Next weekend, I’ll be going to Vancouver for a few standup gigs, making it for the first time in my life I wont be spending Thanksgiving with my family.

I didn’t realize that until now, and I’m really going to miss being at home. Not for the home cooked meals and bonding at the dinner table, but for all the baller sales that weekend at 3 a.m. where I can watch crazy soccer moms punch people in the face over Pokemon video games and PlayStations.

(I’ve seriously seen that, it was awesome.)

Black Friday (or to be politically correct, “African American Friday”), is seriously the greatest time of the year. In the past, I’ve walked home with $10 DVD players, $200 laptops and more free flash drives than humanly possible.

You really don’t know what it means to be an American until you see grown men tackle an old woman holding a Tickle Me Elmo doll (I’ve seen that too son!)

But I suppose I should share my secrets about how I’m able to beat the lines and grab the awesome deals without any bruises on my body.

1. PLAN. The biggest mistake I see people make on Black Friday is they just show up to a store curious to see what they have. IT WILL NOT WORK. By the time you actually get into the store, you’ll be lucky to find a pack of batteries.

Go to this site that posts all the Black Friday sales across the country.

Walk into each store with a mission. There’s no time to look around, go in and go out, then head to your next destination.

2. DIVIDE AND CONQUER. Go to these sales with as many people as possible. As the day progresses, its harder to find the sale items you’re looking for. Assign people to each store you want to go to and give them missions about which items they’re assigned to buy.

3.  STOP WHINING AND WAKE UP. All the awesome sales happen between 5-7 a.m. If you think you roll into a store at 10 a.m., don’t be surprised if all the baller sales you saw in the ads are gone. And stop whining about waiting outside the store in the cold. I’ve had  friends whine about waiting 45 minutes outside of a Circuit City as if I was taking them to Auschwitz. Suck it up and put on a comfy jacket.

4. HUSTLE PEOPLE. Get to the store as early as possible and wait in the long lines. Start chitchatting with people and find out what items they’re trying to get. If they’re of the opposite gender, flirt with them as much as possible and you’ll probably be able to get them to give you the store’s last external harddrive that they’re holding.

My mom is so damn good at this technique that it’s ridiculous. Once, she got a guy in line to give up a 30 inch flat screen TV he was holding. My father couldn’t be any prouder.

5. CYBER MONDAY. The Saturday and Sunday deals after Black Friday are completely worthless. Seriously. But many retailers are now having Cyber Monday, where they post their baller deals online the Monday after Thanksgiving. Now you don’t have to worry about the lines, and most of them offer free shipping. Click here for the best Cyber Monday resource.

You can hate on Black Friday all you want, about how its sad to see people go in a frenzy over sales. But deep down inside, you’re probably jealous you aren’t able to score a Logitech Harmony remote for $25 bucks.

(Photo by Carucha L. Meuse / The Journal News)