Mission Report: Operation Look At the Freezing-Ass Store Campers Over There Mom
5:40am
My internal bodyclock woke me ten minutes or so before my alarm would. I've heard of people being able to set their bodyclocks to awaken them at or adjacent to a really important time, but never really experienced it. When you want to pre-order a Nintendo Wii, you've got to beat the hype-crowd, I firmly believed. Apparently, so did my body.
6:15am
I'm out the door and on my way up the 0.61 miles to the closest GameStop at York Road Plaza. About halfway there, I spy the bus that's going that way. Hey, kewl! I can get there quicker instead of continuing to trudge thru the cold. Even before the doors open, I can tell the bus is standing-room-only, and I have an 'oh shitbacon' moment at seeing this. Naturally, my paranoid mind immediately assumes all these young college-age people are heading to MY Gamestop! Screw that noise, man. I'm standing at the very front of the bus for the three-minute ride.
Natch, only one person gets off the bus.
6:25am
I'm in the lot, about to crest the hill to see the Gamestop. An immediate wave of trepidation hits me as I suddenly start to think that I didn't get up early enough, that the hype for this console is so big that my plan is going to backfire because everyone and their german shepherds are going to be thinking that this quiet, out of the way GameStop is the place to go for a good score. So I brace myself as I crest the hill from the roadway and behold...
...An empty storefront.
...
SCORE!! First one here! Withholding the sudden urge to dance a goofy Irish jig under the lot lamps, I head for a spot to stake my flag. I get to be first in line and hold it for the next 3.5 hours! ...3.5 hours...in 30 degrees...fluck*.
6:57am
After deciding to grab some breakfast...
..I get my first comment from a passerby, who asks why I'm sitting out in the cold. And of course after informing her, she promptly and jokingly tells me I'm nuts and says it'd be better if I came in to Starbucks where it's warm. Hey, I didn't mind at that point. That hot chocolate was doing something right with my insides, anyway. Still, I thanked her anyway and stayed put.
7:52am
And now, the second arrival...well...arrives! She finds a spot directly in front of the door some eight meters away from where I sat and takes up her own vigil in silence. It isn't until another half hour that someone new comes along, as the sun creeps higher, and he strikes up conversation with her. I am, by then, really wishing my cup of hot chocolate was bottomless. Both of them sound like gamers, as I can hear the occasional snatch of conversation.
9am
A fourth arrival comes, and with the last hour at hand I feel it's time to move in and secure my position. That, and the beaming sunlight out by the brick was looking really, really good to stand in. You never know how a gecko feels until some situations arise... The four of us get to chatting and striking up conversation on everything from the perspectives of The Big Three, modding consoles and different games, to what struck our interest in the Wii. It also turned out that three of us are longtime Apple product users. Damned if we don't just have magnets on ourselves to attract from a distance.
This is also the time that the keyholder showed up at the door and gave a pretty amusing comment of saying 'If I knew you guys would be out here, I'd have come sooner'. Well, maybe he did genuinely have doubts. I asked him later how much of a line he had for PS3 pre-orders at 10am. He had three people. HA!
10am
By now, we've all picked out the items on the little handouts we were given and what we were preordering. A hefty number of people trickled in in the past hour, until there were exactly twelve people waiting for store opening. How many Wiis were available to be preordered from this location? ...Yup. 12. Exactly. All this fear over not getting one and the line consists of the exact number! I can hear Alanis singing already. o/` And isn't it ironic.. o/`
So vixxie got hir preorders and rolled on to work! All the hype apparently skipped this installation, but reports show other GameStops, especially the tentpole stores in the critical areas, being mauled in minutes. We merely neatly cleaned house. Happy, and eagerly awaiting the pass of the month, sez I.
I hope everyone else who decided to do the pre-order thing was as lucky as I was! Jyaane!
-- NikkyBunny
[*]I am well aware that some of you live in colder, northern climates. You should be aware that not everyone has the same tolerance for weather that you might. Just in case you're thinking of responding with a comment along the lines of 'Dude, 30 is nothing!', a kneejerk reaction for many online posters with a need to one-up someone. :)
My internal bodyclock woke me ten minutes or so before my alarm would. I've heard of people being able to set their bodyclocks to awaken them at or adjacent to a really important time, but never really experienced it. When you want to pre-order a Nintendo Wii, you've got to beat the hype-crowd, I firmly believed. Apparently, so did my body.
6:15am
I'm out the door and on my way up the 0.61 miles to the closest GameStop at York Road Plaza. About halfway there, I spy the bus that's going that way. Hey, kewl! I can get there quicker instead of continuing to trudge thru the cold. Even before the doors open, I can tell the bus is standing-room-only, and I have an 'oh shitbacon' moment at seeing this. Naturally, my paranoid mind immediately assumes all these young college-age people are heading to MY Gamestop! Screw that noise, man. I'm standing at the very front of the bus for the three-minute ride.
Natch, only one person gets off the bus.
6:25am
I'm in the lot, about to crest the hill to see the Gamestop. An immediate wave of trepidation hits me as I suddenly start to think that I didn't get up early enough, that the hype for this console is so big that my plan is going to backfire because everyone and their german shepherds are going to be thinking that this quiet, out of the way GameStop is the place to go for a good score. So I brace myself as I crest the hill from the roadway and behold...
...An empty storefront.
...
SCORE!! First one here! Withholding the sudden urge to dance a goofy Irish jig under the lot lamps, I head for a spot to stake my flag. I get to be first in line and hold it for the next 3.5 hours! ...3.5 hours...in 30 degrees...fluck*.
6:57am
After deciding to grab some breakfast...
..I get my first comment from a passerby, who asks why I'm sitting out in the cold. And of course after informing her, she promptly and jokingly tells me I'm nuts and says it'd be better if I came in to Starbucks where it's warm. Hey, I didn't mind at that point. That hot chocolate was doing something right with my insides, anyway. Still, I thanked her anyway and stayed put.
7:52am
And now, the second arrival...well...arrives! She finds a spot directly in front of the door some eight meters away from where I sat and takes up her own vigil in silence. It isn't until another half hour that someone new comes along, as the sun creeps higher, and he strikes up conversation with her. I am, by then, really wishing my cup of hot chocolate was bottomless. Both of them sound like gamers, as I can hear the occasional snatch of conversation.
9am
A fourth arrival comes, and with the last hour at hand I feel it's time to move in and secure my position. That, and the beaming sunlight out by the brick was looking really, really good to stand in. You never know how a gecko feels until some situations arise... The four of us get to chatting and striking up conversation on everything from the perspectives of The Big Three, modding consoles and different games, to what struck our interest in the Wii. It also turned out that three of us are longtime Apple product users. Damned if we don't just have magnets on ourselves to attract from a distance.
This is also the time that the keyholder showed up at the door and gave a pretty amusing comment of saying 'If I knew you guys would be out here, I'd have come sooner'. Well, maybe he did genuinely have doubts. I asked him later how much of a line he had for PS3 pre-orders at 10am. He had three people. HA!
10am
By now, we've all picked out the items on the little handouts we were given and what we were preordering. A hefty number of people trickled in in the past hour, until there were exactly twelve people waiting for store opening. How many Wiis were available to be preordered from this location? ...Yup. 12. Exactly. All this fear over not getting one and the line consists of the exact number! I can hear Alanis singing already. o/` And isn't it ironic.. o/`
So vixxie got hir preorders and rolled on to work! All the hype apparently skipped this installation, but reports show other GameStops, especially the tentpole stores in the critical areas, being mauled in minutes. We merely neatly cleaned house. Happy, and eagerly awaiting the pass of the month, sez I.
I hope everyone else who decided to do the pre-order thing was as lucky as I was! Jyaane!
-- NikkyBunny
[*]I am well aware that some of you live in colder, northern climates. You should be aware that not everyone has the same tolerance for weather that you might. Just in case you're thinking of responding with a comment along the lines of 'Dude, 30 is nothing!', a kneejerk reaction for many online posters with a need to one-up someone. :)