Thanksgiving plans (1 Viewer)

Adam, I am not at all upset about a purchase from WalMart. Just about 15 years ago my wife and I were in the market for new computers that were actually decent machines. At the time, WalMart was selling HP boxes in the "Pavilion" model series. We got our machines there. They were typical over-configured systems.

Consider this in context of what was selling in the 2005 time frame, give or take a year: HP Pavilion models, with 2 GB RAM and Win XP preloaded, with MS Office pre-loaded as well as the typical HP diagnostics setup, and (I think it was) McAfee A/V. The boxes were 2.8 GHz x 32 bit for me, and 3.2 GHz x 32 bit for her. I had an NVidia graphics card and she had a Radeon card. They were $1500 price range. Hers lasted 14 years before the HD died. My XP is still running though I have limited its use these days and keep a backup of the old files on it.

People laugh about getting your system from one of the brick-and-mortar stores, but I can tell you that the power of bulk purchases applies to them just as it does for the online stores. Trust me, if you walked up to HP and said, "I'm going to buy HP boxes configured like this, and I want you to sell them to me in 10,000 lot quantity" - do you think you might be able to get a volume discount on that? And then pass along part of that discount to the customers?

I won't rag you for buying from WalMart any time. Heck, I would have bought from COMPUSA except that they didn't have as good a discount. Part of the reason why they eventually went out of business. Best Buy wasn't old enough to have as good a volume deal as WalMart, either (at the time.) The power of bulk purchase discounts makes perfect sense if you think about it long enough.

@Adam
yes it was a joke (see sarcasm emoji )

@Doc
I kinda miss the days when it was cheaper to buy all the parts and assemble it yourself with a clean copy of an OS. Now its cheaper to just buy a new laptop at the first hint of trouble. Doesn't much matter where you buy as they all seem to add their own bloatware anyway.

It is still cheaper in terms of parts purchase, but by now your time has become more valuable and as we all know, time is money.

I saw on TV news the USA President outside his front door with a turkey. He appeared to be casting a spell on this poor thing and was mumbling some kind of chant.
What's all that about? One minute he's desperate to bomb China the next he's chatting to some poor frightened bird (that's a feathered kind, in the UK, a bird is slang for a girl)

Col

head switching

while ur on the subject of the american president Col, did you notice the rocky photo regarding trump?

https://nypost.com/2019/11/27/trump-tweets-out-doctored-photo-of-his-head-on-rocky-balboas-body/

and of course I got a friend from facebook who posted a picture in her news feed of ROCKY'S head on TRUMP'S body!

Yes I saw that on TV. We have a satirical programme on the BBC looking at the weeks news, obviously anything about the USA is made fun of, especially Trump.
We make more fun of the Yanks than we do our own politicians. That's why the half-caste Markle is such a joke. She's just perfect satire material, she's a yank, coloured and a z rated actress.

Col

Actually, talking about thanksgiving. Is it true that Americans celebrate thanksgiving more than they do Christmas?

Col

ColinEssex said:

Actually, talking about thanksgiving. Is it true that Americans celebrate thanksgiving more than they do Christmas?l

Click to expand...

ummmmm i would say yes. there r many christians here but there r also lots of other faith's followers so i wouldnt dount it if TG has XMAS beat in terms of celebraters.

Col, the "incantation" over the turkey is a traditional act of mercy. We eat turkeys here, but the President makes it a point each year to "pardon" a turkey from execution by axe (or whatever they do these days.) You were probably looking at the presidential pardon. One of the few actions that probably WON'T get him skewered by Democrats.

These days, regarding which holiday is celebrated more? I'm sure there are tedious statistics on the subject, but my guess is that it is about even within statistical variation limits. Heck, who doesn't like a good party with food and friends and family? And both TG and XMAS are just PERFECT excuses for a gathering that ISN'T happening for the worst reason. I went to one of the latter today - the visitation for an old friend who had passed after cancer, fluid build-up issues, and pneumonia. I'll take "party for a good reason" any day over "gather for a funeral."

Back to the Thanksgiving theme. We had a very small gathering (myself, my spouse, my one daughter, my son-in-law and my granddaughter, she is 11 months old). Baked a ham, had some broccoli and cheese, made rolls and stove top dressing. I also had made chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Most of my family in in the Midwest, my spouse's family is too far away to travel easily (especially with the recent weather).

did i tell u guys that for like 30 minutes during thanksgiving at my father's house, everyone of my family members except me spent time yelling at each other at the top of their lungs about current pres's vs. past pres's. my dad is an elephant and my brother generally supports the donkeys, although he usually goes with the lesser evil most voting years. my bro claims that trump has committed purgury by his behavior alone and that clinton was ok. and dad of course says:

"so you think that just because someone's a democrat, but yet he stands up and says to congress "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" and they catch him lying, that that's ok and doesn't make clinton a purgory too!?"

Click to expand...

i just kept watching football on tv.

first time ever my family got into an argument on a holiday.

vba_php said:

did i tell u guys that for like 30 minutes during thanksgiving at my father's house, everyone of my family members except me spent time yelling at each other at the top of their lungs about current pres's vs. past pres's. my dad is an elephant and my brother generally supports the donkeys, although he usually goes with the lesser evil most voting years. my bro claims that trump has committed purgury by his behavior alone and that clinton was ok. and dad of course says: i just kept watching football on tv.

first time ever my family got into an argument on a holiday.

Click to expand...

Yep, Politics will do that... Same in the UK especially now Brexit has loomed...

scott-atkinson said:

Yep, Politics will do that... Same in the UK especially now Brexit has loomed...

Click to expand...

WHAT IS brexit? i never did understand that.

I wonder if I should start selling homes. There are some lovely rocks I'm SURE will sell well!

Adam, from the USA perspective, Brexit is the equivalent of the Old South seceding from the Union back in the 1860s. Except that in our case, the Union went to war over it. In the modern UK, they are civilized - so they merely insult each other and drag their names through the mud as they decide how England will split from the European Union.

From my perspective, the EU formation was a terrible mistake for economic reasons having to do with the overarching immigration rules that "opened the floodgates" to not only refugees, but a LOT of undesirables. Some of the Scandinavian countries are having really tough times, and as I understand it, France has become very "tourist-unfriendly" because of the immigrants.

The day after the Brexit vote the entire country had buyers remorse. There still trying to get out of it.