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(2 articles in this category)
Life Begins - Part 2
By Lukrus
Posted: December 03, 2005
November 21st 4:56PM ET: So now I am outside of Target actually, we have just spent an our inside playing the Call of Duty 2 demo on the Xbox 360 kiosk. Word has it that we are the first ones here and hopefully they remember that - we don't want to lose our spots, that would be devastating. Anything’s possible until the Xbox 360 is in our possession. This Target seems to be a very reliable place and one of the employee’s here is a friend of Staggs too, all the more reason this was a good choice. We will be spending the night outside of the store and hopefully recieving our vouchers at 6:00AM November 22nd and getting our actual 360's at 8:00AM, when the store opens. It’s not too cold yet but I’m sure it'll get colder later. We had our parents bring supplies for us, sleeping bags, coin... chairs. With $20 to spend on food and supplies this should be one hell of a night. The tax is raised in New York compared to what it is down south, but that didn't seem to be a problem, I’ll probably just be set back an extra controller. I have to save laptop battery for the rest of this report, so I will end this entry for now. At this rate only good things will come. But "maybe" is always eating at my mind...
Expect the worst and always be satisfied
November 21st 6:08PM ET: It’s beginning to rain and this mall just keeps looking greater as the time passes (we're still outside in the cold). I missed my choir practice for this and I’m quite sure my director is going to rip me a new one. Amin (Xathaec) is freaking out right now because we are not at our original destination and his father has no idea how to get to this mall. I just spoke with King J -- a long-time Xbox Live friend. I told him where we were and what we had planned to get the Xbox 360. Things tonight are strange. I always think that things will go wrong but thats just my train of thought - "Expect the worst and always be satisfied." I didn’t even expect to get the 360 before New Years and here I am living the dream of all the others who could not find a place in line. Even though it’s 6:00PM the sky is jet black and spotted with clouds... and its raining. This is going to be a long night, but maybe if I meet some people and keep in touch with those on the net right now, we should be fine. For everyone out there who won’t be getting the 360 tomorrow, this one is for you.
We truely have lost our minds
November 21st 8:12PM ET: I just met a guy named Mike, he wanted to stay overnight but simply couldn't because of his job (Kudos to you, Mike!). Mike is going home and we said we’d call him tomarrow hopefully to bring him back in time for him to receive one of the 15 vouchers for the Premium Xbox 360. Right, I forgot to mention that we are 3 out of 15 people getting the Premium version of the Xbox 360, and went through hell getting here. Mike walked around the mall earlier and discovered that Best Buy has people in line with sleeping bags and they will be spending the night in the store as well. The only difference between Best Buy and this Target - about 100 people, Best Buy is packed! Hopefully we can speak to Target and get ourselves comfortable spot on the warm floor inside. If not who cares? Time here seems to be moving a bit slow but the temperature isn’t. It’s getting cold fast and visibility is just gettin bad but everything seems to be alright. If this pulls through then we truly have lost our minds. We ate already and hopefully won’t be hungry against until the morning. I really hope that Mike gets one too. He seemed like a nice person. A fourth person may be joining us later and that would be cool. The whole staff inside knows us now, so I believe this plan is perfect. The electronics department and several customers who have gotten word about what we are doing often stare at us or smile at just how crazy we really are. One guy took the games we wanted and has stored them away for us to pick up in the morning. Here now into the 5th hour and we're standing proud with new hopes of the Xbox 360, followed by the release of GetXbox.net, the newest site launched by Team Sector 7.
I’m now going back inside for a bit, hopefully by my next entry we will have word from King J and his friend Neven, who we met through his web site neven57.com.
November 21st 10:27PM ET: Well things are getting heated fast. The line I believe has exceeded 10 members now and people are getting jumpy. In the last few hours 3 people have joined us and are now camping out. A man in particular had passed by and asked what we were sitting out here for. When we explained our situation and circumstance, he simply stood there and called his kids - he asked them to bring him supplies because he was getting on line. Another guy who has been store jumping has arrived and brought a friend. With all of us here we have thought about chipping in and ordering crave cases from White Castle. More and more people are passing smiles by at our sitting here and some people have even just stopped to watch us. 3 girls that work here offered to give us 50 bucks each if we let them take our places when they got out of work. This was more of a "Hell No" answer. We have been here since 3, we're not moving. I believe it’s the twenty of us now and everyone’s just chatting away at cell phones and with each other. Most of the games and additional accessories have sold out already (oddly enough). Most of the guys tonight won’t be getting anymore then just the 360. That man we talked about earlier in our line just came out of the store with a large bag containing $575.00's worth of controllers and games. This man has spent nearly 600 dollars and doesn’t even have the console yet. I do believe that this day will forever be the most awkward day of my life. (We later found out his name is Chris, and his son Josh, Gamertag: Iplaydat.)
Its final in my head
November 22nd 12:11AM ET: So its midnight now and everyone is joking past the cold. We’re all having a good time and 2 new guys just showed up. Part that sucks is that they are numbers 15 and 16. This means that out of the two friends one of them will be receiving the Premium and the other will get the Core. They don’t know this yet but we’ll tell them soon. Unlike our Halo 2 launch extravaganza we experience, we have a lot of educated people that actually know what they are talking about. These guys are very fun to talk to and almost take me out of the real world. As if Xbox live is now here at my feet. Even now at midnight there are passerby’s leaving the mall that question our sitting here. It’s getting really foggy but the rain seems to have stopped. It’s final in my head. All doubt has left and we can almost feel the 360 here in our hands. Security can’t make up their minds and the line has moved three times on either side of the door (something about their shopping cart placement and their employee entrance), and we are back where we started. But we still remain number 1,2, and 3 on line. I don’t know the strength of my laptop battery, but hopefully I will have enough to keep you filled in on the rest of this wait.
November 22nd 2:20AM ET: 2 hours into the 22nd and now people are getting bored. In the last two hours I have been offered coffee, donuts, and lemonade. I feel just like I am home, only outside and in the cold. This one guy tipped over a shopping cart and we’re using that as a poker table. Laughs are shared everywhere and I am having a great time. Now though it is deathly cold and my fingers are frozen. Everyone here has put the thought of Xbox aside for now and this cold wait has become something of a social. Though it is annoying to watch this man wash the front window of the store from the inside while we're sitting there. Along with the fact that I am typing under a security camera. Good hopes to you at home, and hopefully I’ll have fingers to play by tomorrow. I might even get some sleep.
We are 3 of those 400,000
November 22nd 7:34AM ET: I fell asleep until 6 o'clock when we received our vouchers. Then we headed out for breakfast at a random diner we found. We just have to wait until 8:00 to get our Xbox’s. Steve’s father has come telling us that only 400,000 Xbox 360's were available nation-wide today. We are 3 of those 400,000. In the next half hour we will be in this store and this project will be completed. We are cold, we are tired, and we just want to go home. 16 and a half hours now and only 30 minutes to go. This night I will never forget and I hope to tell others about this trip outside of these entries. But we went out of our way and I believe that it payed off in its entirety. Whether we are just plain crazy or simply determined, we will have the 360's within the hour. It feels great.
November 22nd 8:34AM ET: It is final, the three of us are in this car right now on our way home with our newly bought Xbox 360 systems. Everyone celebrated as we waited online and everything was great. It was fun to watch the several people come in without vouchers claiming they didn’t even know about them. It turned out a great success, and very hard to endure - a true test. The lesson I learned from this is that... well, in a way when you feel something is right, go for it and don’t hold back. Not many people would do what we did, but we did it. 6 months ago we refused to get pre-orders simply because it "felt" wrong. And now we have the 360 and most of the pre-orders are backed into next year. It just worked out. We left with friends, and happiness. This has been a report by Lukrus of the newly launched GetXbox.net. Thanks for reading, and happy hunting!
A special thanks goes out to the other folks that stood on line with us, and endured. It was a privilege standing on line with you.