I decided that I would stop by after work and buy it.

I then remembered something in the email about the coupon being able to be used online as well as in person in the store.  I decided to go ahead and place the order through the Borders website. My local Borders only had one copy of the book I wanted and I didn’t want to chance them selling that one copy before I could get over there and buy it.

Ordering the book through their website was easy enough. Because my purchase totaled over $25, it was eligible for free shipping. I also had the choice of having the book delivered to my home or having it delivered to my local Borders store. I thought it over and decided to have the book shipped to my local Hagerstown Borders. I figured that if I had it shipped to my house, I most likely wouldn’t be home at the time it was delivered and I would probably have to go either to FedEx or UPS and pick it up. If I had to pick it up, the Hagerstown Borders would have been easier then any of the other possibilities.

I placed my order on October 31. It’s now November 17 and I still have not received my book. I’ve contacted Borders three times now, but I have yet to receive any kind of response. Here is the latest message I sent them:

It’s been 17 days now and I still have not received my book. The email you sent to me states that it should have taken 3-8 business days to have my book delivered to my local Borders, but every time I check the status by clicking the link you provided, it shows the book is still in in a FedEx sorting station in Edison, NJ. It’s shows that it’s been there since Nov. 5.

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Please refund the money I spent on this book I never received.

In closing, I have ordered books from Amazon and even Wal-Mart. I have never had a problem with either one of these two companies. The first time I purchase something from Borders, you cannot even ship my purchase to one of your own stores.

If you click on the above link, it takes you to the FedEx website. It shows that my purchase has been sitting in New Jersey since November 5. If they don’t reply to this third request, I’m going to have to contact my credit card company and request a chargeback.

Do yourself a huge favor this holiday season and avoid ordering anything from Borders.com. Not only did they not deliver my book, they are now ignoring me.  Who needs that?

A few months ago, I stopped in at the Finish Line in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania and purchased some t-shirts. While paying for the shirts, the person ringing up my purchase asked me if I would be interested in a free trial to Sports Illustrated. I thought about it, and I decided that I would. I figured that when the free trial ran out, I could just cancel it.

My wife noticed over this past weekend that someone had charged $49.99 to my Visa Check card. It was a company called TWX Sports. I had never heard of them before. I did a quick Google search and I learned that it is none other than Time-Warner.

Time-Warner publishes Sports Illustrated. My free trial wasn’t so free.

I never received a statement from them, nor did I know how long my “free” trial subscription to Sports Illustrated lasted. The best that I can figure is that they got hold of my Visa Check card information from Finish Line when I was buying the shirts. I only know that I never gave any of my financial information to Time-Warner, nor did I give it to Finish Line for the purpose of signing my up for a free trial subscription to Sports Illustrated.

I provided my Visa Check card to them to buy some shirts.

Not only did Finish Line sign me up for Sports Illustrated, it turns out that they also signed me up for Sports Illustrated for Kids and charged my Visa check card $24.99.  At no time did I even want a trial subscription to this magazine.  I don’t have any kids.  I don’t even like kids.

I called my bank and I’m disputing both charges.  I’m feeling uptimistic things will work out in my favor.  No matter what happens, I wont be agreeing to any more “free” subscriptions.