Giga Please!
It's a damp night in November, though it is unseasonably warm. It's about 9:30 and I've just had a solid Tex-Mex dinner, courtesy of my friend, Mike. While helping myself to a taco, Mike told me that our friend, Paul, has been waiting in line at Best Buy for a Playstation 3 since Tuesday. Needless to say, I was rather amused. Why would Paul wait in line for this thing? Is he that hardcore of a video gamer? No. The thing is selling for $3000.00 on eBay. It's a wise $600.00 investment. Still, the idea of waiting on line for more than a day is rather ridiculous to me, yet oddly fascinating. So, I proposed a little field trip, to see Paul and Heaven knows who else had been waiting for this long-awaited video game system.
We pulled into the parking lot. There were umbrellas and garbage bags littering the east side of the entrance. One could make a joke about the great unwashed getting a shower from above, but we're above such jokes here at Cleverschmever. Honestly, it looked like the great Star Wars epidemic of 1999. I parked the car and my friend Chris, Mike and I approached a sleeping Paul.
Paul sat in a captain's chair, wearing a Land's End windbreaker, surrounded by garbage bags, an umbrella, an empty Pizza Hut box, a cooler and a 3 bottles of soda. Compared to the 37 other people in line, he had a pretty good thing going on.
While talking to Paul, one of the other line folk approached us.
"So, I see your boys showed up 20," said the rather jockish man of small stature.
"Yeah, total surprise, man. Guys, this is Number 12."
It seems that, instead of referring to each other by proper name, this Village decided to refer to each other by the number assigned to them. The night before, a Passaic County Sheriff showed up and made an official list of sorts, to keep commotion and confusion to a minimum. Why would these people get antsy about the line? Are they hard core gamers? No, they were (mostly) just like Paul. They saw dollars instead of pixels. One person (the aptly named Number 1) even showed up on Monday night!
Another guy, of average height and build approached us. He was wearing a Yankees baseball cap.
Mike asked, "What about you, man? Are you here 'cause you want the system, or are you here for the money?"
"I want the system, all my electronics are Sony, I need it."
I gave Mr. Sony Decked Out Bachelor Pad (Number 25, if memory serves) a once over. That blasted Yankees cap conjured images of him at a bar, probably Pub 46 or an equally plebian establishment, walking up to girls, talking about his high-en electronics, attempting to seduce a drunken Jersey Girl back to his walk-in advertisement for Sony Style.
"So, what game are you looking forward to?" asked Mike.
" Resistance" they both replied!
"Hey, (insert an Italian name here), you want to go back to my place and play...Resistance? I'll bet you..ve got some resistance for me. Back door resistance." I imagined 25 saying to some drunk chick at a diner. So slick.
Suddenly, a voice came from the Temple of Number 1.
"Yo, I be takin' pictures, yo!"
Another voice came from the back, "I better not see that shit on your Myspace, you! Look at all these 20 Gigas up in here! Punks!"
You see, there are 2 Playstation 3 packages. One is 20 gigabytes and the other is 60 gigabytes (with a few extras). Anyone at the back of the line, was only guaranteed the less-desirable of the 2 packages, hence the name, 20 Gigas.
At this point, the light drizzle became light precipitation. I made the executive decision that it was time to leave Paul (Number 20) and his fellow line folk to their fate of probable pneumonia and their dreams of a few thousand bucks. Now, I sit at home, in my comfortable boudoir, ready to dream of anything but dollars and pixels.
Giga please.
xoxo,
Ian!!!
