Posted

Nov 20th 2006

Mood

Carefree

Music

Third Eye(live) - Tool

My friends and I had planned to camp out on account of us missing out on all of the pre-order offers, and the fellows at Best Buy stating there would be 250 Wiis no later than last week. This was my first camp out, so needless to say, we were fairly poorly prepared.

The plan was as follows:

1) Get off work as early as possible(which turned out to be 7:00am) Saturday morning
2) Run minor errands that needed to be dealt with, thenget home, pop a sleeping pill(to ensure I'd be fully rested and ready... and seeing as I seem to have some sort of insomnia, and I'm a pretty light sleeper, sleep aid seemed appropriate) and crash out until ~6:00pm Sat.
3) Wake up after a glorious full 8 hours of sleep, shower, then meet my mates at their place. We were then to play 360, munch out on pizza hut, make our way up to dennies for 4:00am and wander out way up to Best Buy at for 6:00am Sunday morning.
4) Get Wii, and dance with joy.

Here's how the day actually went:

I got off work at 7:00am sharp. Nothing to worry about. Ran general errands. No problem or delays here at all. Got home and attempted to crash out, but as it turned out, the whatever over-the-counter-crap sleeping aid I purchased didn't work so well. I didn't feel sleepy or drowsy... Instead, my ENTIRE BODY WENT NUMB, and I couldn't open my eyes for half an HOUR. I was basically comatose until the crap wore off, and I couldn't sleep. It was creepy as HELL.

I passed out from lack of sleep at ~3:00pm Sat., only to get woke up 2 and a half hours later by a lousy phone-call. I figure half an hour of more sleep wouldn't really help me, so I just get up and got ready, far from well rested, and far from pleased with the results of the sleeping aid. Got over to my mates place, and hooked up the 360 action, with some DBZ BT2 breaking up rounds of Gears of War and F.E.A.R.. At around 8:00pm I call up best buy only to find out there are only "around 80" Wiis being shipped to them... suddenly lady luck didn't seem to sway in our favor. Still, on we played the 360 and PS2.

We were getting prepared to make the journey to Dennys for the way early breakfast/snack when I get a call from my "boss". As it turned out, my boss knows someone at Best Buy, and he(the BB dude) told my boss that there were already around 50 people lined up outside at 1:40am and my boss let me in on this info as well... Me and my friends FRANTICALLY make our way up to best buy only to be greeted by a near mini-circus. While I did appreciate the heads up, the fact that my boss CONSTANTLY asked and begged that we let him cut in line after work cheezed me off. There was no way I was chancing getting thrown out of the line just so he could cut in and buy a Wii at 8:00am.

Upon arriving at Best Buy, we soon realized how poorly equiped we were. Booze, crazies, tents and freaks abound, I was pleased my friends opted to come with. Then came the waiting. COLD CEMENT. DOCKING BAYS FORMING BRUTAL WIND TUNNEL... IT SUCKED. My one friend ended up walking all the way back to his place to pick up pillows and blankets for us to use. It was only like -10 at its worst, but in that tunnel, between the freezing rock we plopped out butts down on and the wind constantly blowing, numbness was soon felt in places I wish to never feel again.

6&1/2 hours we sat in the cold assed tunnel. Around half way through the wait our attention was drawn to a sign. A sign stating the store was only getting 90 Wiis, and tickets for Wiis would be handed out AT 6:00am. We all though well, at least if we don't get one, we'll know at 6. Problem was, THEY DIDN'T HAND OUT THE TICKETS UNTIL 7:30AM... Half an hour before they opened. Much time was spent walking up and down the line counting heads, seeing where we stood. I always came out to 77-80 people ahead of me, but 3 other people were also counting plus my friends, and they ALWAYS came to around 90 for us.

Finally, the tickets came. My lucky number? 79. 79 out of 91. I had my ticket for a Wii. I nearly soiled myself. AND with only half an hour until the store opened, I'd surely have my Wii soon enough. Many a sing alongs broke out from 16 people recreating the Super Mario Bros theme to a chorus of the Legend of Zelda theme(around 10 or 12 of us actually sang the "Link, you come to town! You come to save, the princess Zelda" part). It was a merry time for us, and heartbreak for the 90 or so other people who showed up after the number 91. Anyone without a ticket was asked to leave.

So I get inside, I grab my Wii, I grab my red steel, I grab my zelda, I grab my extra Wii-mote, but what's this! They're completely sold out of Nunchuck attatchments AND classic controllers!! What a crock! I finish my shopping with a wi-point card and twin pack of memory sticks, and head to the checkout.

I laughed, as the guy who was ringing my through was the same little twerp who told me they were getting the 250 Wiis, and that he was gonna have one before me because he was an employee. I personally took great pleasure in rubbing in his face tha I had a Wii, and HE did not. Then I go to pay for my new found pretties, only to have one major problem. With all the Wii sales, just about EVERY credit card and debit line CRASHED. I'm sitting here looking at my best buy card and the computer screen just saying "time-out... COM-ERR" everytime he tried to ring me through. 4 terminals, 4 debit machines, and still "time-out... COM-ERR". I started to mash the panic button. I so didn't have $590 to blow on the Wii on me, but there was NO WAY IN HELL I was going to leave without one after freezing my ass off for 6 and half god damned hours.

So the kid calls up the help line. It takes 19 tries and 40 minutes, but it FINALLY went through. I had my Wii no freshly paid for, and all was well and good in the world. On the way back, intent on finding a second Nunchuck I checked EVERY store. That's 2 EBs, Best Buy, Future Shop, Walmart, Toys 'R Us, Zellers, and half a dozen game and electronic shops for the record... All of them sold out, with the SINGLE exception being Zellers. The had TWO left. I got mine and walked out a happy man. Finally, after nearly 12 hours of waiting, I had my Wii, and 2 controllers.

I got about an hour of Zelda in, and hour of Red Steel, but the main attraction was Wii Sports. Call the games shallow if you want, but 2 player boxing or 4 player bowling and 2 baseball is nothing short of a blast. 6 HOURS of strait play time here people. 4 Miis(Nate, Ryan, Josh, and our "whoever wants to pick up the controller and play profile" ASS), and hundreds of rounds of boxing later, my god man. Today has been the most fun I've had playing multiplayer since Mario Party 1. Boxing and baseball were the picks of the litter as far as most played. The entire room of almost a dozen people hanging out at my mates place were all getting into the action and cheering during the boxing matches. Me and my friend Ryan were the most captivated by Boxing though. While fighting we'd actually bob and weave our body in addition to the controller movements, so we worked up quite the sweat kicking eachothers digital Mii's butts.

So many pains, so many problems, so very, very worth it.