I've been slowly assembling the arcade now. So far I have the sides and front door attached. I've still got quite a bit to do but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Anyway, here are some pictures of my progress. The first one is the stand for the TV; it's ugly but it can support alot of wait and it keeps the TV at the correct angle. The second one is an inside view of the front door, showing the hinges and the back side of the coin door. The last pic is of the entire arcade.

I finally got a Wii! I always said that I would never wait in line before a store opened to purchase anything, but I went against my morals on Sunday.

The night before Black Friday I went to several Gamestops and found the one with the shortest line. I had read in their ads that each Gamestop would have a limited number of Wii's. The store opened at 7AM and I got there about 3:45AM. I was number 10 in line. At about 6AM the store manager showed up and notified everyone that there were only 6 Wii's.

I went back home after this and started doing some internet research. I found a site which had some info on shipment rumors. From this I found out that Best Buy, Target, Circuit City and Toys R Us were "relaunching" the Wii on the morning of Dec. 3rd. A friend and I got up bright and early at 4:30AM and headed over to Best Buy and we were first in line! At around 5:45 some store employees showed up and notified us that the internet rumors were wrong and that they didn't have any Wii's. Luckily I had planned out our foray in an area that had a Best Buy, Target, and a Circuit City in a one mile radius.

We headed towards the Target and saw that there wasn't a soul around so we went to grab some coffee. We got back about 10 minutes later to discover that there were 15 people in line ahead of us. Word to the wise: Get in line as soon as possible. So about 6AM we got in line. At 7AM they came out and gave everyone tickets for the 17 Wii's that they had in stock. I got ticket number 12! At that point they let us all sit inside the air lock to the store. You wouldn't believe how good it feels to sit in a warm place with a magic ticket that entitles you to a Wii. At 8AM they let us inside and we all bought our Wii's. They even had extra Wiimotes, nunchucks, and copies of most games in stock. So I got a wiimote, a nunchuck, and a copy of Zelda. I had heard that extra controllers were in short supply and I wanted to be able to play Wii Sports with my wife.

Now after having played with the Wii for a day, it was worth the trouble. It is just as cool as advertised and works beautifully. My wife isn't really into games very much and she likes it alot (especially Bowling).

I'll have another posting on my progress on the arcade soon.