Wii
Aaron's birthday fell on Thanksgiving this year, and I felt that he doesn't seem to ever get big-ticket items. In other words, he rarely spends money on himself and when he does it's for a bag of socks or something droll. A year or two ago, I tried giving him this iPod speaker system, but it ended up not sync'ing correctly. So his birthday was going to be overshadowed by Thanksgiving and he needed a nice big gift that wasn't comprised of clothes and DVD's.
I looked into getting him an electronic drum set, but was deterred by the price (even of used ones!). He had also expressed interest in a Wii, and I wanted to get one on the worst day possible: the day before Thanksgiving. Why is it the worst day, you ask? Wouldn't the day before Christmas be worse? Well, people had already gotten a jump on their holiday shopping and bought out many stores. Meanwhile, the stores were being restocked, but the Wii's were hoarded in anticipation of Black Friday.
Thanks to a good friend in the right job, I was able to secure one the day before Thanksgiving, surprised Aaron, and hooray! Wii fun! But it's not that simple. Aaron wants to download old games from Nintendo, but we don't have a wireless router. The LAN connector for the Wii was $30. I found a good Linksys router for $40 after rebate. Thus, we wait for the router because I bought it online and everyone's online purchases are floating around UPS and FedEx warehouses.
This is Aaron's gift, remember? Well, I went out and got Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix for the Wii. You make "realistic" wand movements: that's why I got it, thought it would be fun to wave around my wand. I'm hooked. I am more than 2/3rd's of the way done with the game and I've had it for less than a week, though. I even had a dream about it last night with it's wonderfully large map. I like games with good maps. So Aaron plays with Wii Sports in the morning and I HP-it-up in the evening. Nerds. Well, it's a good way to distract me from waiting for news about grad school?
I looked into getting him an electronic drum set, but was deterred by the price (even of used ones!). He had also expressed interest in a Wii, and I wanted to get one on the worst day possible: the day before Thanksgiving. Why is it the worst day, you ask? Wouldn't the day before Christmas be worse? Well, people had already gotten a jump on their holiday shopping and bought out many stores. Meanwhile, the stores were being restocked, but the Wii's were hoarded in anticipation of Black Friday.
Thanks to a good friend in the right job, I was able to secure one the day before Thanksgiving, surprised Aaron, and hooray! Wii fun! But it's not that simple. Aaron wants to download old games from Nintendo, but we don't have a wireless router. The LAN connector for the Wii was $30. I found a good Linksys router for $40 after rebate. Thus, we wait for the router because I bought it online and everyone's online purchases are floating around UPS and FedEx warehouses.
This is Aaron's gift, remember? Well, I went out and got Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix for the Wii. You make "realistic" wand movements: that's why I got it, thought it would be fun to wave around my wand. I'm hooked. I am more than 2/3rd's of the way done with the game and I've had it for less than a week, though. I even had a dream about it last night with it's wonderfully large map. I like games with good maps. So Aaron plays with Wii Sports in the morning and I HP-it-up in the evening. Nerds. Well, it's a good way to distract me from waiting for news about grad school?