If they can say Nintendog, I can say Nintenday! And what a Nintenday it was. Let us recap yesterday’s events, shall we?. I was on a quest to get my daughter a Nintendo DS Lite for Christmas. Little did I know that Santa had already given all his DS lites away for the year. That son of a…. Luckily, M.L.L. has some connections at a local Gamestop. She was able to pull some strings and secure me a pretty new DS. It’s a good thing too, since I already bought Cam a game for it. My priorities are a bit backwards sometimes.

Later on in the day, after gazing at Cameron’s shiny new DS, I decided to take my own out and give it a quick polish — yes I was a little jealous. So I grabbed my lens cloth and I proceeded to carefully wipe off about a thousand tiny finger prints, hence the reason Santa is bringing Cameron her very own DS. I was just about done shining it up when I saw the cracks. Two cracks to be exact, one on each hinge. I had never noticed these before, so I assumed they were relatively new. After doing a little research, I found that I wasn’t alone here. It seems there are quite a few incidents of cracking hinges on some models of the DS Lite. According to Nintendo, it accounts for only 0.02% of the units sold. Mm hmm, sure it does. They do, however, recommend that you contact customer service right away if this should happen to your DS. So I did, and what a delightful experience it was. Not only are they going to repair it free of charge, they are going to pay for the shipping too. But it gets better! I should get my DS back within seven days. Not too shabby if you ask me. The customer service rep was a nice guy too. We talked for a bit about all sorts of things, such as the Wii, Nintendo’s competition, the industry in general, Nintendo’s philosophies, etc… It was very interesting. He has worked for Nintendo for 13 years.

My Nintenday gets even better. I got to try the Nintendo Wii for the first time and I was utterly blown away. I had some expectations, sure, but nothing like what I experienced yesterday. I only got to try the system for ten minutes or so before I was snapped back to reality, so I may be jumping the gun here, but for those ten minutes I felt like I was looking into a crystal ball. Those ten minutes gave me a glimpse into the future, and not just of gaming, but of how we will eventually interact with everything. Let’s begin. The game was Zelda; the task was fishing. I pulled pack the Wiimote and then lunged it forward as I watched the virtual fishing pole mimic my every move instantaneously. I followed the bobber as in soared through the pixelated sky until it finally plopped into the water. At the very moment of impact, I felt the Wii remote shutter ever so slightly. It sort of reminded me of…..fishing. I gave the Wiimote a tug every now and then until it was finally time to reel in the line. So I grabbed the left part of the controller and started spinning it as if I was actually reeling in a fish. As I did so, the Wiimote started to vibrate rhythmically, in sync with the motion of my left hand. It sort of reminded me of, well…..fishing. There was even a point when people started to gather around to find out what the hell I was doing. From the outside, I must have looked like a demented mime strung out on crack. Anyways, It was really fun and I can definitely see the potential for this system. I plan on writing a full review of the system once I get Cameron gets it for her birthday. Oh, did I mention she’s getting it for her birthday? Which, mind you, is only three weeks after Christmas.

With this in mind, I proceeded to the counter to talk with the manager who sold me the Nintendo DS. I asked him if he had any Nintendo Wiis in stock. Now, I’ve been to about ten other stores before this one, looking to buy the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii and have had zero luck, so I was pretty sure I knew what the answer was going to be. I was just hoping he wouldn’t burst out laughing. He never did. Instead, he just looked me in the eyes and said in a very robotic, monotone voice, “We are currently sold out of all Nintendo Wiis”. As he was doing this, his head started twitching to the left. So then I asked him if he thought he would see anymore before Christmas, in which he replied in the same robotic, monotone voice, “We are currently sold out of all Nintendo Wiis”. His head was twitching to the left even more and at this point I was starting to get a little freaked out. I figured it was the holiday pressure getting to him. I was about to say thank you and walk out of the store when he said in the same robotic, monotone voice, “Even if we did get a shipment of Nintendo Wiis an hour ago, we are not allowed to sell them until exactly 9:00 A.M. on Monday morning.” His head furiously twitching to the left now. That’s when I got it. Sitting on the floor to his left were two large brown boxes. I looked up at the manager. He was smiling at me. I smiled back. We shared a special moment.

And that concludes my Nintenday. My Nintenight (that just sounds stupid) was spent trying out Final Fantasy III on my cracked DS. We’ll save that for another post though. Oh, and by the way, I’ll be a little late for work Monday morning.