We got up at 5:15 this morning to go to Omax. We got to the store about 5:55 or so. They opened just before 7. I managed to get all the things I was after: the DVD burner, the 50-pack of discs, the 10-pack of DVD-RWs, the 100-pack of CD-Rs, the 64MB thumb drive, snagged the 3-pack of VHS tapes for my sister, the 64MB SD card, and the 4-port USB hub. Total purchase price was about $180 and I've got about $120-$130 in rebates on everything. Everything I got will be FAR except for the burner and the 50-pack of discs.
They were horribly disorganized this year compared to the last few years at that same store. In past years, they had cleared out all the aisle displays that are near the front of the store and set up folding tables with all of the FAR merchandise on it. This year, though, almost all the stuff was in its normal spot or behind the customer service counter. I got in line with everything but the SD card and the USB hub but the guys ahead of me got the SD card from the service desk so I went and got one of those and one of the floor workers was carrying around a box of the USB hubs so I got one of those from him, so I ended up with all of the things I'd gone to get. It took nearly 30 minutes to find everything and I'm surprised that I was able to get it all. Only reason I was able to was because the workers kept going back to the back of the store and bringing more out.
My brother and dad also ended up with everything they went for. My dad got everything I got and also got the WD 200GB hdd and the 2.4GHz phone for free. My brother got almost everything that I got minus the burner (but he got the media and the CD-Rs for me) and he got the $150 5 megapixel 3x optical zoom camera with the $30 battery charger and 4 AAs. That seems like a really good deal. He's been messing with the camera a little bit and it looks pretty nice. Certainly nicer than the Vivitar that I got last BF at Target. My uncle also got the cheaper camera that came with the Epson c86 printer and he got the SD card as well.
The worst part of the whole thing was checking out. They had the service desk and the copy center checking people out in addition to the two registers and it was so slow because of all the rebate forms (much better than those stupid rebate books Omax used to use, though) and it took 2 1/2 hours standing in line to get out of the store. We didn't walk out of the store and over to Target (where I grabbed the Star Wars DVDs for $40 and finally got my copy of HL2) until just after 10am. Talk about a headache, but for the prices I got on things I wanted/needed, it was worth the aggravation.