Mike Gamin, Staff Writer

Saturday morning came all too quickly for me the day before launch. Because of a tight Monday morning deadline at work, I had to hit the office. All along I had planned to go straight to Wal-Mart whenever I could get out of work. Mr. Jack from the NWR forums, who happens to live in the same area as me, called my cell throughout the day letting me know the status of the line. Sadly, all systems were spoken for at 1pm, which was a full four hours before I was able to get out of the office.

My friends and I weren't going to give up that easy. Given that the original Wal-Mart that Mr. Jack was at is located in a big-time tech geek college town, we decided to drive towards the city a bit. After a couple of hours we had stopped at two more Wal-Marts and called several other places, only to come up short. We decided to give up and head to a Target/Best Buy plaza the next morning.

While relaxing at home that night, I got a surprise call from Mr. Jack around 9:30pm. It turned out someone gave up and stepped out of line. Knowing I only lived like five minutes away, he told me I should get over there. After annoying my fiancée and having her get in the car too, we flew over there. Much to my chagrin, when we were about halfway there my cell phone rang again. It was Mr. Jack. I was a bit too slow. He then pleasantly assured me that I was probably the smart one and that I would get one tomorrow morning without waiting in the cold all day (and night) like he had.

So I had a hard time sleeping all night and got up to shower at around 4:45 am. I dragged my fiancée out of bed and we were over to Target (which was opening at 8am) by 5:45am. As we pulled up I noticed that there were absolutely no people waiting. Something wasn't right. Trying to remain optimistic, I put the car in park, intent on waiting in the warm until a line started forming. Not 2 minutes later, a security truck pulls up next to me and tells me I can't be there. No one was allowed on the premises until 7am. Well, that explained why no one was there.

I decide to pace around the outside of the parking lot for quite a while, taking up parking spots here and there to scout the parking lot from afar. As 7 o'clock got closer, I noticed more and more cars doing the same thing. At around 6:45, all hell broke loose. A mob of people, probably about 50 strong, starting marching across the street to the store. They were trying to use their bodies to block cars from entering. There was screaming of all sorts and squealing tires. It was totally messed up. Refusing to be outdone by these crazy, power-hungry people, I gunned my car for the parking lot. When I got there I made it up to the line (that Target employees had just created) as the second person. I thought I was sitting pretty.

Well the mob of people finally arrived and they start throwing a fit. They were led by some crazy woman who thought she was everyone's mother. I can still hear her obnoxious 'I'm scolding you' voice. I tried to turn on the polite charm with the Target employees, knowing that the best way to win that battle was by getting them to like me more. The crazy woman wanted them to just honor her silly list (that had been formed in a neighboring parking lot that I didn't even know about). I tried to explain how that was unfair. I didn't know about this list and I got in line second. After much deliberating, the Target manager came up with a plan. They decided to hold a raffle for the right to purchase a system. The fact that my obtaining of a Wii was going to come down to random ticket burned me up.

As the manager started handing out tickets, I frantically waved for my fiancée to get out of the car and come get a ticket too. She made it, so I ended up with two tickets. When all was said and done, 120 tickets were handed out for 42 systems. One of my two tickets was called as number 10 and that was it. I was so relieved to know that everything was going to be okay.

That wasn't where the stress ended, though. I had heard all the rumors that accessories and copies of Zelda were going to be hard to come by. I was still stressed that I wasn't going to get everything I wanted. When Target finally opened their doors, it was a mad dash to the electronics department. I was around the fourth person to arrive. There was a single stand full of accessories sitting there and it was about to get attacked by the mob. I dove in, filling my arms with as many accessories as I could. I wanted to get three remotes, three Nunchuks, two classic controllers, and Zelda. Barely able to carry it all, I came out of the crowd with everything but the classic controllers. When I had gotten out, my fiancée had caught up. I asked her to dive back in there and get some classic controllers. She sighed a bit, but knowing how important it was to me, she went in and happily took care of it.

Finally, I had everything I needed in my hands. After waiting about a half hour to cash out, I was on my way home. I am still utterly shocked at the overwhelming demand for the system on launch day. I was one of the lucky few who went home with one.