(my connection to the web is shit right now. some sort of pic later…if i remember)
i've had a blast the last few times i've played with the wii at the domiciles of various friends and relatives. such a blast that i finally decided to act on my "gee the wii is really fun, i should get one" impulse. i've had this impulse every time i've played with a wii for the last 2 or so years. i try to ignore it because i know myself and know that after i go all out and buy every accessory i need or might need, as well as a few games, i'll lose interest. it's the way i work.
I NEED IT! I NEED IT! I NEED IT!
I HAVE IT! YAY!
i have it. cool.
i have it. yawn.
i have it? who cares? want it?
but this time, i still had most of the funds i collected for christmas and no plan to use them. so i decided to get a wii. even if i lost interest, it'd still be good at family gatherings, right? it'd be a gift from the family, for the family.
so i set about trying to find a wii. would you believe this thing is still hard to come by?
even harder is the wii fit, which i also want. the wii fit is an amazing thing. not only is the balance board usable in some games (like punch out which i love) but the wii fit game itself is a great joke invented by the japanese to call us fat and have us think it's funny. seriously, you pop the game in, hop on the board, it tells you you're a fat piece of shit, and laughs at you. brilliant! first brain age to tell you you're stupid, now wii fit to tell you you're fat. pretty soon they'll have a game that tells you you play the game too much and mock you for not having any real friends. it'll sell a few million copies too.
lets reset and get back to the point…
so i set about trying to find a wii. would you believe this thing is still hard to come by? last i checked this country was in some sort of recession. you'd think in a recession i'd be able to walk into a store, announce that i wanted to spend at least $500 without question and could likely be talked into more, and be able to do so. not only should i be able to do so, but they should probably throw a party for me and make me king of the store for a day.
not so much. in fact, i had to hunt my cousin down and ask her to grab one for me at her store. thankfully she was able to do that because she wasn't sure they had any since the last time i asked 2 days prior.
and then the fun began. i got to the store, saw my wii, and decided i needed an extra controller and a game to go with it. the controller so i'm not anti social and the game because i need to beat my cousin at it. also because it has a wii motion thingy in it and i'd rather get it free with a game than pay $20 for it.
another rant. when did video game systems start coming with only one controller? when did they decide that you had to pay extra to be able to share the gaming experience with a friend? i s'pose i should have noticed this when i bought my ps3, but i only grabbed that because it was the cheapest and best blu-ray player at the time. in any case, that sucks that you get charged an extra $50 on top of the console purchase to play with others.
so i picked out all my stuff. rang it up. gave the guy some stupid amex gift checks i had and handed him my card for the balance. i'd thought about just bringing cash to pay the rest, but decided against it because i get some sort of points when i use my debit card. i don't know what the points do, but i figure at some point i will have accumulated enough that they might be useful. it's not like i'm buying anything extra to get em, i'm just buying what i would anyway, so why not?
turns out, i should have brought the cash. my card got declined as credit. got declined again as debit. we went over to my cousin where she rang it up on a big computer. declined twice again. and once more for good measure.
now i've got my cousin, my aunt, my other cousin, the guy who helped me get my stuff, a manager, and another manager who i apparently did many shots with at my cousin's wedding all standing around looking at my card get declined. this sucked. it sucked because i knew there was money in the account. plenty of it. i had even checked before i left the house just to make sure i didn't forget i bought something expensive or paid a bill in advance.
so i pulled out my ipod, started up my phone as a router and surfed to my bank's site. i began showing everybody that not only did i have the money to pay for my stuff, but i had three times the money i needed. i didn't know why my card was declined, but it shouldn't have been. there's nothing worse than people all just telling you they believe you to make you feel better.
then one of the managers came up with an idea. apparently some banks block charges from electronics stores because if your card was stolen it's easy to clean out your account with one trip to a store. that sounds plausible save for the fact that i could empty an account at any store. i guess a thief might be more inclined to grab a tv and a laptop, i mean when there's looting you don't normally see folks running around with trinkets from bed bath and beyond, right? i still felt like an ass though. especially because i tried it as debit. pin code and all. if i were a thief and the card i stole didn't work, but i had the pin what would i do?
i'd go to the atm. so i did. and got $400 cash. then paid for my stuff. when it was all said and done, not bringing cash in the first place cost me my dignity and $3 in atm fees.
but at least i have a wii! and it's so cool! for another week or so.
