The Father’s Day Blitz

Jun 16th, 2009
by Martin.
22 comments

Electronic Junk

With less than a week to go until Father’s Day, the ridiculous parade of allegedly dad-focused marketing is already well upon us.  On the way to work this morning, I heard a countless number of commercials trying to convince me to buy my dad a new cell phone.  On TV, I’ve survived a constant barrage of pleas to pick up new flat-screen sets, stereo equipment, and various implementations of carpentry hardware.  Online, it’s been cameras, camcorders, USB memory sticks, hard drives, and all sorts of other computer gadgetry.

Each holiday it gets worse.

I’m not against the idea of getting someone a thoughtful gift, either.  I think that if your dad has been pining for something for a while and you’ve got the means to get it for him, then maybe you should.  But isn’t the whole idea of the holiday lost when you’re stuck in some infinite loop of trying to one-up last year’s gift with something more and more expensive and outrageous?

The idea of buying someone a cell phone as a gift is utterly absurd to me.  A cell phone is a personal thing that you should shop for yourself, since you’re the one who’s going to be using it most of the time.  Not only that, but if the gift receiver doesn’t have a cell phone already, he / she’s going to be stuck with a new monthly bill, thanks to your thoughtfulness.

The notion of gifting a new television is just as bad.  As if people need another $1,000+ added to their burgeoning credit debt.

Since when did the idea of showing your appreciation for someone include buying them a menagerie of electronic gizmos?

While retail world is busy buzzing in peoples’ ears about its newest pile of shiny garbage, I’ll be taking a quiet trip up to the country to my parents’ house.  I’ll probably end up wrestling with some technology anyway; I hear my dad’s been having some computer problems.  But I think that he’ll appreciate the help a lot more than being saddled with an unwanted new cell phone.

Unfortunately, the balance of the entire universe will be thrown off anyway – because for Mother’s Day, I only sent a card this year.  Sorry mom!

Image courtesy of Creative Recycling

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Suckurity

Jun 14th, 2009
by Martin.
16 comments

Dead Space Secured

I found myself in the local Target today, perusing the games section of the electronics department.  Game releases have all but dried up over the last few months, but I always like to check in now and then, just to see if anything new came out that slipped under my radar, or to see if anything I’d been marginally interested in had been marked down.

Surprisingly enough, I found a single copy of Dead Space, which I’d wanted to try, marked down to $30 for clearance, so I decided to give it a go.  I took it up to the register, and waited a few minutes for one of the clerks to notice me standing there.

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BlizzCon 2009 is Go!

Jun 2nd, 2009
by Martin.
3 comments

BlizzCon 2009

After missing out on the first round of tickets a few weeks ago, I’m happy to report that I was able to swoop in and grab a pair of BlizzCon tickets this past weekend!

My brother, Spencer, and I had been planning on attending BlizzCon this year, but during the first round of ticket sales, neither of us was able to get to a computer in time to get some tickets.  I had just returned from a short vacation in Arizona, and was on the road the same day for another short trip to Lake Tahoe.  I had a lot of fun that weekend.  Spencer had to go to work in the morning.

To fill in for our absence, we armed my dad with my brother’s credit card and all the relevant information needed to make the purchase, but demand was high, and by the time he got in the ticket queue, he was about 25,000 people behind.  When he got to the front of the line, the tickets were sold out.

This last weekend, Spencer was again not able to stand by for ticket-buying, but I was, so I set my alarm for 9:00 AM, got up and played around a bit, and then logged into the Blizzard Store and waited patiently for the clock to strike 10.  At 10:58 I began refreshing the page every 10-15 seconds, and at exactly 10 o’clock, the drop-down box appeared for ticket purchase.  I fumbled for a second, selected the wrong number of tickets, backed out and fixed the error, and proceeded to get in line.  I was approximately number 250 in line.

A few seconds later, I was in front.  I proceeded with the purchase, and it all went very smoothly.  Much more smoothly than last year, where the store continually broke, and left a lot of unhappy people out there.  I was pleased that I had remembered to log into the Blizzard Store the night before and update my credit card / contact information, so I didn’t have to worry about changing it at purchase time.

Directly after I finished with everything, a friend of mine who had gotten tickets during the first round logged in just to see how long the line was; in about a minute’s time, the line had grown to over 31,000 people!

So I guess I am pretty lucky to have been able to get BlizzCon tickets again.  I expected things to be a bit slower this year, with the economy and all, but I guess it’s true that during hard financial times, people are always looking for entertainment – a way to escape from the troubles of life for a while.

Hopefully this year’s show is just as much fun as the last.  It’s not until August, but If it’s anything like last year, it should be worth the wait.

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