Technically Incorrect

I have avoided Black Friday every year. Somehow, the idea of baying, greedy crowds fighting for $100 off some piece of electronica seems like the equivalent of searching for stray wax in a stranger's ears.

But there's a Best Buy opposite the greatest Starbucks in the world--at Marin City, Calif. (one-time home of Tupac Shakur). And, struggling after an interesting Thanksgiving meal of, well, too much good food, wine, and secrets told after the good food and wine, I parked outside my Starbucks and was drawn by the fascination of the blue and yellow.

A large sign outside Best Buy read: "Line starts here," but there was no one standing there. Had people simply ignored the sign, smashed down the doors, and stormed the building, in search of the weekend's dream of a larger, flatter screen?

I walked gingerly toward the front door, fearing I would immediately see tense bodies and twisted faces fighting over the last box with Samsung written on it. Instead, a chap in the blue polo shirt bid me good morning. Inside, it seemed like any other day at Best Buy.

My receipt, complete with markings from the Best Buy magic marker.

(Credit: Chris Matyszczyk)

People milled around with seemingly little purpose. Best Buy employees stood around, one or two stifling a little yawn, a couple of others not bothering with the stifling.

A few people hovered over the MacBook display. Should they buy the MacBook Pro, or the little white MacBook, on offer for less than $1,000?

Most of the aisles had no more than one person in them. Wandering around was as simple and comfortable as a Wednesday stroll on the beach. But finally I saw a line. What was it that was drawing so many people (at least 15) to one place?

Ah, yes, these were the excited folks trying to line up an appointment with the Geek Squad. Names were being called out. Satisfaction was being doled out.

Then I remembered I needed some ink for my printer. I wafted over to the aisle and noticed that the price of an Hewlett-Packard double pack of black ink and color had actually gone up since I'd last bought some. There didn't seem to be any special offer on this one.

Should I buy it anyway? Wouldn't it be a pain to stand in line?

Then I looked up and saw that the line at the cash registers consisted of precisely three people. Two of them were together. As I paid my $34.87, the clerk had particularly bleary eyes.

"Crazy day, huh?" I said to him.

"No," he said, in an entirely friendly way.

"Is this usual?" I asked, somewhat confused.

"Oh, yeah. I'm happy," he replied.

After he'd taken the time to tell me that the man in front of me in line had enjoyed precisely the same security code on his Amex card as mine, and after another Best Buy employee had marked my receipt with a special marker, I disappeared to Starbucks.

One of the great baristas of our time, Kershina, told me that she'd opened the store at 5 a.m. and there had been around 200 people outside Best Buy at that time.

Now, just after 9, there was no one. It was just another day in the Marin City firmament. How typical this was of the rest of America, I have no idea. However, as I took my lattes back to my car, a couple were piling their own two-pack of boxes, both with an LG logo, into theirs. They seemed strangely relaxed.

Now that Circuit City has enjoyed something of a last lap in physical retail, Best Buy seems to have decided to take on another large rifle in electronics retailing: Wal-Mart Stores.

Wal-Mart has been upgrading its electronics offering and Best Buy clearly sees the Arkansas retailer as a potential source of pain and anguish.

In Best Buy's new TV ad, we meet employee Rachel Muñoz from Best Buy store (No. 1,473, if you're interested) in McAllen, Texas.

Muñoz, who seems like a very nice woman, tells the story of how she took a call from a man who asked some searching questions about TVs. It transpires the man was not merely full of purchaser's angst, but also at Wal-Mart.

Muñoz recalls saying to him: "Well, you're obviously calling us because we're knowledgeable."

So she persuaded him to hotfoot it to store No. 1,473, where he became, Muñoz thinks, "a BestBuyer for life."

I must confess I did stop a little when I heard Muñoz's claim to knowledge. I read CNET's Sharon Vaknin's slightly sobering description of her experiences as a Best Buy employee. Example: "We have no formal training in consumer electronics."

But one's view of a retailer is always colored by one's own experience--very often the first experience--with the retailer's service.

I confess that at my local Best Buy (I'm sorry, I don't know the number of the store. Until today, I didn't know they had numbers like schools in Eastern Europe) it is very easy to get a "Hello, welcome to Best Buy" and a little more difficult to attract an associate's attention thereafter.

And once, when I inquired about buying a rather substantial sound system and TV, I was told I would have to wait 10 days for the Geek Squad to drive the two miles to my house to install it. Which the associates found terribly normal and I found terribly disappointing. (I bought elsewhere.)

Still, it is heartening to think a retailer might actually put itself in the position of using its customer service as a point of difference.

The only problem will be, naturally, delivering the service.

I am all for progress. But I am also all for my eyeballs. I went to the eye doctor the other day, and he said those strange flashes in my eye were nothing serious.

Now I'm thinking I'm part of an experiment, one I know nothing about.

You see, Ian Pearson, a man whose job title is 'futurologist', claims that in 10 years' time, we will all be able to insert a TV screen onto our eyeballs via contact lenses.

He told the Daily Mail: "You will just pop it into your eye in the morning and take it out at the end of the day." But would that mean I would be forced to watch The Young and the Restless? Every day? Even in meetings? Perhaps not. These devices would, apparently, be voice-activated.

I have no reason to believe that this woman's TV contact lenses are stuck to her eyeballs.

(Credit: CC Orin Optiglot)

Mr. Pearson also believes that we'll have digital tattoos. No, not ones that say "Momma, I love you." Rather, ones that pick up the feeling of whatever is happening onscreen and transferring it to your nervous system.

Which might be amusing, if one were watching, say, the Golden State Warriors pummeling the hapless, witless Utah Jazz. But a little more concerning if one were enjoying a rerun of Friday the 13th. Or another rivetingly truthful interview with Alex Rodriguez. Or any love scene featuring Keanu Reeves.

Apparently, most of the technology to make this happen already exists. Which leads me to believe that someone may have secretly implanted these lenses into my eyeballs. And the TV is on the blink.

I think I'll give Best Buy's Geek Squad a call and ask them to check my eyeballs out.