Monday, November 20, 2006

We love Wii

NOTE: Wii is a proper noun in the context of a personal name (much like iPod), with neither "The Nintendo" or even "the" in front of it, so, though seeming like I've left out a word in several cases, I have not.

I wanted a Wii, bad. So at 5:00 PM on Saturday, I went and waited in the line in front of the Bellingham Best Buy and, considering what the PS3 lines had been like, I was supposed to no one there. So my friend and I set up camp, where we waited taking shifts going into best buy and getting controllers (which were sold out by their closing at 11). At about 8, we had some others show up, bringing the total people in the line up to 4 people. Watching movies and reading, we waited the time away.

By the time I'd finished a short nap, about 15 people had shown up, and when I finished reading another hour later, we were into the 30s. Eventually the line got to the maximum of 45 and we all dug in and waited as the night got colder. Some people ordered pizza and shared it with those there, and someone had set up a laptop and was playing South Park (Nice...) and later some movies. Some people had brought DS's, and were playing around in pictochat, which brought the pleasant surprise message of "All Hail Ball," which resulted in a long conversation between a fellow PAX attendee.

At around 12:30 I set up my sleeping bag with the rain kicking up, and slept. I woke up at around 6:00 as the guy sitting next to me with a portable DVD player was watching wrestling (At six fucking thiry, what the hell?) much to my displeasure. When I sat up, I noticed that the rain had kicked up into a full blown storm, where anything that wasn't nailed down was blowing into my face (me being at the front of line, and the wind blowing towards me). At around 6:30, those Best Buy employees who had already arived started up a list, to prevent what almost happened five minutes after the list had returned.

After the list had finished going around and been double checked (to make sure nobody wrote themselves earlier into the line), some guy got out of his car, into the back of the line and with a clipboard and paper in hand, yelled out "I'm going to start up a list to make sure nobody loses their place or anything, Ill just start it back here and toss it down the line." This was met with mostly laughter and incredulity, especially from those of us towards the front of the line. We politely informed him that the line was likely full, and that, while it was a nice try, he could go fuck himself.

At 8 AM, the Blue Shirts came out to give out tickets that, for a few hours at least, guaranteed that those in the line would get Wii's. At this, several people went home or to breakfast, while about 60% of the line stayed, not wanting to lose out on any play time with their forthcoming Wii's. Several people tried to explain that now that everyone had their tickets, the line didn't matter anymore. In a period of about three minutes, they found themselves right at the back of the line, or at least in their respective spots near the back.

Finally, at 9, the doors opened with both employees and my camera's flashing. My friend and I, first in line, went in. Though he had to flee to the bathroom, I was the first to go through the checkout with the Wii. At about 8:30, my roommate showed up to pick us up, so as soon as my friend had checked out with Wii, we headed back and set up Wii. Harrison stole the big TV upstairs for his Wii, and together we had four Wiimotes between us (only 2 nunchucks though, limiting us to WiiSports for 4 player).

I was mildly worried of Wii's physically demanding control scheme, but these vanished after I realized I had been playing for several hours. So far a ton of people have come to play Wii, and we have a ton of Mii's set up. So anyone reading this from the residence halls, come on down!

-Mindspy

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