This is the tax-free holiday weekend in Massachusetts. I didn’t realize this until about Thursday and on Friday, I had a brilliant idea! Its time for a Nintendo DS. I’m not much of a gamer. In fact, the last system I got was a Gameboy Advance circa 2002 on ebay. I have an SP, but I did not pay anything close to retail value for it. There was some ridiculous sale at a KB the day after Thanksgiving and I had a friend pick it up for me.
After being at Otakon, it was hard not to notice the sheer number of people toting the little device around. They would casually take it out to waste time while waiting in some of the incredibly long lines or pass time at a panel that wasn’t particularly interesting. The turning point was just before the awful Transformers panel. There were 3 girls sitting in the back of panel before us, all playing MarioKartDS against each other. I knew then that it was merely an eventuality that I would get one.
So after a night of merriment, I groggily awoke at 8:00 AM EST. I got my things together for the rest of the day including my frisbee, work pager, and suitcase to return to my parents. I knew I wanted to be at Toys R Us early because of the sheer crowds that come out for this holiday, but I also knew that TRU doesn’t open until 10:00 AM EST. So I went about the house gathering all the empty cans and bottles and put them neatly in the kitchen and wiped down the half of the table the bottles were not occupying. After I finished, I was on my way to TRU. The actual act of getting the DS was uneventful and trivial, albeit quite exciting. I picked up MarioKart DS and New Super Mario Bros. to start my gaming adventure with. I do wish in retrospect I had gotten a small padded case and some screen protectors, but in no way does that mean I regretted any part of that trip.
I put my prize in the car and headed to my parents house. After lugging the suitcase in, jokingly stating that I’d need it another month, my mother told me I should just hold onto it and I lugged it back out to my car. I then brought in the DS to show my mom how cool it was. After she looked at it, she said, “You know we still don’t know what to get you for your birthday. Can we give this to you?” I’m not sure she was finished speaking when I said, “Yes!”, but I was pretty excited.
I posted some gadget pr0n after the jump and I also added a gallery here.
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