Tired but elated! It’s been a couple of hours since I’ve left the Best Buy at Bay & Dundas with my 60 gig PS3. What an adventure! Hang on, this is pretty boring stuff but it’s not so bad.
A couple of weeks back I had read about the excitement over the launch of Sony’s new Playstation 3 gaming console in the WSJ and the lack of product. I decided that I should give the flip-the-new-hyped product tactic a try. I was determined to camp out for a PS3 in order to flip it! Heaven knows I need the cash. hehehe
So, I haunted Redflagdeals’ forums in order to gauge the interest to determine the best time to head on down to BB. On Wednesday evening, I read that there were already people lining up so I walked over for a look-see and, sure enough, there were about 13 people ahead of me. I decided then and there to wait it out. It was actually starting to rain and some people had put up tarps and tents. I decided to do the same since I really didn’t think much of standing all that time in the rain. Rain was forecasted until today.
Set up my tent and made it available to a couple of guys ahead of me if they needed it. The tent is a Sierra Designs Look Out model so it will hold three in very snug confines. It was a very wet and noisy night. People kept coming around and asking what was happening; people were setting up and chatting; the rain came down pretty heavily and it was cold and windy too! So, as you can probably surmise, it was not a very pleasant night. Made worse by the fact that after a couple of hours there was water dripping on my head and feet from the “loft” feature of my tent. Unbelieveable! The tent is pretty expensive and has hardly been used although a bit old and so this should not be happening! I wondered if it was condensation?
In any case, I ended up with drops of water all over the tent floor although this may be due more to the fact that I kept waking up in the middle of the night to check things out and see what was happening. Climbing back in to the tent meant water coming in with me.
It was very disappointing next morning when the security folks told us to take down all structures. Holy cow! We now faced spending time outside in the rain and wind until Friday morning. People kept passing us by and wondering what was going on. More people kept arriving and the lineup started to quickly edge over fifty people. One person, Joe, kept a list so that everything would be as orderly as possible and, hopefully, prevent line-jumpers.
I managed to go home a couple of times to eat breakfast and bring stuff back. I also took the opportunity of changing into dry clothes at every opportunity. My pants, both the synthetic canoe pants and long underwear, were in various stages of wetness all the time. My biggest mistake was to truth a pair of waterproof pants that I had forgotten had a tear in the butt area and then sitting down on a very wet surface. *ugh*
A friend of mine dropped by during her lunch break to say hi and to see how I was doing. Man…sitting there holding an umbrella trying to keep my mind from climbing out of its home was a deadening experience. The only good parts were seeing my friend and chatting up the other people. Great distraction from focusing on what parts of me were wet, sweaty, cold or dry.
So tired that I decided to treat/hurt myself to a MacDonald’s lunch. The sugar rush and food hitting my empty stomach was very uplifting and gave me the energy to make it through the afternoon pretty easily. Went back home once for a very hot shower which was great.
My sister, D, came by and offered to bring over supper while laughing at the idea of someone waiting out for a PS3. She’d come by earlier in the morning to laugh at us in our tents so I guess it was a good day for her.
That reminds me, in the morning, there were a lot of TV news crews while, in the evening, there were more print journalists/photographers. Odd.
It started raining soon after my sis left and I asked one of BB’s assistant store managers (Tassos) what was going to happen overnight. He said nothing until morning when we were going to get out printed tickets. I figured that was a green signal to go home for dinner and, then, come back. You’re probably getting the right picture about now.
Went home around 6:10 and came back to find that the line had already half-disappeared! They had already started letting people in in order to set up a new line inside on the basement level. I was very shocked to say the least and was about to argue with the security guards who said that they didn’t recognize any sort of list from earlier and it was first-come first-served. They did recognize me but, more importantly, a couple of guys at the front of what was left of the line also recognized and offered to let me in. Wow! Talk about generous!
It turns out that they were brothers and I had talked to them before. I had talked to one on Wednesday night and had impressed upon him to get in line asap. He had called his brother in from Fort Erie to camp out from early Thursday on. They were thankful to me for persuading them to get in line early and I was very thankful to them for letting me in now!
We were all pleasantly surprised to find that we were within the first 76 spots in line because the BB had only 76 of the 60-gig machines and 18 of the 20-gig machines. There were two people ahead of us who wanted 20-gig machines so we squeaked by with 4 “spots” to spare. Whew!
It was then a relatively pleasant night spent in the mall. Granted it was noisy but it was a lot better than being rained on with the wind all around. The BB guys and mall security did the occasional ID and number check (we all got numbers when we put our names down for which model of PS3 we wanted) but that was about it.
It was quite orderly when we finally got our tickets indicating our spots in line and model to be purchased at around 6 am. The store didn’t open so there was another line-up outside of the BB. This lineup was much much smaller and it was strange to see how many people had simply disappeared to go home or get breakfast. I headed home for a few minutes before going back to purchase the PS3.
Some excitement in the purchase but it was no big deal. Almost anti-climactic. I did purchase a game for the guy who gave me their spot as a token of appreciation. Walked home with it all covered in yellow BB bags and promptly left it outside my apartment door because I was too tired to think straight!
Luckily, UPS delivered some stuff and I found the PS3 sitting there two hours later! Man, talk about me being the luckiest guy on Earth this week!!!
Now, how to sell it for the highest possible price? 
