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Health & Fitness

Big Night for Both Video Gamers and Politicians

No school on Election Day creates excitement for teen kids anticipating the release of Halo 4. And mom, too.

Monday Night

Tonight, candidates are still campaigning, and probably preparing both victory and concession speeches. I would venture a good guess that though they may be ready for victory, they are probably also, at the very least, ready for this election to be OVER.

At our house, we are preparing for something completely different: the release of a new video game, Halo 4. At midnight.

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Kirkwood public schools are not in session tomorrow, due to the busy-ness of a presidential election and local schools being polling places. This created the opportunity, for the first time, for our 15 year old to ask if he could join the throngs of "gamers" who go and actually stand in line to receive their video game, as soon as humanly possible (gamer-ly possible?) at the release. At midnight.

I said yes.

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I have stood in line myself, at our local friendly West County Apple store, for the release of certain devices. I have braved the crowd, the line, the relentlessly friendly Apple employees in blue shirts. (Okay, they gave us free coffee, or iced green tea, or bottled water. But that's it. Geez, I hate roughing it.)

There is quite an elaborate procedure to acquire the video game in place. First, we had to Pre-order the Game. THEN we must go back to the store between 10 and 11:30 pm, where we will present our receipt, then our receipt will be "Finalized." Also, we will then receive a Line Ticket, also known as a Group Number. When the clock strikes midnight, the store will re-open, and call the masses according to their Group Number and distribute the game. We will only receive the game if we have the magical Finalized Receipt as well as the Group Number/Line Ticket thingie.

My understanding was, from the trusty employees at the game store, that this elaborate sequence of events will prevent us (read: them, as I plan to sit in the car) from standing in line any more than necessary.

You can understand my confusion, then, when I arrived at the game store mid-afternoon today to complete the Pre-Order process, to discover there were already young men standing around outside the building. In line. For the midnight release of this particular game. Whaaat?

I did not inquire, except to make certain that I was in fact correct, that they were actually already in line. They were. I assume they want to get the VERY FIRST line ticket, so that they receive the game as CLOSE TO MIDNIGHT AS POSSIBLE.

I really don't mind the distraction from the other thing going on tomorrow, the election. It helps me ignore the non-stop ringing of our landline (see previous blog re: me not wanting to give up our landline, though I may be ready after tonight).

We have excitement and enthusiasm in the air at out house, and I must say I really don't mind that it comes from the four young men who are excited to hang together (on a weeknight!) in anticipation of this first for all of them: standing in line and then playing a brand-new, much anticipated video game within minutes (we hope!) of it's release.

I'll pick this up later, let you know how it goes.

Tuesday morning:

Everything went great.

I was surprised to see what I believe was a full-grown man in a complete armor costume. My belief of his "full-grown" status was based more on his size and stature than his attire. He apparently had a phone strapped to his wrist, as well. This somehow provided some authenticity to his costume, according to the young whippersnappers.

We received said "Line Ticket Group Number" a bit early, the store opened before the aforementioned 10 pm, and we came home for nearly 2 hours. We returned for the opening promptly at midnight, and we were home with the game being loaded up by 12:10 pm.

I immediately went to bed. Not sure what I think of this experience, but we had fun, and was definitely entertaining. At least more entertaining than watching more political coverage. Not a bad way to spend Election Eve, 2012.

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