Gil’s Blog

Five days after my birthday, I was finally able to score a Wii!  That’s not bad considering how hard it is find one, especially in the Bay Area.  So, yesterday I was frequenting the forums over at slickdeals around 5:45PM, when someone posted that the Game Stop at Valley Fair had just received a huge shipment of Wiis.  At first I was skeptical.  Plus, if the post was true, I really doubted that I could get there before they ran out.  I was a good 20 minutes away from Valley Fair since it was commute hours.  At 6PM, I finally decided that I had nothing to lose, so I left work and raced over to the mall. 

I get to Valley Fair at 6:20PM.  And as I neared Game Stop, I passed by someone walking out of the store with a Wii.  Oh wow, so they really did have Wiis in stock.  Now, I hoped there’s one left for me.  When I entered the store, there were three people already waiting in line.  I hopped to the back of the line and waited patiently, or as patiently as I could.  I peered behind the counter and saw a bunch of boxes of Wiis on the ground and was confident that one of them was mine.  When I was finally next in the line, the guy at the counter had a bunch of questions for the cashier.  “Hurry up!  You’re killing me,” I was thinking to myself. 

And then it was finally my turn.  “Can I help you?” asks the cashier.  “I’d like to buy a Wii,” I answer, as I try to calm myself down.  “Sorry, we are all sold out,” he responds.  My jaw hits the floor.  “Oops, reflex….I’m just so use to saying that,” jokes the punk behind the counter who thinks he’s a comedian.  “Is there anything else I can get you?” he asks as he unveils a Wii from behind the counter.  Yeah, maybe a defribillator to get my heart started again! 

So, I walk out the door at 6:30PM with a Wii in hand.  I didn’t hang around to find out when they ran out, but I check the forums later to find that they sold out 10 minutes after I left.  Now that I’ve got a Wii, you might not hear from me for a while.  😉

With the week off due to a company shut-down, I got bored enough that I decided to try and get my hands on Nintendo’s newest game console, the Wii.  I’m actually more interested in a PS3, but I’d rather wait for the price to come down first.  Besides that, I haven’t had much time to play video games lately, so it’s probably best if I go for the cheaper game console. 

Amazon.com had advertised that they would have the Wii in stock and would be selling it sometime between 7AM-11AM PST.  So, of course, I got up at 7AM, hopped on my computer, and waited.  After an hour, I got bored and decided to hit the stores instead.  Good thing I didn’t waste any more time with Amazon.  From what I was reading on the message forums, there was a 10 second window right before 9AM where you would’ve had a chance to purchase a Wii.  Basically, your chances of purchasing a Wii from Amazon was slim and none.  But then again, I didn’t fare any better at the stores. 

Using itrackr.com, I was supposedly able to find out when local Target stores had the Wii in stock.  This is where the real fun began.  Every 15 minutes, I would log on and check.  At around 11:15AM, I found that the Target on Coleman Ave (near the Airport) reported that they had the Wii in stock for 10 minutes already.  I put on my shoes and drove the 20 minutes it took to get there, but no luck.  That Target had only received a shipment of 6 Wiis, and sold them out about 15 minutes before I got there.  When I got home, I checked itrackr.com again and the Target on Hillsdale Ave had the Wii in stock.  I was off to the races again.  I got there in 10 minutes, but the sales lady denied having received any new shipments of Wii that day.  Either she was lying to me, or itrackr was wrong.  But either way, no Wii for me. 

By now, I figured my best chance at getting a Wii would be from the Westgate Target, which is about 5 minutes from my house.  At about 1PM, itrackr reported that the Westgate Target had some Wii in stock, so I made my way there as fast as I could.  Once again, I was denied.  The sales dude confirmed that they did receive a new shipment of Wiis, but they were gone in a matter of minutes.  So my first day of Wii hunting ended with no success. 

This morning I was startled out of bed at 8:30 AM by my security alarm.  Could it be another break-in attempt?  {At some later date, I guess I’ll have to tell you about the break in attempt that happenned just a little over a week ago.}  Checking the display on my bedroom keypad, I could see that it indicated that the entry from the garage had been breached.  I don’t know if it was because I was still groggy from being woken up so early, or if it was my confidence that there was no way in hell that there would be two attempted break-ins within the same month; but I went to check out the garage entry without a weapon in hand.  I don’t know what I would have done had I actually encountered an intruder….well, besides running away screaming like a little girl!  When I got out to the family room, I could see that the door was slightly open, but still locked.  There were no tool marks on the lock, nor any evidence of an attempted break-in.  When I finally noticed the wind howling outside, I put two and two together and figured that I must not have closed the door all the way and the wind had blown the door open.  So I gave Alice and myself a pretty good scare this morning by not making sure that the door was completely shut before heading off to bed.  Chalk it up as another lesson learned for us.