**posted this is the wrong thread by mistake. I'll repost it here for everyone's displeasure! (It's a bit loooong.)
Oh, by the way, everyone, Rock Band for the PS3 and 360 just came out in Canada today. Yes, after all! The demand is VERY HIGH so it's likely you've missed your opportunity.
However, I found myself in a very interesting situation about 2 hours ago. Forgive the amount of words it'll likely take me, when it would take 2 sentences from a normal person. Just to make clear again, I'm in Canada. There's supposed to be a release for Rock Band some time before Christmas. Today, maybe. And there I am shopping at the Best Buy for something for my wife.
Not Rock Band. However, on the intercom, this is what I hear: "Attention customers", the voice says, "Rock Band for the PS3 and Xbox 360 have just arrived, and are being unloaded now..." I didn't really listen to hear the rest. I think to myself, "Damn, I wish I had known, I would have stood in line!" The one guitar thing has been making me feel so very much on the unhappy side, that I'd almost be willing to buy a whole new game for it. Almost!
Anyway, I'm talking to one of the sales people about it, and because no one had any solid release dates or times, the phone lines have been ringing off the hook for this game. I imagine the mob fighting for their copy as I casually take a look at the two-way radio phones.
Fifteen minutes goes by, and I continue to browse around, another 15 minutes goes by...then I think about Rock Band again. Oh, "if only I had jumped when I had the chance," I think to myself. I kind of shrug and feel a little sad about a missed oppurtunity...for surely the game had sold out by now. I had asked someone after the announcement, and apparently they had 6 for each system coming in. That wouldn't last fast. I take the gift I picked out for my wife, and start walking toward the check out, and pause at a discount rack of DVDs. I pick up something with John Wayne on it. Rawhide? But he wasn't in Rawhide. Was he? I'm not really looking.
I glance at the line for the cashiers, notice about 50 people....and wonder how many have Rock Band. I also wonder to myself where the line up must have been for it. Maybe it was just at the front chashiers. I don't see anything left anywhere else to indicate that they ever had any for sale. Oh, well just as a well. No need to see that, to deflate myself even more.
It's then that I see two guys with dollies heading down the isle. Someone bought a TV, I guess. Two TVs! Hm, I think, I'm probably going to be in the way. I have a big shopping cart with my 3 year-old in it, and I'm basically right in the middle of the isle. I'm kinda oblivious to such things sometimes, unfortunately.
I move into an open section beside customer service and watch them as they keeping roll their way down the isle, toward me still. Rolling rolling....Rawhide! Hm, they're still coming right toward me. It takes about a millisecond once I see the familiar black, and blue and white boxes, with cartoon musicians on the side, that I realize that they have their order of Rock Band on the dollies! And they're still heading directly to where I'm standing!
"Holy crap," I think, "this is not going to be good for me." (I immediately sense an internal dilemma and panic about to happen with myself any second.) They stop
right beside me....oh wow, surely I'm not the start of the line...um...this can't be happening....Sure enough, they plunk their carts down about 2 inch away from my left boot. I suddenly find myself literally shoulder to shoulder with the guy who starts stacking up the display. I stutter and ask him if there's a line, and who has tickets and...and he says, "You're the line. Want one, buddy?" he says excitedly.
At this point all reason escapes me. "Oh, yeah," I say, "I'll take one of those for sure!" What else could I have said! I have
never been the line for anything in all my life! This was monumental! This was God touching my shoulder and saying, "Hey, eat this apple my dear child!" This was also not exactly a good thing. My wife. "Crap, my wife!" I think. Suddenly it feels like everything is moving in slow motion. Britteny Spears is playing on a portable stereo system in the CD section and I'm counting 16th notes, I can see everyone talking and it all sounds like a fog horn. I become the fog horn. "Thaaaaaaaaanks," I try to say" and carefully accept the box that's being handed to me.
Then I snap back into life. I immediately turn to prepare myself to cut through the mob. But there is no mob. No one in the city knew when or where the shipments of this game were going. The guy says it was a big surprise to all the staff. "It's like you won the lottery," he says. "The calls for this have been driving me crazy all day!" Oh, great, I think, this isn't helping.
Now keep in mind one thing. I was one of maybe 25 other Canadians in the whole country to make a special trip to the States to get Rock Band when it first came out in November. I sat in line for 9 1/2 hours outside a Best Buy in Fargo North Dakota until midnight to get one of only 4 copies in the store! Those were long, grueling hours....every last one of them. Especially the ones from 1-9. I got a little sick from the cold, even. And did I mention we crossed a border and drove THREE hours just to get the game when it first came out!! With two little kids, my wife, and my mother-in-law!!! And there I was now, completely oblivious to anything, not a care in the world, just casually strolling around, Christmas shopping. And the games lands almost literally right at my feet! The irony is shocking.
And once I had it, I couldn't possibly let it go. So now I have
two complete box sets of Rock Band. The new one has French on the Box. I plan to consider how deep my wife will jab the knife into my chest later on tonight. For now I just want to try and let sink in what has happened. I don't want to make money on this. There are no Ebay plans. If it doesn't work out, I'll try selling it to my uncle (who just got a PS3) at cost, or under....if he'll let me use the guitar over Christmas with the family. Worse case, I'll return it to the store on Saturday. Plenty of time before Christmas.
. Has anyone been able to log in to the new site yet?
