So I really don\’t have a Blockstats update, but I have this deep desire to post the story of how I acquired my Wii. It\’s nothing special to anyone but me, but I don\’t run my personal blog much anymore, so this seems as good a place as any to document it.
Two friends of mine set out at 3:00pm Saturday afternoon to find a 24 hour Wal-mart to attempt to get our Wii at Midnight. With the Gamecube and the DS, this has never been a problem going this early (in fact, I was normally top 10 in line). But this releasing on a weekend seemed to have changed that a little, for when we got to our first Wal-mart, we found that we had missed the line by like 5 people.
We then headed to another Wal-Mart, where we came to find that people had literally been lined up since the PS3 release ended. From there we placed a call to one more Wal-mart to find that yes, their line was locked down as well…
By this point, we were feeling like we had lost, I placed a call to a friend of mine that had lined up at a distance location and said to find out what the price was to buy a spot in line. He told me he would get back to me.
We then went to dinner to talk about our next move. There was a plethora of options, for our research told us that the nearby Target had 59 units at 8:00AM. The Best Buy had a similar number at 10:00AM. A non-24 hour walmart had 20+ units at 11:00AM, and Toys R Us supposidly had 200+ units somtime that morning as well.
We decided that we would most likely head to the Target, but first we decided to drive the 30 minutes to go to the Wal-mart our friend was at. We ended up staying until the actual release time of Midnight, on the off chance that we might just be able to pick up the games. We also did it on the off chance that Target didn\’t have the games or supplies we wanted, so we did manage to pick up additional Wii-motes, Zelda, and Excite Truck there.
The time now was pushing the 1:00AM marker, so the only thing to do was head to Target. We arrived there shortly and found ourselves waiting in the second line of the night in spots 13,14, and 15.
Now this is the part of the story where I wish my brain would have kicked in a little sooner. It was 1:00am. There were only 15 people in line, and, it was 22 degrees Fahrenheit outside. In other words, it got cold really really fast. My group had all picked up hand warmers which we were using more as foot warmers and neck warmers. We were all bundled very tightly as well… But for the life of me, I\’m not sure why we didn\’t just hop in our car the entire time until the line got say… to the 30 mark. Especially since we a) had our games, and b) the 30th person didn\’t show up tile maybe… um… 4 or 5am.
On the upside: we had plenty of great conversations about the Wii with everyone from a very weird kid would we were negotiating the price of buying his spot in line (at Wal-mart), to a guy from Gamestop who had gotten his a day or two early. John, a friend and target employee I knew, got a nice name list going so as to keep the mad rampaging down, and to allow people who had been there for 3-4 hours to go and take a bathroom break, or a unfreeze your body break.
Well 8:00 am couldn\’t roll around soon enough. I found myself talked into buying more games so as to acquire a Wii Gift Card (it\’s so pretty). We got through the line without a hitch, and were back to the home base by 9:00am.
Now here\’s where the bad part of the story kicks in: At this point, we had all been awake for over 24 hours AND, we had all been frozen, for at least 8 hours. Although I took the time to set my Wii up, and even turn it on long enough to download an update… I just didn\’t have the energy to give any game a shot. So I went to bed.
Needless to say, I was up 2-3 hours later. The rest of my afternoon was mostly spent playing Wii Sports with my Girlfriends family, and with my family. It was awesome though: I can\’t remember the last time I saw my dad playing a Console Game, that wasn\’t racing, and having fun. Most of the time it would be frustration because the controls wouldn\’t do what he wanted them to. Heck: even my Mom got in and played a round of Wii Baseball (which is amazing considering I can\’t ever recall her picking up a controller). Nintendo: You\’ve done it again, and this, is why I love you.
So to sum up the day more or less, I acquired a Wii, an additional wiimote and nunchuck, Zelda, Excite Truck, Monkey Ball, Red Steel, and Ray-man. Quite a bit of cash, but hey, beats trying to buy a ps3 (which I won\’t be doing anyway).
If you\’ve got your Wii story yet, post it here. I\’ll try to seem if I can\’t find some Photos from everything the other night and post them.