Friday, November 26, 2004

Bratz Battle!!

I posted this on www.bratzworld.tv too.
This is just crazy!!

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This is like stuff you heard about when the Cabbage Patch dolls
were hot! Its funny- but not- but you know what I mean- that little
girl isn't too happy but WOW People fighting over Bratz!!
:)
sfb

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Shopping season begins

By Kevin Walters

It was just before 5 a.m. today when the Bratz battle erupted.

Minutes after U.S. 98 Wal-Mart SuperCenter employees carted
out a shipment of the popular Bratz dolls - think Barbie and Ken
or the hip-hop generation - for the after-Thanksgiving Day sale, a
pack of shoppers laying in wait in the store's toy department
pounced on the employees with the dolls.

"You could see boxes going through the air, people screaming
and hollering and running," said shopper Sharon Parker, 50,
describing the scene afterward. "A little girl came through here -
like about 10 years old - just crying, holding the side of her head.
She got hit by a lady going after a Bratz doll."

Thousands of bleary-eyed Hattiesburg residents - like millions of
other Americans - swarmed area retailers in Friday's predawn
hours, staking out their turf in line and trying to cram their carts
full of merchandise marked down drastically in what is the
official start of the holiday shopping season. The Bratz dolls, for
example, normally sell for around $30 but this morning they went
for $8.

Parker, a Black Friday veteran, described today's scene simply.
"This is combat shopping," she laughed, but quite serious too.
This year, national spending is expected to grow by 4.5 percent
over last season, according to the National Retail Federation,
bringing spending in at around $219.9 billion. But that's down
from a 5.1 percent growth in 2003. This year, it will be more
difficult for retailers to make gains since the holiday season last
year was so good, the retail organization said.

Seminary residents Angie Dickens, 26, and Jennifer Reeves, 24,
had been in Wal-Mart since 3 a.m. and chased store employees
unloading the dolls in order to get them.

"I was running behind them and everybody was 'What are they
running for?' I'm after that doll," Dickens laughed.
But she also snared a portable DVD player among other popular
loot. It wasn't just the bargains, but the thrill of the hunt that they
craved.

"I like to lost my arm over Spider-Man," Dickens said.

Richton resident April Trussell, 19, in a pink John Deere
sweatshirt, pushed her 27-inch flat-screen television on the floor
from the store's back doors and then sprawled on top of the box,
red-faced and out of breath.

"My heart hurts," she gasped.

But there were calmer scenes at other locations.
Hours before Best Buy opened, Nat King Cole crooned over the
parking lot public announcement system while a car alarm
blared from somewhere in the parking lot's reaches.

Huddled near the front of the line in the cold morning darkness
were Laurel residents Dawn Trest, 23, her husband Michael
Trest, 22, and her brother-in-law Adam Trest, 18. It was their first
Black Friday but they staked out Best Buy like pros, camping out
in their truck and watching DVDs on their computer to pass the
night.

"We're making memories," Michael Trest joked.

Just a few doors down from Best Buy at Toys R Us, Jonathan
Walker, 26, slipped in just after 5 a.m. and bought two portable
CD players in about 20 minutes on his way to work.

"It was two birds with one stone," Walker said.

At Kay-Bee toys in Turtle Creek Mall, Hattiesburg resident Jeff
Mitchell, 45, who is a nursing student and an active-duty Army
soldier, held a bag with his quarry: Care Bears. This was his first
Black Friday and his strategy was like that of other soldiers: lay in
wait and listen.

"When you stand in line, you can hear anything you want about
any store," Mitchell confided. "The women know where to shop.
You're going to hear it. I just soak it all in."
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