Whoa, it's December already! Time has seriously flown by.
If you asked me a month ago if I was excited for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, I would have been giddy with joy. At the beginning of last week though, I was already tired of hearing about it. It wasn't because of the magic community, it was the world in general. Like most good things, big corporations try to milk every last bit of money we have in our wallets out and "Black Friday November" was no exception.
But, I did save up - almost all year - for the Black Friday sales from some of my favorite brands who never fail to put out great deals. I was hot on Ellusionist's site, Vanishing Inc., and even Art of Play.
From the latter, I only bought one or two decks. However, their famous Mystery Deck sale is coming on December 5th and I'm already ready to go broke!
Vanishing Inc.'s sale this year was similar, but slightly different, than most. They did some awesome "free reward" tiers based on how much cumulative money you spent during the sale. The different part was that all of their video downloads were on sale! That's pretty awesome. The two years before this one, I spent quite a bit of money there. This year I was a little more conservative though, mainly because I still haven't gotten through all of last year's purchases yet... what, I don't have a problem.
Ellusionist mixed things up a bit this year too, specifically with their cash giveaway. Last year, and the previous, they did this giveaway where they kept increasing a "cash jackpot" and picked one winner to give it all to. This year, each purchase made on a day would get you a ticket to that day's $1,000 giveaway. I... didn't win any of the days.
All in all, I ended up ordering 10 videos, 2 books, and enough decks to make my wife question whether I'm passionate or obsessed. I'm only counting the things I ordered between Friday and Monday though; I did order another book a few days before Black Friday, but in fairness it wouldn't have been on sale regardless.
I'm excited to go through everything. Now that I have a YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/@gbabbits), I will be doing more in-depth performances to accompany my posts here and on Instagram. We'll see how that plays out though.
Oh, also, one thing I ordered from Vanishing Inc. was Dani DaOrtiz's ACAAN Fool Us Act. First, because I really loved the act -- it was classic DaOrtiz and amazing all around. Second, because I also have ACAAN Project - Chapter 1 by DaOrtiz that was published on Penguin Magic a while back. The ACAAN project on Penguin is the exact routine that Dani performed on Fool Us, as far as I can tell, so I really want to know what this "different" version is on Vanishing Inc. The product listing references Borrowed Deck Miracles but says that this new download includes way more content. So many choices!
Good thing there aren't any other gift-buying holidays coming up soon... oh, wait...