Most of us are recovering from a hefty array of Thanksgiving dinner portions this morning, and some brazen and brave souls are probably standing in the cold (and have been for hours) waiting for the doors to open early today. Retailers across the country will be opening at 5am or 6am this morning to recruit as many bargain shoppers as possible.

This way, each one can make the inventory dials spin like mad and move as much product off the shelf as any one day can allow. As usual, the bulk of the sales items at some of the largest retailers in the U.S. are centered around home electronics and electronic gadgets. There's some toys on sale too, of course!

With all that said, if you're one of the patient folks who didn't get up in darkness to slog down to a customer line at your favorite retailer, I'll do some of the entertaining work for you today. Like this writer, many of you reading this probably traveled from home for Thanksgiving. I'm updating you from the warm confines of a mountain lodge in Missouri. With a hot cup of coffee, a laptop and high-speed internet connection, I've collected some bargains for you. As such, you may want to call your spouse if he or she is in line at some retailer and snatch up some of the below.

First of all, visit the below websites if you really want a primer on all the Black Friday sales this morning:

• www.bfads.net
• www.gottadeal.com
• www.fatwallet.com

So, while preparing to watch some football this afternoon, take a few moments and see if any of the below items catch your interest. From my perspective, the below represents some of the hotter bargains on retail shelves today (and quite possibly, tomorrow -- if there are any left).

If you're into visiting those 'virtual' retail shelves instead of piling yourself out of bed at the crack of dawn, online e-tail giants Amazon.com and Buy.com are waiting to serve you as well with their own Black Friday sales:

• www.amazon.com Black Friday Specials
  
• www.buy.com Black Friday Specials
  

Here are the hot hitters from perusing some national newspaper advertising circulars and website advertisements this morning:

Wal-Mart Specials

• Garmin portable GPS -- $298
• Magnavox 47" LCD HDTV (1080p) -- $1,298
• Acer 17" Widescreen LCD computer monitor -- $148
• Little Tikes Jump 'N' Slide -- $168
• Microsoft Xbox 360 with $50 gift card -- $279.92
  

Target Specials

• TruTech 19" LCD HDTV with built-in DVD player -- $199
• Olevia 37" LCD Widescreen HDTV -- $549
• Kodak 8.0 Megapixel digital camera with 3x optical zoom -- $89
• Magellan Color Auto GPS navigation system -- $139
• Sony PlayStation Portable core system with 5 free PSP movies -- $139

Best Buy Specials

• Panasonic 42" Plasma HDTV (720p) -- $899.99
• Kodak 6.1 Megapixel digital camera with 3x optical zoom -- $99.99
• Sony Vaio laptop PC with Intel dual-core processor -- $399.99
• eMachines desktop PC with 17" LCD monitor and printer -- $199.99
• SanDisk Clip 2GB MP3 digital music player -- $34.99

Circuit City Specials

• Compaq Presario laptop PC with Intel dual-core processor -- $299.99
• Element 19" LCD HDTV -- $199.99
• Polaroid 40" LCD HDTV -- $699.99
• SanDisk 4GB USB flash drive -- $21.99
• Seagate 500GB external disk drive -- $79.99

Have fun shopping today and here's hoping you can locate and purchase as many of the above specials as your wallet or purse will allow. Happy Black Friday!