Sunday Lauren tried to get me a Wii and surprise me, but she waited until Sunday afternoon to look, so there were none for her.
She told me this in hopes that I would have better luck, being as I’m obsessed at the moment, so I started tracking restocking and trying to figure out who would have Wii’s and when they would have them.
In looking at the Davenport Best Buy after spending the night at Dirk and Val’s house (which is awesome…a very cool house) I actually found the 20 GB PS3 restocked. I had one in my hand and Lauren (the keeper of the money) talked me out of buying it and selling it on Ebay.
So, I have now checked much of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area for Wii’s, much of the Davenport area, and some of Peoria, and all of the stores close to my parents here in O’Fallon IL. I came up with nothing.
But, EB Games/ Gamestop has been saying they would have them for black friday, at every place I’ve stopped.
So, my little brother and his girlfriend want stuff from the Best Buy sale today, and we hatched a plan. There is one GameStop, and one EB games close to my parents house. They drive by one and tell me how many people are there, and if Best Buy is going to have them at about 4:15ish in the AM (they left around 3AM). So, I go to the other place (Best Buy isn’t going to have them…and if they did my brother was too far back in line, around 500 people in front of him, to get one,). I’m there by about 4:25 after I throw on my clothes and grab a lawn chair and a blanket.
I wait in line. Find out that this EB is going to open at 5 instead of the advertised 7AM. Bonus! No getting too cold, cuz it is already 4:30, and I’m about 10 people back.
4:45ish, manager shows up, says that there are no Wii’s, goes inside finds out that he does have 2 in stock (not nearly as many as they had been promising, and had expected to be delivered). He says to try GameStop (the other location I had David stake out for me earlier) So, I put my name on some call-back list in case they come in today, and bolt for Toy’s ‘R’ Us, cuz I don’t think the gamer crowd is going to be there.
Toy’s ‘R’ Us is a mad-house, and the sun isn’t even near up yet. I get in, discover there were no Wii’s here either. I leave, to try to meet my brother in Best Buy. There is still a line wrapping around the building to get in. I decide to go back and try Target near the EB games since they open at 6 instead of 5 like everyone else did. Target line wraps around the building and half way down the road to get to the target. So, I just play the Wii demo at the EB games for a few minutes, and then head to GameStop. GameStop line people have organized a list, so that there doesn’t have to be a formal line (I think they wanted to huddle for warmth). I find out I’m 23 on the list with 3 people trying for a PS3 on the list and everyone else trying for a Wii.
6:50ish in the AM – Have had a nice discussion w/ people in line about XBoxes, and Microsoft software….minor mentions of me throwing linux in there, and manager arrives for store. He says he doesn’t have any Wii’s or PS3’s. Line gets pissed. Waits anyway to confirm that he wasn’t lying for some insane reason.
But, alas it is true…no Wii’s at Gamestop, and they aren’t going to have a call-back list. So, 3 hours of crazy pre-sunlight attempts to get a Wii, and lots of looking in other cities yields 1 wii-mote, 1 nunchuck, 1 cheap 1GB SD card, and NO Wii!
I’m too tired to be pissed, and figured I might not be early enough to get one at either place so I’m not supper bummed. But for them to have 2 total, and 4 more at the mall for the entire yuppie St. Louis suburb of O’Fallon is just depressing. (yes there are yuppies east of St. Louis…despite the stigma East St. Louis has)
I really lhink I could have got one in the cities, cuz there wouldn’t be as much craziness, the Tar-ghetto by my house is a good candidate for getting one I think.
This mostly just reminds me of how much I don’t want to live in the suburbs.