November 17, 2001
It's a night I'll remember forever, and not necessarily for the right reasons. I was visiting my best friend Victor for a week, back in the dark ages when he was attending Georgetown and he lived across the country instead of living up the street.

We were hanging around his room, idly talking about life while he experimentally strummed his guitar and I sang along to the parts I knew. We started talking about video games, since any conversation with me inevitably turns to video games, comic books or porn (sometimes all three at once, I'm talented). I then pointed out, "Hey, Victor, isn't the Gamecube coming out tomorrow? Maybe you should get one, we'll play around for a while."

So, we started looking up places nearby that would sell Gamecubes. Most places in the Washington DC area were out of the question, so we decided that we'd hop a train to nearby Virginia and camp out at a Target there for a Gamecube.

We made two critical miscalculations.

First, the Target we camped out at was on the coast.

Second, we were in Virginia in November.

Long story short, it was a miserably cold night. We spent a good 8 hours shooting the breeze and talking to each other about life, love, and all things in between.

We also froze our asses off, and at the end we asked each other, "Wait, why did we do this again?"

Neither of us truly wanted a Gamecube, and since people hadn't started showing up to line up for the GC until around 4 in the morning, most of our efforts had been for naught.

November 18, 2006
So five years later, I had to look around and ask myself "Wait, what am I doing here again?"

Yessirree, last Saturday I was outside of a coastal Target waiting for the Wii, this time with Suberunker at my side. And you know what?

I hadn't learned a thing.

There I was, in a hooded sweatshirt and a jacket, and it was still cold - Suberunker had chosen a Target right on the Bay to be his camping spot, and we had a great little breeze to keep us company.

He had lined up at around 6 PM, so it was about 3 and a half hours before I joined him in line (I stayed home to watch the Cal-USC game, about which all I have to say is 'sigh'). We sat down thinking that we had everything covered - extra jackets, some entertainment and snacks.

Sadly for us, it was California cold, which, dammit, is cold to me. It was, what, 40F (something like 2C)? Something like that. My fingers went numb quickly if I played Elite Beat Agents for very long, so there wasn't much of that while we waited. We just sat around and talked for 10 hours while waiting for the Target to open.

Of course it was uncomfortable, but you know what?

In the end, I didn't care. I didn't line up for the Wii, really, I lined up for the company.

It may sound crazy to you, but I actually like sitting in line with a friend and a few like-minded people. It's a chance to have a pleasant conversation with people you may never meet again (note that this would never have happened in a PS3 line, since people were much more possessive and frightening in those lines). It's the same reason I sat in line for the MegaTokyo panel at ACen this year, which is the reason I sat in line with Victor five years ago. For some reason, the knowledge that you're gonna sit in line for another few hours leads to a kind of camaraderie you usually find among prisoners of war or the cousins who also had to visit the distant relatives and are marking the time until they can go home.

It's a great experience, really. Well, minus the temperature discomfort and the lack of sleep.

Note to self: Five years from now, bring a sleeping bag. But more importantly, make sure to bring a good friend.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I now own Zelda: Twilight Princess (I don't intend to play it myself, I intend to lend it to people), Rayman, and Super Monkey Ball.

The system has not yet been turned on, because I'm still playing Gears of War and Elite Beat Agents, with Castlevania coming in a couple weeks!

Ah well. It sure is a great time to be a gamer, isn't it?