For all of you that don't know, the Wii is the new videogame console from Nintendo. It comes out on Nov 19th. So, I had originally planned to camp out "all" night to get my Nintendo Wii preorder, which guarantees that I will get one as soon as possible. Then I thought better of it. Later I set my alarm for 5:30, just in case, and thought that if no-one was there then I would just go to work early. Well when I showed up at the EB Games store little before 6 there were already 24 people in line, some having been there since 1:00AM. "Oh no!" I thought. I quickly parked and got out my book, breakfast and folding stool and proceeded to sign the list as number 25. At this point I had no idea how many Wii would be available for preorder. Each store is only allowed to take a certain number of preorders. I did realize that I had stepped in pig poop on the way to the car though and began to stink the place up somthing fierce. I felt bad for the guy who was sleeping next to my feet. Everyone was college age or older. There were only 2 girls in line, though one guy's girlfriend did come by later. Two guys had trendy zip up Nintendo jackets: one plain Nintendo, one Zelda. Another had a 1up mushroom shirt. Rock on.
I have never waited outside very long for anything before and was fairly excited to do so. An industrious, slightly chubby dork had run an extension cord about 50 yards away to Publix and set up a TV, a GameCube and a dvd player, which was playing the classic Nintendo movie "Wizzard" as I walked up. I got there literaly just in time to hear the line, "It's so bad." That is a famous line that you can find a clip of on Youtube.com if you look. Somewhere between 8 and 12 people had brought their Nintendo DS's and I was sad that I hadn't brought mine. I had foolishly believed that I was going to be the only one there.
Two trips to the Publix bathroom to clean my shoe later, to no avail I might add, I overhear the guy whose sleeping head my feet were near say "Jeez those birds stink!" He wes referring to some pigeons that had landed about 20 feet away. It wasn't them it was me. "Yeah," I said. "P U."
Anyway, eventually the sun comes up and someone decides that we should probably get in an actual line, based on our sign up number. He calls out names and puts everyone in their place which is a gesture that I really appreciate. The question on everyone's mind is "how many preorders are available?" The one at the mall only has 14! Oh no! Someone mentions that this store should have "about thirty" cause those were the exact words that the manager had told them. Pheew. But wait! Someone else says, "yeah but employees are allowed to order 6 for themselves, I read it online." Oh no again! Anyway the manager comes out and says 32. Phew again! So then we all wait our turn patiently, preorder and leave. At least 12 people left the line because they couldn't get a secured pre-order. Then 15 more probably arrived after that. Some of those left, some stayed. A dad and his two young kids were urged to not waste their time. Boo hoo. An employee from my work showed up at 9:30. No one who showed up after sunrise was going to be able to get one so I waved and smiled at him. He left, eventually, after learning the truth. Some people drove by asking us what we were waiting for. "The nintendo Wii!" someone shouted, then they asked again while snickering and poeple stopped saying "Wii."
In the end I got my Wii preorder and Zelda TTP preorder, which I already had but now paid in full and one Wii-mote and nunchuck atachment. The total geek fest 2007 was "so bad."
