Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get my post that I wrote up yesterday on line last night so I might either do both tonight, or just post a day behind, we’ll have to see what ends up working out. Today’s post, which I mentioned briefly in my previous post is about my Wii story.
Initially I was looking forward to the release of the PS3 as I am a huge PS2 fan and a general Sony fan all around, however the more I read and saw about the new Nintendo Wii the more I began thinking that the Wii might be a better over all choice for the family instead of trying to convince CC that we needed to spend $600 on yet another video game system. However since the Wii was only $250 that was a much easier system to argue for. I decided to talk with my parents to see if that’s what they wanted to get us for Christmas, (it was between that and a new vacuum, thankfully fun won out over function) they agreed and began looking for the new Wii. I figured that since they live in a fairly rural area it would be easier for them than it would be for me, but two weeks later (around the middle of December) they hadn’t had any luck and asked if they could send us the money and we could look for it here in Baltimore.
Despite my best efforts there was not a Wii to be found anywhere. There were a couple of days when we were up by 5:00 AM to travel to various stores all of which were either occupied by campers who had been waiting all night, or stores that just weren’t getting any in. So we gave up our hopes for a Christmas Wii and knew that we’d get one about a week or two after Christmas once the initial excitement died down. No such luck.
One particular day, about two weeks after Christmas, CC and I woke up at 5, drove to a Target, waited until 8:00 for the store to open, only to find that they hadn’t had any systems shipped to them in over 6 weeks. By the time I drove to another store, there were already over 50 people standing in line. The same was to be found at Best Buy, Circuit City, Toys R Us and Game Stop. I did end up picking up an extra controller though which I figured we would need eventually when we finally got our Wii in hand.
Saturday I happened to be up somewhat early and decided to hit Target again as they opened in hopes that maybe they had gotten an overnight shipment of a Wii that I could score, when I got to the store I was informed that they hadn’t gotten any, but that they had 20 for the next day Sales Event. So I again planned for another early morning in the Target parking lot.
Since I get up at 4:00 every morning I tend to wake up early, even on the weekends, but tend to go back to bed until about 9 or 10 when possible. This time though I woke up, threw on some clothes, packed up my laptop and threw on a ski jacket and gloves because I knew that at some point I would be waiting outside. I decided to swing by Wal-Mart first just to see if they had gotten any in, and since it is a 24 hour store I could hit them up on my way to Target, no luck at Wal-Mart so it was on to the Target parking lot.
I was the first one there. No line outside the door, no one parked in the customer parking lot, and only a few cars in the Employee parking lot. So I picked a spot which would allow me a good view of the rest of the parking lot to keep an eye on things and fired up the laptop to watch some back episodes of Diggnation, GeekBrief.tv, and Mugglecast. The laptop battery only lasted about an hour and a half or so, so I ended up just kind of sitting around for a bit. I should have brought a pad of paper and some pens and I could have done a post while I was waiting. Oh well. The next person showed up around 5:15 or so, and then another around 5:45.
I ran into some “trouble” around 7:00 when I desperately had to use the facilities. I was nervous that if I left I would lose my place in line, however as time went on, I realized I would never be able to hold it for the additional hour, plus any time it took once we got in the store. I finally decided to make a break for it, leave the car where it was, and walk to a nearby gas station. When I returned I got back in the car and resumed my place in line.
By 7:30 there were about 10 people in the parking lot. Up until that time everyone was waiting patiently and politely inside their cars so as to stay warm (outside temperature was around 30 degrees or so) at 7:30 though someone decided that it was time to go wait in line outside the store so everyone began getting out of their cars to stand in line. I thew on my ski jacket and gloves and walked up to the building, the two women that had gotten out of their cars first smiled at me and told me that I was clearly the first one there that morning so I could “cut” to the front of the line so I could be the first to get one. Everyone was in good spirits and very well behaved, mostly because we all knew we would most likely be getting one.
Around 7:55 an employee (Store Manager?) came out and said that the good news was that they had gotten some Wii’s in, but the bad news was that they only had 3. After a short stunned silence, the Manager cracked a smile and said he was only joking and that they had 20 so it looked like everyone in the line would be able to get one so he wasn’t going to assign tickets. Finally after waiting for three and a half hours that day (and about 3 months before then) at 8:00 I was allowed into the building, where we all actually walked calmly to the Electronics department where they had the Wii’s behind the customer service kiosk. I picked up the Wii and also purchased Zelda. I asked if they had any extra Nanchuck’s but they said they only had 1 additional controller and if I wanted to purchase that, I declined as I only needed a Nanchuck and checked out.
Just as I brought it home, the kids dad showed up to take them for the day so the kids had to just look at the box before they had to leave. That left CC and I alone to set it up, play a few games and get all the parts hooked up. We had a few other errands to do that do so we couldn’t devote ourselves to the Wii entirely, but were able to get used to at least create our Mii’s which was a blast. If you haven’t already looked into a Wii, I would highly recommend it.
