Wow, what it's been quite an exciting and expensive week and a half interspersed with random bouts of crappiness. A week from Friday the PS3 launched, and while I couldn't have been less interested, it was quite interesting to read about the crazy things happening to the people waiting in line. Out of curiosity, I decided to head over to Best Buy during lunch to talk to my friend Marcus who works in the games section about the launch and get info on the upcoming Wii launch. Thanks to server problems at work, I ended up leaving for lunch at 1:30, so I had to hurry and be back by 2 for our weekly company meeting. In my rush, I managed to get a nice speeding ticket. Since it hasn't been a year since my last ticket, I am ineligible for defensive driving, so I get to pay the hefty fine and it all goes on my driving record, meaning more expensive insurance. Joy.
So that pretty much ruined my day, however, that night was the night of the deftones concert for their Saturday Night Wrist tour. Immediately after work I headed over to the Austin Music Hall to line up for the show. Shortly after arriving, they started letting people in and I quickly forgot about the speeding ticket. The opening band was some crap called Deadsy. The best description I can come up with for them would be Orgy (the band) with a little more edge and a lot more suck. The crowd was notably unimpressed, as was I. Practically no one moved during their entire performance, and the occasional middle finger was thrown at the band at various times during their set. Though their show could have been shorter (preferably non-existent), it ended soon enough, and the deftones were on stage in no time.
The deftones' show was awesome as usual. Let me see if I can remember the setlist... (this is mostly for my memory) From Adrenaline they played: Minus Blindfold, Nosebleed, Lifter (I think), Root, 7 Words, and Engine No. 9. From Around The Fur: My Own Summer, Around The Fur, Be Quiet and Drive, and Headup. From White Pony: Feiticeira, Digital Bath, Passenger, and Change. Knife Prty might have been in there too, can't remember now. From Deftones: Hexagram (very awesome live btw), Minerva, and Battle-Axe. And finally, from Saturday Night Wrist: Hole in the Earth, Beware, Cherry Waves (my current fav song), Xerces, Ratsiratsirats!, and Kimdracula (another current fav, and totally awesome live).
This tour's show was awesome and energetic. The show for their previous tour was a little bland compared to the others I've been to, so I didn't know what to expect this time around, but I was pleasantly surprised. Interestingly, there were a lot of emos in the crowd for this show, which was an unusual sight compared to their previous shows. I guess with the change in their musical style, they've attracted a broader range of people. The only thing I was a little disappointed about was that they didn't play any rare songs like they've usually done in the past. Everything was straight from their albums. It would have been cool if they played some Team Sleep songs as well. Don't get me wrong, I loved the show regardless, I just was hoping for something different. Oh well, at least this time around I didn't get hit in the face, glasses bent up good, or elbowed in the stomach from being in the pit. That's probably because I avoided the pit this time. Damn, I must be getting old.
The next morning I got up bright and early to drive to San Antonio to hang out with Men-Hui, set up her network, and fix her TV. We saw Stranger Than Fiction, which turned out to be better than I expected, but also kind of weird. I'm not really sure what the point of that movie was, but whatever. Afterward we cooked dinner, had gelatos, and hung out for a while. I left her place at around 12:30ish, and thanks to the tons of construction taking place in San Antonio, I got home at 2am.
When I got home I immediately loaded up Amazon.com and started refreshing the Wii page in hopes of being able to order one online. Two and a half hours later, they still hadn't posted the Wii for sale and I gave up trying so I could get some sleep in before resorting to my backup plan.
Since I knew it was going to be pretty unlikely that I would be able to order a Wii online, my plan was to get up early and go to Best Buy to line up and hopefully score a Wii. Being that it was 4:30am when I went to bed, I hate getting up early, and I hate the cold, I decided I wasn't going to try *too* hard to get a Wii, which meant I would just go to Best Buy at 8 in the morning to line up. I knew everyone south was going to go to the 290 Best Buy, so I figured my best bet would be to go to the new one on Bee Caves. So at 7:30, I got up and drove to the Best Buy with high hopes.
I arrived at 8 to have my hopes shattered briefly when I saw the line of people wrapped around the side of the building. Still partially hopeful, I joined the line, praying they hadn't passed out vouchers yet. For a while, no one else got in line behind me, which had me quite worried. Eventually a few more people showed up and after a while, a decent decent line formed behind me.
Standing in line was a rather annoying experience. The majority of people in line were either parents trying to get their kids' Christmas present, or just kids with their parents. There were a few dorks around my age interspersed throughout the line, including one particularly annoying Nintendo fanboy (pictured in the first line pic, wearing the blue shirt). I expected there to be a fair amount of fanboyism coming from the line, but due to this guy's annoying voice and nonstop talking for 2 hours, I was going nuts. Also annoying was the kid directly in front of me who couldn't stop talking about Zelda. Sadly, his first exposure to the Zelda series was Ocarina of Time. He'll never know the joy of Zelda II. Damn kids. Apparently he and his dad had been waiting in line at the Target down the street since 3am, and when they started letting people in at 7, the kid in front of him got the last Wii, so he and his dad quickly drove to Best Buy to try again.
Eventually, when it came nearer to opening time, some Best Buy employees started handing out vouchers, which didn't guarantee you a console, and was only good for an hour and a half. Not sure how exactly that worked, but I guess basically it allowed you to enter the store to try and buy a Wii. As I watched the guy hand out the tickets to the people in line ahead of me, I noticed the stack getting smaller and smaller, until it got small enough that I could count how many he had in his hand. I did a quick count and realized that I was getting the last ticket. I let out a sigh of relief when he handed me the last one, then looked back to the people behind me. Their faces all turned to a look of panic when they saw me get the last ticket. I thought to myself, "wow that sucks." Then the employee smiled and reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small stack of tickets for the rest of the line.
As you can see from the picture above, I was number 65 in line, which was actually pretty good because Marcus from the other Best Buy had told me a couple days before that all Best Buys were supposed to get 80 to 100 Wiis at launch. While waiting in line, a Best Buy employee told us that we were smart to choose that particular location, because since it was a relatively new store, they were given double the amount of consoles for launch in an effort to attract more people there.
So finally at 9am they started letting people into the store, one at a time to buy Wii stuff. I don't know why it took so long, but an hour and a half later, I was the proud owner of a Wii. I picked up Excite Truck, Red Steel, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Sadly, they were sold out of Wiimotes by the time I got in. Afterward I went home to get some much needed rest. I was going to play with the Wii as soon as I got home, but I was so exhausted from getting up early and going to bed late several days in a row, combined with the driving to and from San Antonio.
I was going to start talking about the Wii, but seeing as how it's 1:30am and I'm super tired (not to mention I have work tomorrow), I'll have to finish this post tomorrow. Stay tuned!
PS: Sorry for the quality of the pics today. All of them in this post were taken with my cell phone.
wow. I wouldn't even call him fanboy. How 'bout Wii -tard? Here's my Wii horror story. There were a bunch of noisy little kids behind us and a hardcore wii-tard about our age who claimed to have bought a few games prior to the wii and how they were VERY LOUD. I was trying to get a little bit of sleep, but those guys were bloody annoying. I didn't mind that the little kids were showing off their extra wii-mote, but the runts were bashing on the 360 (I don't think they even know how to operate it). That was all I had to put up with from 4 AM until 9:00 AM. God, how I wish they cut off at number 66 so that I could have done away with them and got my sleep. Whats even worse was that the parents of those little kids decided to show a lot of hubris by taking the pictures of the poor souls who never got their wiis. Man I hope their karma catches up to them.
btw, sorry about the long rant, but are there any bonuses in DOAX2 thats compatible with DOA4 or vice-versa?
haha, your experience sounds pretty bad. what made the wiitard in my line so annoying was that all the parents kept asking him questions about the Wii to which he'd go on a long ass explanation. That's how it was for pretty much the entire time I was in line.
I don't know if there are any cross compatible bonuses for DoAX2 and DoA4. I haven't played it much, only 2 or 3 days of the vacation. I haven't read anything that suggests there are bonuses like that, but then again, I haven't read anything about the game, so who knows. That'd be cool though. I'll talk more about DoAX2 in my next post.