Are you looking for a midnight release party to attend next week Monday/Tuesday for The Burning Crusade? Ok, maybe you have a nerd friend who wants to go to a par-TAY for TBC and he asked you to find a loc. Whoever the hell is the nerd in question, Gamestop and EBGames can be your one-stop shop for TBC at midnight. Your nerd friend should still call ahead and reserve a copy!!

Apparently, some locations will have optional events “… such as costume contests, card game tournaments, screen-shot character judging …”, but you and I both know that no hardcore, must-have-at-midnight, WoW player is going to have time for that crap. The hardcores are going to grab their box, throw money, “keep the change!” and run home.

Reminds me of the one time I didn’t preorder one of the EverQuest expansions; I think it was the Legends of Ykesha. During the day at work I started having second thoughts, “how could I be so STUPID to not preorder??” so I stopped off at EBGames during my lunch. Four of us in the store looking for the same thing … me in a suit, this rather gothy-looking couple and a sweat-pants dude. Worker told us that store had no extra copies, but the store on the other side of town had two extra copies, he had just spoken to the guy over there.

While he’s saying all that, I’m backing towards the door, getting my cell phone ready. (True story — I didn’t have all afternoon to hunt down this box, I had 60 minutes.) As soon as the worker gets to the “… first come, first served” part, I’m out the door. En route, I talked to the worker-dude at Store #2 — he won’t budge on the FCFS. (bastard!) If some other heavily-pierced EQ couple walks into Store #2 while I’m stuck in traffic, I’m shit outta it.

Like a demon possessed, I’m one with the road. “How could I be so STUPID??” Sure, Ykesha was a minor expansion, but what was I thinking? I’m gonna sit in Planes of Power while everyone is pulling in un-nerfed loot hand over fist in the new areas? As it is, I wouldn’t be logging in until the evening — best-case scenario, I’d have two or three hours before they hotfixed the loot tables and I thought I could wait to get the expansion on the weekend? Stupid. Stupid.

I arrived at the mall, walked (I didn’t run, fercrissakes) to Store #2, approached the register and inquired politely, any EQ Ykesha for sale? Ya, he’s got some Ykesha. About a dozen unreserved copies. Did I want one?

That lil mo….fu….

So when I say you need to make these arrangements early, I speak from experience. You don’t want to be making calls all Tuesday morning, desperately seeking TBC. You don’t want some lil bastard at the mall EBGames yanking your chain. Learn from my mistakes, make arrangements NOW.

Class dismissed.