There were just too many Wii-related puns I could have used, so I took a different tack. This is the story, NAY, the saga of my efforts to procure a Wii.
Ro asked as we walked off the train on Sunday morning, launch day: “Is
this the nerdiest thing we’ve ever done?”
It might be (for me – Ro quickly determined that it was, in
fact, the nerdiest thing she had ever done). The only thing I can think of that
might come close is also Nintendo-related. A few weeks before the DS Lite came out here, they were released in
Japan. Instead of just waiting a month,
I bought one off of eBay (though not for anything more than it would have cost
me here). It is light blue, a color that isn’t even available in the US (I win!).
It arrived, all set up in Japanese, and it took me a good 20 minutes to figure
out how to set everything to English. Stupid pictogram menu.
Anyway. The Nintendo Wii was released last Sunday. The release came on
the heels of the PS3 launch, but I tried to assure everyone that it would be different! And it was. While there were lines
for the console, there were fewer overnight campers, lines were calm and
orderly, and no one was shot at, actually successfully shot, mugged, or trampled. So we’ve got that going
for us. Far more units were released at launch than for the PS3 (word is 700,000),
but they still sold out in less than a day.
Ro and I dragged ourselves out of bed at 6:30. Granted, that isn’t that early, but it’s a balance – ideally you want to maximize sleep with still getting a Wii. It was my
nerdy idea, Ro was coming along for moral support/because she still hadn’t
decided whether she should pull the trigger. We scrambled to catch the 7:04 am
bus to the mall. It was freezing. And sort of raining. We reached the end of
the Best Buy line, saw how long it was, stood there for about 30 seconds, then
hailed a cab to take us to the Target a mile or so away. Our cab driver wanted
to know more about this “Wii” (as he dropped me off he also wanted me to call
him if they were not sold out so he could get one for his son). The Internets
had already told me that this particular Target had 24 in stock; after a few
minutes in line, intelligence reports filtered back that 24 tickets had already
been given out. Most of us gamely remained in line, just in case, or to look at
games. Or, in the case of the lady behind us, because she did not understand
the concepts of a) lines, b) tickets, and c) something being sold out. Since
the Target was opening in less than 20 minutes, we stuck it out and purchased
two dishtowels. Success! Sigh.
Our wait for the bus home was marred by the COLD and the
bratty townie teens who had (so we gathered) camped out all night, taken 6 of
the tickets when they were handed out, sold 5 of those tickets to others in
line, and bought just one Wii. The thing that made me want to push them into
the street was how they would not stop talking about how stupid people could be
to just show up that very morning and expect to get a Wii (when, shut up,
plenty of people did just that). The thing that made Ro want to push them into
the street was everything. Seriously, they would not stop talking.
We finally got home, and Ro smartly went back to bed. I was
exhausted but wired from my Dunkins’ large, so I laid on the couch, laptop on
stomach, hitting F5 on Amazon’s site, waiting for them to go on sale. And they
did, at 11am, for 30 seconds. I even got one in my cart (!) only to have it
cruelly moved to my saved items list after my next button-click.
I spent hours on Sunday on Amazon’s message boards and the
Internet, seeking out little bits of Wii news – where they were still available
(nowhere), when they might be so again (tomorrow, Friday, Christmas, NEVER),
and engaging in a cycle of checking eBay-seeing how many jerks were selling
their Wiis for twice the price-becoming enraged-going to the Amazon boards to
see who else was enraged-checking the PS3 auctions and being glad I don’t want
a PS3. I continued the hunt on Monday, following a trail that led to
Walmart.com (which I refused to buy because 1) Wal-mart and 2) they were forcing
people to also buy 8 games), ToysRUs.com (too late), and CompUSA.com (way too
late). I made my mom check the stores
where she lives.
I had failed thus far. I failed to do the nerdiest thing I
have ever tried to do. I had to take a break for Thanksgiving, because I was in upstate New York, land of no Internet. CB managed to venture out on Black Friday and procure one, and this gave me hope. When I got home Friday night I determined that my best bet was Best Buy on Sunday. They were rumored to be doing a second launch of sorts.
The strike team quickly went into action on Saturday. CB went to one Best Buy to investigate in person the availability of the Wii. And it’s a good thing too, as they were apparently lying outright to anyone calling the store, in order to avoid having too much of a line. We chose to hit that store, rather than the one in Cambridge, the site of my failure a week earlier. To make a long and victorious story short, CB, another hopeful friend, and I made a vague plan involving a Zipcar and 4am. A drive by at 4:50am revealed no line, so we took a nap for an hour at CB’s place before heading back to officially begin waiting in line. We were numbers 4 and 5 when they handed out the tickets three and a half hours later. There were over 40 systems, though a few latecomers were turned away. It was a fun and nerdy time spent in line.
It was confirmed, by the way, that buying that DS lite was the nerdiest thing I had ever done when one of the awesome nerds in line with me today hi-fived me when he saw it.
Posted by rotablog 
Posted by rotablog 
Posted by rotablog 