Americans kick off 2-day holiday shopping marathon
Source: AP-Excite
Holiday shopping this year is a marathon, not a sprint.
More than a dozen major retailers from Wal-Mart to Target to Toys R Us opened on Thanksgiving Day and planned to stay open through Black Friday, the traditional start to the holiday shopping season. As a result, crowds formed early and often throughout the two days.
A Kmart store in midtown Manhattan in New York City was packed with people shopping for clothing and holiday decor items. The discounter opened at 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving and planned to stay open for 41 hours straight. Clothing was marked down from 30 percent to 50 percent.
New Yorker Adriana Tavaraz, 51, had just finished work at a travel agency at around 4 p.m. before heading over to Kmart to spend $105 on ornaments, Santa hats and other holiday decor. She saved about 50 percent.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20131129/DAAC6LCO0.html
Louis Liu, left, and Chian Chow look at a Samsung Galaxy camera photo at a Best Buy late in the evening on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, Nov. 28, 2013, in Dunwoody, Ga. Instead of waiting for Black Friday, which is typically the year's biggest shopping day, more than a dozen major retailers opened on Thanksgiving this year. (AP Photo/David Tulis)
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to obtain more plastic junk, and getting into fist fights while you are at it. My Christmas present to myself just showed up- a Parker 51 Vacumatic fountain pen, made in 1947. It needed the vac filler refurbished (what would one expect of 60+ years of rubber), but the cost of that was minimal, and I stopped one of the greatest pens of all times from landing in a land fill. Oops, a rabid consumerism and fountain pen obsessed rant combined in one 
The first one to come to most people's mind is Fountain Pen Network. My go-to site, though is badgerandblade.com. They are primarily known as a wet shaving website, but they have a great fountain pen area called the Nib. Be warned- if you wander into B&B you might find yourself buying a shaving brush, soap, changing the wardrobe, buying fine tobacco, exploring new beers and spirits, etc. Seriously, they have a lot of different categories, and the folks are super nice. If anyone decides to show their ass they get shut down fast. Do it again and you are gone. But don't worry, just be a considerate person and not a jerk and you will be okay. Should you join us, I am oc_in_fw, and can be found mostly in The Nib, The Brown Leaf, The Mess Hall, and Everything Else. My shaving gear is set up good, so I don't wander up there as often.
Oh, and PS- politics are not discussed, except in the most generic terms. It is ungentlemanly
They ought to hire you as a salesman!
I probably told you more about the (obscure) history of fountain pens the ou wanted to hear
My dad worked for Milton Reynolds, who is credited with introducing the ballpoint pen to the U.S. (Though my dad wasn't on the pen side; he was foreman of Reynolds' company that made printing machines.)
back at you.