More Wii!

I'm officially a video game junkie. Despite the fact that i have THE FLU, I got up this morning at 7 am, drove to the local mall, and waited outside the EB Games to pre-order my Nintendo Wii. I got there just before 8 am, and there was already a good line-up. In fact, there were two lines, one for the Wii, and one for the Playstation 3. The scary thing I noticed about the Wii line was that, except for a mother waiting with her son, I was the only female. I was also probably the oldest person in line, again except for the mother. However, we all had one thing in common: we were gamers, and that transcends age and gender. Not once did I feel like, "What am I doing here?" After all, we nerds need to stick together.

Armed with my new Nintendo DS, I sat down on the cold mall floor to wait. One of the guys in line said he heard that the EB Games would open at 8:30 to do the pre-orders. I felt like I got here just in time, especially since I figured they would only have 10-12 pre-orders available. I was lucky number 8, so I was confident that I was in. At around 9 am, the EB Games guy arrived. He came out a few minutes later and said, "Do you want the good news first?" One guy actually said, "No, give us the bad news first so we have something to look forward to!" Anyway, the good news was that there were, in fact, 12 pre-orders for the Wii. The bad news was that there were only 5 pre-orders for the PS3. Sadly, the PS3 line-up was longer than that for the Wii, and the first couple of people were carrying SLEEPING BAGS. Needless to say, there were some unhappy campers in PS3 land.

By far the funniest part of the whole pre-order experience was the organization. Firstly, the customers were only allowed in the store two-at-a-time, one from each line. The employees lifted the gate (using their magical key), ushered the lucky two inside, and then lowered the gate again. Secondly, there was a mall security guard present the whole time. I guess there was some concern that we would get unruly and start duking it out in the middle of the line-up, or we would rush into the store and shove our way to the front. Or maybe those unlucky bastards in the PS3 line would cause a riot and loot the store. In any case, anyone who lives on the Island knows that we are WAAAAAY to laid back for that.

So, after waiting for an hour and a half, I was the proud owner of a Wii pre-order. Those who read my previous post about the Wii will not be surprised to learn I also ordered the "Twilight Princess" game. To the average person (and those giving us strange looks in the mall), I waited for an hour and a half and paid $200 for a piece of paper. But to me, I bought my ticket to join the few who would have a Wii on launch day (provided that there are no shipping problems). Cheers!