View Full Version : Waiting In Lines with Geeks...
funnelfish
10-13-2006, 07:43 PM
I want to start off by saying that you people are pretty lucky in the fact that I revel in my geekiness on this board. Normally though, I am a pretty conservative guy... man, who am I kidding.
Anyway. I have done some pretty geeky things in my life. I not only read comics, but I have a box at my local shops and a list of around 20-30 regular books. I have gone to Comi-Con... Twice. I have even been dragged to a Star Trek Con once (don't ask, I still have horrible flashbacks). But I have never, NEVER done anything as geeky as I did today.
Yes ladies and gentleman. I stood in line for two and a half hours to give some little asain guy money so that he could give me a slip of paper that said I MIGHT get a Wii on Nov.19th... And while I was waiting I got to overhear the most amazing conversations...
But enough about me... Do any of you have geeky/funny line waiting experiances?
divadawg9234
10-13-2006, 07:46 PM
:( I want a $250 piece of paper that says I MIGHT get a Wii on the release date!
point5o
10-13-2006, 07:47 PM
Do any of you have geeky/funny line waiting experiances?
Just picking up Halo 2 at the Gamestop of my local mall at midnight.
funnelfish
10-13-2006, 07:53 PM
:( I want a $250 piece of paper that says I MIGHT get a Wii on the release date!
$272.35
I did get to talk to this lonely housewife for two hours about her son and how much she liked playing nintendo with him. I wish my mom had liked video games... wait, no I don't. But on the upside I would have been able to have a system in the house. I didn't get my first video game system until I was 18 and moved out of the house.
divadawg9234
10-13-2006, 08:03 PM
$272.35
I did get to talk to this lonely housewife for two hours about her son and how much she liked playing nintendo with him. I wish my mom had liked video games... wait, no I don't. But on the upside I would have been able to have a system in the house. I didn't get my first video game system until I was 18 and moved out of the house.
my mom would play Dr Mario and Tetris with me, but could never get the hang of anything else... until DDR, she kicks ass at Dance Dance!
I waited in a log ass line to see Harry Potter on opening night... does this count?
harlo
10-13-2006, 08:04 PM
I sat for 3 1/2 hours to go see the Serenity panel at DragonCon last year. Two days in a row. :p
jonathanlondon
10-13-2006, 08:12 PM
I read a Preacher trade while waiting for Episode 1 tickets.
The trade was one thousand times better then the movie.
point5o
10-13-2006, 08:14 PM
I read a Preacher trade while waiting for Episode 1 tickets.
The trade was one thousand times better then the movie.
And that's no hyperbole.
divadawg9234
10-13-2006, 08:54 PM
bump567890
iggystar
10-13-2006, 10:36 PM
I took off from work and got into a very long line at 6:00 a.m. to get Phantom Menace tickets. The box office didn't open until 3:00 p.m.
It was really fun. There was media coverage and restaurants came and fed us. We all sat around talking about Star Wars, The Matrix..you know geek stuff.
And I've been to plenty of Star Trek conventions..nothing to be ashamed of.
seumas
10-13-2006, 10:55 PM
__________
cyrinix
10-13-2006, 11:43 PM
I wish my mom had liked video games... wait, no I don't.
i dont know about you man, but hearing your mom call you a little f***er for getting further in mario bros than she did is just classic, hehe :)
thefast
10-13-2006, 11:54 PM
I was at PAX the other month, and Ubisoft was giving away a free t-shirt to the first 50 people who colored in a picture from one of their games, but they had this girl displaying the shirt that they were giving away, so I was all like "Are we gonna get that exact shirt?". It was HILARIOUS.
paulsaves
10-14-2006, 01:26 AM
I waited in line on christmas eve at a Gamestop to buy Max Payne. Oh the nightmares the crying baby caused me..
narco
10-14-2006, 01:55 AM
I've waited in many lines for extremely long periods of time. Usually concert tickets (back before they enforced bracelets), and more recently when Apple stores open up. I remember I spent the night in front of a comic book store in the late 90's for that Image comic tour. My apologies -- I was young.
Waiting in line sounds like a silly idea to most people, but for a person who really doesn't have many "geek" friends, it's nice to spend a few hours geeking out about whatever we're standing in line for. It's a great experience.
seumas
10-14-2006, 01:58 AM
__________
graham
10-14-2006, 02:03 AM
I tend to be one of those "hard core geeks" who doesn't really like to be around other geeks. At least, in most scenerios.
You know who else said that? Harris and Klebold. Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't you in Colorado too?
Dialing a phone to ask for help is a better option than pulling a trigger...
seumas
10-14-2006, 02:09 AM
__________
fushna
10-14-2006, 06:07 AM
Every boxing day I'm in line at my local best buy just to get the best deals I'm normaly one of the first ten people in line. Last year I convinced at least ten people to buy a DS.
popltree2
10-14-2006, 06:14 AM
I read a Preacher trade while waiting for Episode 1 tickets.
The trade was one thousand times better then the movie.
I watched the movie while waiting in line for the movie. Arrrrggg! :D
satansmagichat
10-14-2006, 09:47 AM
A buddy of mine got to GameStop at 7 AM for Wii preorders when the store opens at 10. I laughed at him, and said "they aren't ahving a shortage, you actually think people are gonna make a line just to preorder what they'll probably be able to get without a preorder slip?" Turns out, he was seventh in line.
I've waited three hours in front of a COMPUSA on the night before black friday to get computer parts.
I've never waited in line for theater tickets that long. I didn't see any of the SW prequels in theaters. However, I DID buy tickets in advance for Superman Returns. I had to go back twice because more people were coming. Turns out, the theater wasn't even half full when we saw the damned flick.
superdeformed
10-15-2006, 07:25 AM
Hmm, geeky things I've done. Where do I begin?
One of the earliest things I can remember was when I was a little shit filling up a notebook full of pictures of Cargamel capturing Smurfs.
I obsessivly watched cartoons and noticed production errors and story holes since I could remember. My family hated watching tv with me.
Once I learned there was anime at a local video store (mid-90's when shit was rare) I'd ride my bike there and eventually rented the entire section. Every week I would fill up the request log at the front counter with Anime titles I got from catalogs and flyers and things I got from video companys who I wrote in to when I found their information.
When I watched Anime VHSs I'd watch the tape until the video cut out completely to make sure there was no hidden extras.
When I got my drivers lisence I'd work a crappy parttime job, once I got paid I'd borrow money from my parents for gas and drove ther car to new orleans to buy random anime I could comb out of whatever mall I could get to. I almost bought Lazerdiscs at this time without having a player, but luckily video sections grew with time.
I've been averaging at least 1 anime convention every other year, at the most 3 in a year for the last 10 years.
I went to Otakon in Maryland on my own at age 18 and roomed with people I knew off of the XBand video game network (pre-internet Super Nintendo and Genisis video game network) I never once talked to these people on the phone and had no idea what they looked like.
The first time I got drunk was at a gaming and bondage convention. It took seeing my friend dressed up as a nun and drunk spanking a hot ***** in a red latex dress to make me reconsider my stout beleifs I held all my life on drinking.
As for recent nerdy? Not much. I'm not much of a line waiter because I get into things either way early on or once their popularity has faded. I'm the older more angry geek and the new spoiled generation of geeks really pisses me off. Everying is released on DVD for them. I had to buy blank tapes and record shit, and godforbid if I missed an episode. Hell you can download shit now easily as well. Bah, ****ing kids.
tarmanydyn
10-15-2006, 08:10 AM
Waited about 30 minutes to an hour to get an autograph from Morena Baccarin and Christina Hendricks :/
seumas
10-15-2006, 08:30 AM
__________
The only time I have waited in a line for more than an hour was at Best Buy on Black Friday. I love being the first ones there and getting one of all their good deals just to turn around and sell it on EBay while others cry at the back of the line because they wanted one for someone else and now won't get it.
toastmstrgeneral
10-15-2006, 03:52 PM
I just thought of something I waited at least an hour in line for. When I was twelve years old, I waited in line to meet Buzz Aldrin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzz_Aldrin) (first man to set foot on the moon) to have him sign my copy of his book Men From Earth.
your parents lied to you, he was second
superdeformed
10-15-2006, 04:55 PM
How did I completely miss the point of this thread? I really need to stop reading this forum when I am half-asleep.
xxxthundercatxxx
10-15-2006, 05:38 PM
Me and my buddies were first in line to see ep. II but we only waited about an hour and a half. Not because we were really excited to see it, but because we wanted the seats in the middle of the theater with the hand rail in front of them.
Some asshole nerds with mullets dressed in robes with plastic lightsabres tried cutting infront of us and about 40 other people. I told them the line started in the back and they ignored me and kept goofing around with their toys. So I grabbed the end of one of the kids lightsabers and bent it in half and told him I'd kick the shit out of them if they didn't leave. That was how I learned what it felt like to be a jock.
seumas
10-15-2006, 08:42 PM
__________
Well, I can see the social aspect of it, I suppose. But I tend to be one of those "hard core geeks" who doesn't really like to be around other geeks. At least, in most scenerios.I say that if we're going to label things, that it's the geeks who spend lots of time around other geeks (e.g. at conventions) that are the "hard core geeks" and you're just anti(geek)social. heh
Maybe I'm just being pedantic. Please don't shoot up my school.
seumas
10-16-2006, 06:24 AM
__________
Think of it this way.
There are some gay guys who act SO GAY that most other gay guys are embarrassed and don't want other people to lump them in with them. That doesn't mean that they're "more gay" than the guys that are embarrassed. It just means that they can be way totally gay without having to prance around in short-shorts and rollerskates and lipstick, telling everyone to "go on, girlfriend!".
Likewise, just because I don't want to be lumped in with the LARPers that overtake a Shari's at 2am or the 40 year old virgins in line at a movie, dressing up like their favorite science fiction character doesn't make me antisocial nor does it make me "less of a geek". And I should have clarified that it's not that I don't like hanging around my fellow geeks so much as I don't like hanging around the ones who make a point of acting like they're six years old in public.
But you guys are all so cool that I would never imagine myself being ashamed of being considered part of your cluster in public. Nope, you're all just way so cool. And so am I. In fact, our coolness could only bounce off of each other's coolness until we were one giant coolness-fission-reaction moving down the sidewalk.Wasn't questioning your geekness... just your use of the phrase "hard core". :)
fushna
10-16-2006, 04:48 PM
I stayed up all night waiting to preorder my Wii. I was the third person in line. The EB that I was waiting at was inside a mall and they opened the doors a 5:20, I sat and waited with my friend in his car watching moviesuntill 4:30 thats when the battery died and then we went to wait outside. When we got in side everybody in line whiped out their DS and we played untill the store opened. Last night is was between 0 and -5C and it snowed. The guy at EB said at one of the other stores when he drove by there were 40 people outside waiting in the snow. So I was one of the luckey ones who not only got my preorder but I did it in a nice warm building. Oh also at my EB there were 4 people who were out of luck.
losojosdemuerte
10-16-2006, 06:09 PM
Like J.Lo I also waited in line for Episode 1 and had to listen to a group of Geeks discuss DND for about 4 hours. I finally got fed up and went my car and started blarring music from my car so they could pipe down. It was funny.
fushna
10-17-2006, 02:26 AM
Oh I forgot the best part, before we were allowed in the mall I almost got in a knife fight with somebody.
Like J.Lo I also waited in line for Episode 1 and had to listen to a group of Geeks discuss DND for about 4 hours. I finally got fed up and went my car and started blarring music from my car so they could pipe down. It was funny.Yeah, that's... uh.. that's... ok, then.
abacusand13south
10-17-2006, 04:40 PM
Yeah, that's... uh.. that's... ok, then.
I guess you had to be there.