    
Bruce Sims
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ubetchaiam
Post Number: 918
Registered: 06-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, November 17, 2006 - 3:13 pm: | 
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"One of our stories in today's paper was about the release of the new PlayStation 3. Not really about that, per se, but about a line of people who had formed Wednesday morning to wait to have a chance to purchase one of these video game devices. Mind you, they sell for nearly $600 a pop, and don't go on sale until this morning (Friday).
Students from SUNY Albany were missing classes and camping out to buy these machines. Wal-Mart eventually kicked them out, after issuing them vouchers for the devices, but only after an altercation broke out amongst the hopefuls. Why? Someone paid another shopper $200 to move up one space in the line. Others didn't think that was fair, and a fight broke out.
I was hard pressed to think of anything that would be worth my camping out for days, bribing someone, and then getting into fisticuffs for. Maybe time with you, but still, like Michael Jackson, I'm a lover, not a fighter.
The AP also had a story about the nationwide mania that had broken out. Included in that was a woman who was not only nine months pregnant, but having contractions while she was in line. She didn't go to the hospital because she didn't want to cede her place.
For a friggin' Sony PlayStation, no less.
Several things struck me.
One, who has that kind of money (and time) to blow on something so meaningless.
And second, the elections were last week, and yet no one was camping outside of polling places to cast their votes.
Not that I'm a particular advocate of electoral politics, but still..." |
