Trip to the SunBanque

SunBanque Island Tanning

I had to go uptown today to drop off a few photo CDs from the New Year's party. While up there I dropped by the local FutureShop to see if there were any Nintendo Wii units available. For the record I despise FutureShop. It's a computer/electronics store chain that is known for the majority of it's commission driven salespeople to outright lie to you when asking them questions.

I remember trying to get a monitor cable and the sales guy told me they don't make those cables anymore and I should buy a new monitor. After that experience I took it upon myself to educate other customers after they were given some fictional sales pitch by the same sales guy.

Another shopping experience occurred while looking for a printer. Futureshop had one of it's "on sale" printers left. At first I was happy as the price was reasonable and the printer was half decent and not used (so I was told). The sales guy went to the back to get the box. When he came out the box had badly placed duct tape on it, a clue that it was opened. Having been burnt by other computer stores before I asked if I could open the box to see the printer. The sales guy said sure while insisting that there was no need.

The printer was crammed in with the custom foam, foam that was broken into pieces. Whoever put the printer back in the box didn't even care that the printer was put back in the foam properly. It looked like they just shoved it in. Then I noticed the ink cartridge in the printer! Looking very wary I asked the sales guy what was up with that. He told me, without batting an eyelash, that it was standard procedure to put the print cartridge into the printer to test the printer before the customer gets it. The nerve of these guys.

So why go to FutureShop? The low prices attract me. Plus I usually just avoid the sales people and previously opened boxes. If I have questions about the product I'll check on-line. I will never talk to a salesperson unless they're in my way or spewing some crap to other customers.

As for the Nintendo Wii, I've been intrigued by the motion controllers since first reading about them. I missed purchasing the game cube with it's version of MarioKart so, I figure, now would be a good time to jump back on the Nintendo band wagon. As Mario would say "Letsa go!"

I was told that there are no units available for purchase until march, april or may. They weren't very specific. How can they say they sell a product when it's not on the shelves until March? It's odd you can buy the controllers, the software, even a stand for the console, just no console.

As a gaming alternative I took a look at the Blizzard game "The World of Warcraft". It's only $25 to buy but to play you also have to buy credits that cost about $20 a month. I opted not to buy that game as I didn't want my life to be taken over by staying at home in front of a computer. Not that that would really change much.