My crappy story of woe…
April 30th, 2008 Posted in Games, Personal
Well… For those of you that don’t know me… I am pretty poor. I have a crappy job that doesn’t pay me as much as I would like (who does get paid as much as they want? Assholes, that’s who [no offense to actual assholes]), my wife does the homemaker thing, and we are looking to make a mini-us. So we are extra poor. Therefore, and really depressingly, I can rarely afford to buy video games.
And apparently a new game came out recently, one that I might just wanna have a go at– yep, Grand Theft Auto 4. And of course I want a go at it. Like a moth wants a go at your light bulb. Alas…
Yes, I just wrote alas… feels weird… Anyway, looking on the net at the JB HiFi website, Australia’s bestest and most kickanus place of buyingment, I noticed they were giving the games away FREE in exchange for 3 Xbox 360 games or 2 PS3 games. So I thought “I can afford free!” and raced home after work to inspect my collection. But what do I see at the base of EVERY friggin game I own? NTSC. Yep, all my games are NTSC (not unlikely, given that both my PS3 and Xbox360 are NTSC-J), and do you think JB HiFi accepts NTSC games in their trade-in program? No, of course not, this is a PAL-fed country. Sigh.
So, I did what every good hot-blooded male would do– I moped. Yes, I looked all sad and depressed, like my dreams had been ‘befriended’ by a horny dog right before my eyes. And the wife, bless her, how did she react? Her heart did melt, mine friends, and she suggested we go and purchase said game.
Then, being female and entirely unpredictable, she inquired as to how much was in our savings and whether we could afford to go to Tokyo for a holiday this year, and so on and so forth. So I, like the moron that I am, once again began to mope, and made the decision that, as always, the wife was right– we couldn’t afford to go out and buy this game, as much as we wanted to. So, we went and did our grocery shopping, and I tried to forget about it and kept my mind firmly fixed on the purchases at hand– beer and wine (and other things that the wife knew we needed, turns out it was a lot! Food, we needed! And detergent, and other such things… who’d have thunk it).
We put the stuff in the car, and Mihoko uttered the words I was hoping she would– “Do you wanna go to JB?” Soon enough, we were at JB HiFi, which, unbeknownst to me (phweet, swioo, fwe-neer! *whistletyping again.. can’t get the hang of it…*), was situated over the road from the shopping centre.
It is a glorious place, and never before did it seem so full of glory, from it’s glistening floors and bustling aisles, to it’s… hardy shelves… which turned out to be devoid of said game. Ask, I did, young padawan. Rejected, I was. Directed to Doncaster, I was.
The important thing to note is… I have never been to Doncaster Shopping Centre… and the place is currently undergoing construction…So, when we got there, we found that the entrance we chose was, in fact, the construction entrance… so we turned back. Then, we found ourselves in a (seemingly) never-ending spiral of car parking wonderment. I asked one of the pixies that did flutter about the place where I might find the fabled ‘Doncaster JB HiFi’, and was pointed to the other side of the complex– the new side apparently.
THAT story aside (and don’t think getting to the other side of the pace wasn’t FRAUGHT with misunderstanding, for it was indeed fraught), we finally found JB HiFi. And it was closed. So, tail between my legs, I figured we would go home.
Then I remembered Preston JB was open until 9pm. So we headed there. We entered, and were dazzled by its wonders. Several über-nerds pranced about and scratched their heads, so I knew I was out of luck. No GTA4 for me, good people. I sit before you now (well, kind of… not really, but you gotta work with me here), a broken and sad man, bereft of game, but full of alcohol, and so… not that upset, really.
In the end… I don’t even know if the game would work on either of my systems anyway…
Hindsight- clarity- import.
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