“True gamers don’t get sleep. That’s how we do it.”

(title quote: Jesse Jones)

"Many planned to keep the party going all day — forgetting about school, work, doctor’s appointments or anything that could possibly drag them away from their handheld controllers." - Lisa Roberson, Chronicle-Telegram

I just got home from work. I can report an extremely successful launch event for the Halo 3 release, at least for my store. There was pizza, black and green balloons, and Halo 3 Game Fuel, a Mountain Dew product branded exclusively for the game. Big Papa Rob kept the crowd under control. After all, nobody was really up for a fight with a guy that big, at least 6'3" and over 300 pounds, at midnight. Everybody just wanted to pick up their copy of the game so they could hurry home and play.

"Dawn: When men of reason go to bed." - Ambrose Bierce

The winner of Saturday's Halo 2 tournament was escorted to the front of the line to receive his free copy of the new game. When I arrived, about a 30 minutes before the official release, the line was 2/3 of the way to Wal-Mart, located at the far end of the shopping center. By midnight, the line was all the way to Wal-Mart. I'm not sure how many copies we sold tonight, but we had over 350 pre-orders last time I checked.

At midnight, Rob started letting people back into the store. He kept both of our registers at about 2 people in line at all times. Two of our best cashiers worked the registers (I'm not nearly fast enough yet), while Chad and I backed them up, handing them each customer's product, bagging it, and pre-stuffing bags with brochures and discount cards for the local appliance rental store that loaned us big-screen televisions for the tournament and tonight's release. Things flowed smoothly and it was a lot of fun. We had all of our customers taken care of by 1 a.m.

"It's no surprise that video games have replaced movies as the No. 1 entertainment choice for the younger generation. Halo 3 is like the best science-fiction action film, except you're the star, you get to play with your friends and this time you can also be the director - creating your own battle zones and sharing them with others over Xbox Live." - Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle

I have a few other things I neglected to mention in my last post.

First, another of my former students came into the game store Saturday night. He was a student involved more directly in something that helped me decide to leave my teaching career. On the final day of exams, he skipped his first class by hiding out in my color guard instructor's office. This caused him to fail the exam and the class. In my meeting with my principal two days later, it came to my attention that this student told his teacher, his father, and the administration that I told him to stay in the band room and skip his exam. This was definitely not true. The administration chose to believe his story over mine and one assistant principal, who I never got along with in my 8 years at the school told me I was lying during that meeting. My principal told me that I caused him to fail for the year and not get promoted. In my opinion, he caused himself to fail, especially since his story about me keeping him in the band room was a lie he told to avoid getting in trouble with his father, a wealthy local businessman, for skipping class.

"Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary-line and adding to one's liberty." - Henri Frédéric Amiel

I actually responded fairly well to seeing him in the store. There were no punches thrown, no harsh words, and I had a decent conversation with him, ignoring what he had done, pretending it never happened. I figured that there was no sense confronting him about it. What was done is done. He is a child and I am an adult. At any rate, I talked him out of $60 by selling him a game, which he bought purely on my recommendation.

The other occurrence which I meant to mention in my last post happened on Thursday or Friday, I don't remember right now. It falls under the category of strange and possibly paranormal event.

I was in the guest bathroom of my house, washing my hands at the sink, which is right next to the bathroom door. This places the bathroom door to my right and the rest of the bathroom to my left. I am looking into the mirror, when over my right shoulder, I see someone enter the bathroom behind me. Assuming that it's my wife, since she is the only other person in the house, I take a step forward so that she can walk behind me, between me and the open door, which is against the wall directly behind me. I look over my left shoulder and she does not emerge from behind me, so I turn around to see where she went. Not seeing her, I then assume the entered the library/game room to the right. Turning to check there, I call out for my wife, who responds. She is just coming out of the master bedroom on the other side of the house. I have no idea what or who that was, but I clearly saw someone, roughly my wife's height, walk behind me. There is no way it could have been her.

I am still working on 80's blog details. I have to work q double shift tomorrow, with the game store in the morning and early afternoon, while I close at the CD store. I will let everybody know what's going on as soon as I figure it out myself. I'll also try to respond to comments tomorrow, or as soon as I can. I want to read people's blogs and find out what's going on in everybody's lives, but I just haven't been able to find the time.

We were supposed to go to Wilmington this evening (before work), but due to an accident that blocked the highway, we drove exactly 1 mile in 25 minutes, then another 6 miles in the next 15 minutes, so we called and cancelled the appointment.

Take care everyone. Have a good week!

"To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else." - Emily Dickinson