Yup. No surprise here. The man in the video has patiently waited for his delivery of his Black Friday purchase of a Wash and Dryer.  After not receiving it on the day he was supposed to get it, he decides to take his dirty laundry to Best Buy. Of course the guy and his friends get kicked out, but not before being treated rudely and being accused of making a scene, disturbing other employees and being drunk.

So, here I was at Best Buy looking for a $250 Acer Laptop that was posted on WalletPop the other day. After walking up to the laptop section, I saw it right in front of me. I was so excited because it was perfect timing! My father’s birthday was tomorrow and he’d been looking for a cheap netbook or laptop with a webcam.  I was kind of afraid that the specs posted on WalletPop wasn’t going to be the same specs when I actually saw it for myself.

I quickly noticed that the price tag had no specs on it. But, I saw the specs on the sticker and noticed it was the one I was looking for. Also, it came with an on-board Webcam. Oh joy! I asked the Best Buy employee for the laptop. The employee responded with “Sorry. We are sold out of those. But we do have optimized ones still.”

I quickly learned what the difference between a regular laptop and an “optimized” one. An “optimized” one has the “awesome” feature of having no bloatware. To have an “optimized” one, you need to pay $39 more. WTF?

Isn’t that backwards? To have NO extra software or trial ware installed costs extra? If they wanted, I could pull the laptop out, hook it up to their wireless hotspot, and install all that bloat crap myself to keep the price tag to $250. But of course they wouldn’t allow me to do it. I complained a little more towards the employee. She talked to her supervisor and came back to offer me a half-off discount on the “optimization fee.”

I agreed to the “deal” just so I can get this present to my father. Ugh. Best Buy, you win, but never again.

Watch out Gamestop, looks like Wal Mart isn’t the only retailer testing out the used game market.

If you live in Dallas or Austin Texas you’ll be able to redeem your used games at your local Best Buy using their new kiosks. The game disk is slipped into the kiosk and read (to ensure that it’s still playable) and then spits out a Best Buy gift card that customers can use at all Best Buy locations. Pretty convenient.

Wal Mart also has stores throughout the country utilizing their Buy Back kiosks (pictured below) for it’s used game pilot program. Essentially doing the same thing, so this concept isn’t new. And if Wal Mart and Best Buy decide to deploy this program to all of it’s stores it could present a real threat to Gamestop’s used game monopoly.

Overall this may be a good thing for us gamers. Competition between the retail giants might drive the price they pay for used games up. Benefiting consumers. It makes sense. Gamers would have more options when trading in used games, and would probably seek out retailers who would be willing to give them more money for their trade-ins. And because the kiosks give the customers gift cards to their stores, it would ensure future business from that customer.

What do you guys think?