When Black Friday Comes...now with Cyber Monday

[Kraken]

If I had a huge kitchen with lots of shelves and electrical outlets I'd be tempted by the kitchen gadget du jour, but I don't -- I can't even keep my toaster and my coffee grinder plugged in at the same time -- so it takes a lot to convince me to make room for Another Thing. Once I remarked that I wished there was something that could chop vegetables quickly and easily and with minimal cleanup (better than a knife, that is). She read a lot of reviews and spent too much money on a fancy food processor. It was a complicated machine. I tried a couple of times to chop vegetables, but it didn't really do that, or at least not easily. As far as I could tell, it was a glorified blender with a lot of weird attachments. It sat on a shelf for years, intimidating and mocking me, before Wife finally made it go away. Now there's a simple blender sitting in its place. I've only used that a couple of times, but at least I know what it does and how. I just don't blend stuff very often.

We have a 1970s-vintage crock pot in the pantry. It comes out once every few years. I gather that the Instant Pot wants its turf.

[Jaymann]

And here I thought Pot Ultra was legal marijuana.

[Carpet_pissr]

We have a 1970s-vintage crock pot in the pantry. It comes out once every few years. I gather that the Instant Pot wants its turf.

That's one of the primary reasons I bought the Insta-Pot, to replace our big old slow cooker (which was maybe used 2x a year), and since the Insta-Pot can do things other than slow-cook, I was able to get rid of those duplicate items as well. So from that POV, it was a win because I was able to haul 2 or 3 kitchen items to Goodwill and replace with one thing. That's never bad IMO.

Funny that you mention being afraid of it, mori, my wife is the same way. She said she had a bad experience with an old pressure cooker when she was a kid, which of course these new Insta=Pots have none of those safety issues. I've shown her several times how safe the thing is (it's really dummy proof), but I have yet to see her try it successfully.

[Zarathud]

Insta Pots are great for stew and soups. My wife also uses it to defrost and cook frozen food (meat).

[Hiccup]

My wife really wants an InstaPot as well. However, she recently burned hot dogs in a frying pan (still cold in the middle somehow too), and overcooked baked beans. I don't think giving her the kitchen equivalent of a pipe bomb would turn out well.

[Jaymann]

Not that I saw any great deals I was interested, but managed to get some online shopping out of the way.

[Jeff V]

Friday I bought a couple of new Kindle Fire 7's for the kids. I think my son's old one still exists somewhere, my wife confiscated it back in June and it's not been seen since. The charging port broke on my daughter's.

Today I looked at a few toys the kids were talking about and there doesn't appear to be any OMG MUST BUY NOW deals. I've spent approximately no time pondering holiday needs for this year, I suppose my wife and I ought to make a list of everyone we are obliged to buy for and start from there. Hopefully sometime in the next few weeks inspiration will strike and I'll think of something for my wife. She did not seem overly pleased with her b-day gifts a few weeks ago.

[stessier]

I partook of the fun Thursday night. It was pretty easy - got to Best Buy around 8:15pm and was out by 9pm. Got 2 Fitbit Aces for $40 off each and 19 movies (all but four in 4k UHD). Average price was $14.47.

Spoiler:

John Wick
John Wick 2
Pacific Rim
Pacific Rim Uprising
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
The Incredible Hulk
Antman and Wasp
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Justice League
The Incredibles
The Incredibles 2
Christopher Robin
Solo
The Boss Baby
Deadpool 2 (Supercut)
Black Panther
Avengers Age of Ultron
Avengers Infinity War

[mori]

I just don't trust the fucking thing. It will stop working randomly and I cannot let my eye off the thing. And it requires some cooking skill to pull off something worth eating. Consider it only a high tech slow cooker. I doubt most consumers use any other function of this device.

Finally figured out what was wrong with my Instant Pot. Took me too long to figure out. It was the electrical cord. It has a generic plug so found another cord around the house with the same plug, and the appliance has worked perfectly since. Making green chili on St. Patrick's Day with the last of my smoked pulled pork of last season. Had to clean the freezer out since weather is improving so the smoker may be out soon.