10pm Saturday night I bussed up to the Northgate (Seattle) Best Buy, an hour before closing - went in and asked how many Wiis they had and where the line was. They said there were 50, and there wasn't a line yet but I was free to stand by the door and start one. So I went outside, donned the hat and gloves and sat down. I was TOTALLY unprepared and shouldn't have done this.
45 minutes later a guy walks up and asks if I'm waiting for the Wii. He left for a minute and came back with a foldout chair. About 10 minutes later a young couple comes out of the store and asks the same thing, they sit down. By midnight there was a line of about 6, 7 diehards. Good conversation and cameraderie. Very friendly folks. But it was damned cold.
Got down to about 25F and started snowing at 3am with a light breeze, but I won't even attempt to guess the windchill factor. My body was convulsing every few minutes at this points from shivering. I pulled my knit cap over my face and breathed upward out of my mouth so that my nose wouldn't get frostbitten. The entire time I'm sitting on the ice cold concrete kicking myself mentally for staying there. The only reason I didn't leave and come back is that it would have been nearly impossible to get there the next morning before 8am without paying ridiculous cab fare and I knew the line would be epic by then.
So it's about 4:30 in the morning and at this point we've got about 20, 25 people in line. I see managers and employees roll in around 5am. I would say that at 5:30, critical mass was reached. At 7, if I recall correctly, a lady came out and took a show of hands. Once she got to 50 hands everyone after "the guy in the red jacket" was politely told to gtfo. Between 7 and 9 I suppose another 30 or 40 people were turned away. At 9:45 she came back out and passed out tickets to the first 50. We were let in at 9:55, I was the first one in, the first to pay, and the first to leave - what a relief.
Surprisingly there was no pushing, no shoving, just friendly patient people. All that aside though, my lips were chapped and cracked, my hands and feet were pale and icy, my back hurt from being awkwardly propped on the concrete all night and I had a gnarly headache - not to mention that my eyeballs were floating since there were no public restrooms and the guards were all about the whole "don't let me see you peeing on the wall" thing.
In summary... I was both a proud and embarrassed gamer to be the first in that line, and in the long run, it wasn't worth it. I had to call in sick Monday because I felt too bad to come to work, not because I wanted to play the Wii. Somehow, after buying it and getting it home and everything I just didn't even mess with it until late Monday evening. Oh it's righteous, don't get me wrong, but sitting on planet Hoth for 12 hours was so lame it killed my mojo for two days.
Between 4 and 5 am is the sweet spot if you're going to line up, speaking solely from my observations at Northgate. I wouldn't go line up earlier than that if you do plan on camping, especially now that the temperatures are what they are. I was hurtin' bad by the time they passed out the tickets and would not recommend pulling an overnighter unless you have a thick sleeping bag and possibly a portable space heater that runs on a generator or something. And music. Maybe a book. SOMETHING.
---CLIFFS---
10pm Saturday night I bussed up to the Northgate (Seattle) Best Buy, an hour before closing - went in and asked how many Wiis they had and where the line was. They said there were 50, and there wasn't a line yet but I was free to stand by the door and start one. So I went outside, donned the hat and gloves and sat down. I was TOTALLY unprepared and shouldn't have done this.
45 minutes later a guy walks up and asks if I'm waiting for the Wii. He left for a minute and came back with a foldout chair. About 10 minutes later a young couple comes out of the store and asks the same thing, they sit down. By midnight there was a line of about 6, 7 diehards. Good conversation and cameraderie. Very friendly folks. But it was damned cold.
Got down to about 25F and started snowing at 3am with a light breeze, but I won't even attempt to guess the windchill factor. My body was convulsing every few minutes at this points from shivering. I pulled my knit cap over my face and breathed upward out of my mouth so that my nose wouldn't get frostbitten. The entire time I'm sitting on the ice cold concrete kicking myself mentally for staying there. The only reason I didn't leave and come back is that it would have been nearly impossible to get there the next morning before 8am without paying ridiculous cab fare and I knew the line would be epic by then.
So it's about 4:30 in the morning and at this point we've got about 20, 25 people in line. I see managers and employees roll in around 5am. I would say that at 5:30, critical mass was reached. At 7, if I recall correctly, a lady came out and took a show of hands. Once she got to 50 hands everyone after "the guy in the red jacket" was politely told to gtfo. Between 7 and 9 I suppose another 30 or 40 people were turned away. At 9:45 she came back out and passed out tickets to the first 50. We were let in at 9:55, I was the first one in, the first to pay, and the first to leave - what a relief.
Surprisingly there was no pushing, no shoving, just friendly patient people. All that aside though, my lips were chapped and cracked, my hands and feet were pale and icy, my back hurt from being awkwardly propped on the concrete all night and I had a gnarly headache - not to mention that my eyeballs were floating since there were no public restrooms and the guards were all about the whole "don't let me see you peeing on the wall" thing.
In summary... I was both a proud and embarrassed gamer to be the first in that line, and in the long run, it wasn't worth it. I had to call in sick Monday because I felt too bad to come to work, not because I wanted to play the Wii. Somehow, after buying it and getting it home and everything I just didn't even mess with it until late Monday evening. Oh it's righteous, don't get me wrong, but sitting on planet Hoth for 12 hours was so lame it killed my mojo for two days.
Between 4 and 5 am is the sweet spot if you're going to line up, speaking solely from my observations at Northgate. I wouldn't go line up earlier than that if you do plan on camping, especially now that the temperatures are what they are. I was hurtin' bad by the time they passed out the tickets and would not recommend pulling an overnighter unless you have a thick sleeping bag and possibly a portable space heater that runs on a generator or something. And music. Maybe a book. SOMETHING.
45 minutes later a guy walks up and asks if I'm waiting for the Wii. He left for a minute and came back with a foldout chair. About 10 minutes later a young couple comes out of the store and asks the same thing, they sit down. By midnight there was a line of about 6, 7 diehards. Good conversation and cameraderie. Very friendly folks. But it was damned cold.
Got down to about 25F and started snowing at 3am with a light breeze, but I won't even attempt to guess the windchill factor. My body was convulsing every few minutes at this points from shivering. I pulled my knit cap over my face and breathed upward out of my mouth so that my nose wouldn't get frostbitten. The entire time I'm sitting on the ice cold concrete kicking myself mentally for staying there. The only reason I didn't leave and come back is that it would have been nearly impossible to get there the next morning before 8am without paying ridiculous cab fare and I knew the line would be epic by then.
So it's about 4:30 in the morning and at this point we've got about 20, 25 people in line. I see managers and employees roll in around 5am. I would say that at 5:30, critical mass was reached. At 7, if I recall correctly, a lady came out and took a show of hands. Once she got to 50 hands everyone after "the guy in the red jacket" was politely told to gtfo. Between 7 and 9 I suppose another 30 or 40 people were turned away. At 9:45 she came back out and passed out tickets to the first 50. We were let in at 9:55, I was the first one in, the first to pay, and the first to leave - what a relief.
Surprisingly there was no pushing, no shoving, just friendly patient people. All that aside though, my lips were chapped and cracked, my hands and feet were pale and icy, my back hurt from being awkwardly propped on the concrete all night and I had a gnarly headache - not to mention that my eyeballs were floating since there were no public restrooms and the guards were all about the whole "don't let me see you peeing on the wall" thing.
In summary... I was both a proud and embarrassed gamer to be the first in that line, and in the long run, it wasn't worth it. I had to call in sick Monday because I felt too bad to come to work, not because I wanted to play the Wii. Somehow, after buying it and getting it home and everything I just didn't even mess with it until late Monday evening. Oh it's righteous, don't get me wrong, but sitting on planet Hoth for 12 hours was so lame it killed my mojo for two days.
Between 4 and 5 am is the sweet spot if you're going to line up, speaking solely from my observations at Northgate. I wouldn't go line up earlier than that if you do plan on camping, especially now that the temperatures are what they are. I was hurtin' bad by the time they passed out the tickets and would not recommend pulling an overnighter unless you have a thick sleeping bag and possibly a portable space heater that runs on a generator or something. And music. Maybe a book. SOMETHING.
---CLIFFS---
10pm Saturday night I bussed up to the Northgate (Seattle) Best Buy, an hour before closing - went in and asked how many Wiis they had and where the line was. They said there were 50, and there wasn't a line yet but I was free to stand by the door and start one. So I went outside, donned the hat and gloves and sat down. I was TOTALLY unprepared and shouldn't have done this.
45 minutes later a guy walks up and asks if I'm waiting for the Wii. He left for a minute and came back with a foldout chair. About 10 minutes later a young couple comes out of the store and asks the same thing, they sit down. By midnight there was a line of about 6, 7 diehards. Good conversation and cameraderie. Very friendly folks. But it was damned cold.
Got down to about 25F and started snowing at 3am with a light breeze, but I won't even attempt to guess the windchill factor. My body was convulsing every few minutes at this points from shivering. I pulled my knit cap over my face and breathed upward out of my mouth so that my nose wouldn't get frostbitten. The entire time I'm sitting on the ice cold concrete kicking myself mentally for staying there. The only reason I didn't leave and come back is that it would have been nearly impossible to get there the next morning before 8am without paying ridiculous cab fare and I knew the line would be epic by then.
So it's about 4:30 in the morning and at this point we've got about 20, 25 people in line. I see managers and employees roll in around 5am. I would say that at 5:30, critical mass was reached. At 7, if I recall correctly, a lady came out and took a show of hands. Once she got to 50 hands everyone after "the guy in the red jacket" was politely told to gtfo. Between 7 and 9 I suppose another 30 or 40 people were turned away. At 9:45 she came back out and passed out tickets to the first 50. We were let in at 9:55, I was the first one in, the first to pay, and the first to leave - what a relief.
Surprisingly there was no pushing, no shoving, just friendly patient people. All that aside though, my lips were chapped and cracked, my hands and feet were pale and icy, my back hurt from being awkwardly propped on the concrete all night and I had a gnarly headache - not to mention that my eyeballs were floating since there were no public restrooms and the guards were all about the whole "don't let me see you peeing on the wall" thing.
In summary... I was both a proud and embarrassed gamer to be the first in that line, and in the long run, it wasn't worth it. I had to call in sick Monday because I felt too bad to come to work, not because I wanted to play the Wii. Somehow, after buying it and getting it home and everything I just didn't even mess with it until late Monday evening. Oh it's righteous, don't get me wrong, but sitting on planet Hoth for 12 hours was so lame it killed my mojo for two days.
Between 4 and 5 am is the sweet spot if you're going to line up, speaking solely from my observations at Northgate. I wouldn't go line up earlier than that if you do plan on camping, especially now that the temperatures are what they are. I was hurtin' bad by the time they passed out the tickets and would not recommend pulling an overnighter unless you have a thick sleeping bag and possibly a portable space heater that runs on a generator or something. And music. Maybe a book. SOMETHING.
i love the cliffs
@ cliffs