A gigantic $90 million, 57-acre shopping mall is planned for the southwest corner of Gosford Road and Panama Lane in the southwest.  It would likely not be finished until 2009.  Combined with the Gosford Village development, which includes a Kohl's and Sam's Club, it could create a big swath of retail that would essentially extend from north of White Lane to south of Panama on Gosford.
Is this new shopping center needed?  Some local residents I talked to were excited about not having to travel to the Marketplace, Northwest Promenade, Valley Plaza or the yet-to-be completed Shops at River Walk on Stockdale Highway to shop.  Is the southwest in need or more shopping?  What potential problems could this development bring?  Is Bakersfield's growth a good thing?

It was still dark and some shoppers huddled near heat lamps in the Valley Plaza parking lot at midnight with a live band rocking away on the stage behind them. Just before 1 a.m. Friday the doors swung open ushering in a large crowd of hard-core shoppers and teenagers just looking for something to do during the mall's special early day after Thanksgiving opening. As the morning wore on and the lines grew I started to miss my cozy bed.
Would you get up in the middle of the night or not go to sleep at all to go shopping in the middle of the night?  What drives these people?  Is it the sales, the chance to finish all your Christmas shopping at once or the novelty of it all?  I don't know, but I still miss my warm bed.

I spent some time talking to people in the middle of the night last night and this morning waiting in line to get their hands on the coveted PlayStation 3.  If you weren't in line or about two days chances are you didn't have much of a chance of getting one.
Many I talked to planned to sell them for a markup on eBay.  I can't say that I blame them given how much they are going for.  But some I talked to were disappointed that some who really want a PS3 and waited in line for one won't get one because someone else is selling it to the highest bidder.  What do you think, is it free market enterprise or taking advantage of the situation?

Seeing people camped out in tents outside Circuit City waiting to buy a PlayStation 3 on my way to work today reminded me of the time I stayed up all night outside a store to get a PlayStation 2 a few years back.  Here's an old blog I wrote last year thinking back on that night when the Xbox 360 came out:

There’s something nostalgic about video games that turns grown men back into children.
Maybe that’s what possesses adults and teenagers to wait in line for hours or even days to get a new video game system.
While talking to excited gamers waiting in line a day before today’s nationwide release of the Xbox 360 console, I had a flashback.
Five years ago I was one of them.
After sporadically playing video games in college since my childhood Nintendo days I decided I wanted to get back in the game.
I had to have a Playstation 2. But after hearing of supply shortages similar to those afflicting the new Xbox 360 consoles, I knew I had to act fast.
So I enlisted my most trusted shopping expert — my wife — in determining a game plan.
Somewhat surprisingly she suggested we (not I, but we) camp out overnight to make sure I got one. How cool is my wife?
We got there around 2 a.m. if memory serves and waited in the car for about 15-20 minutes. But soon after realizing there was another car idling in the parking lot waiting, we decided to brave the cool wee morning hours.
Our mad dash for the front of the store ensured our spot as first in line — and a cold slab of concrete to sit on for the next several hours.
There we sat bundled up with winter jackets and sleeping bags as others slowly added to the growing throng.
It was cold and we were tired, but I don’t recall sleeping. I was too excited. Those in line anxiously chatted about how sweet the revolutionary new system would be. It could play older Playstation games and DVDs, had a memory card and you could even prop it up sideways.
When the doors finally opened the select few of us who were at the front of the line — and guaranteed a game system — ran for the electronics department like giddy little kids who couldn’t wait to get home from school to play their favorite video game.
Suffering from the affects of sleep deprivation, I was sufficiently groggy upon returning home. But I still managed to spend a few hours playing video games before finally trudging off to bed.
I don’t think my video game playing adversely affected my relationship with my wife, with the exception of a few stern looks telling me when it was time to shut the system down.
But I can see how that could happen.
I saw on a national TV report this morning that some college students have banded together and formed a support group for girlfriends of video game players.
Playing video games can become an addiction.
I’m Ryan Schuster and I was addicted to Playstation.
“Hi, Ryan.”
I know, I know, I’m a nerd.
I used to try to pretend that it wasn’t so, but as I approach 30, I have stopped trying to fight it and embraced my own nerd-doom.
At one point I was spending almost every waking hour at home playing Playstation (which I was able to do because my wife and I worked opposite shifts).
Sometimes I would get to work a few minutes late because I had to finish a game before leaving home.
But the arrival of my daughter about a year ago threw a monkey wrench into my video game playing.
These days changing dirty diapers and playing peek-a-boo with my daughter trumps finding the new Grand Theft Auto cheat codes.
Sometimes I miss the action, the adrenaline of playing.
But I guess we all have to grow up eventually, even if it takes us 29 years and a night camping out in front of Target to do it.

What are your favorite old school guilty pleasures?  Have you held onto an old Atari video game system?  Do you search through vinyl record collections at garage sales?  Do you miss the lava lamp you had in your dorm room (I do)?  Do you still pull out your hair trying to figure out a Rubik’s Cube?  I bought one of the new ones last year and gave up after about five tries.

Many of our childhood possessions are still available at stores, pawnshops or on the Internet.  Some of my old school favorites include: Monopoly, Big Wheels, NERF balls and the Nintendo Tecmo Bowl video game.  What do you miss and what old school guilty pleasures do you still indulge in?

A recent survey indicates Americans are spending more time searching the internet for products and comparison shopping for prices before going into stores.

Do you check out the internet before you go shopping?  Do you buy products online or shop in stores?  Do you feel secure using Pay Pal or submitting your credit card number on a web site?