The best-laid plans of answering machines and video games.

Alright. Yes, I am back in Jacksonville after loads of fun in South Bend watching the Fighting Irish whip up on the Orange (not men) of Syracuse on Saturday and then enjoying loads of fun delays in Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta on Sunday. It seems as if I brought cold weather back with me, though. Monday morning was warm and incredibly humid (as Florida should be) but by the time I left my cave that I call "the workplace" nine hours later that thing known as "outside" seemed to have dropped in temperature by about 50 degrees. This is further proof that there is a God somewhere out there and he (or she [or it]) does not like me very much. Cold weather is not my friend, even if I get to look damn sharp in my clothes that only get worn for a couple months a year. Once again, I am the fashion guru. Except with cold toes.

I discovered my answering machine was broken upon returning home. I found this out by attempting to play back the one message stored, which was approximately two minutes of dial tone before I shut it off. This thing was old anyway. It was so old that it still used a miniature cassette tape, if that gives you an idea. It was so old that it remembered when the only screwups our president made involved slightly overweight interns. (Oh, no he di'n't!) It was so old that it probably had the bassline from Roni Size's "Brown Paper Bag" stored somewhere as the background to a greeting. Ancient. Old. Damn old.

So I go to Best Buy to pick up a newfangled digital answering machine since I also received a 12% off coupon in the mail that would expire after Monday. Why 12%? Why the hell not? I guess 12% tested well in the applicable demographics. Whatever. As I'm pulling into the parking lot I realize that I'm there the night before the big Xbox360 video game launch. Being the video-game-savvy person that I am, I know that having one would be cool, but I also realize that $399 is a lot to spend on a system that has one, possibly two games available that I would want to play. This also means that I sure as hell would not be sitting outside Best Buy in 38-degree weather waiting for the next morning to roll around so I could buy one. That makes me very different from the 50-odd people I saw lined up around the building last night. I mean really, people. There was even one who had a tent set up. You heard me right. He had a fucking tent set up. This made him smarter than the fratboy in shorts and a t-shirt who will likely be paying off not only his Xbox360 credit card bill all throughout the rest of his college career, but likely his hospital bill for the damn hypothermia he was bound to experience by morning. You know your priorities are in a thoroughly messed up place when you're willing to risk your health in order to be one of the first people to have a video game system. I mean, damn, people. I could get into the whole third world country thing, but you've heard it all before so I'll stop here, lest you think I give a shit about the world and politics and all that other good stuff. Because I don't. Unless it affects me. Which it usually doesn't. Because I am a rock, I am an island, dammit. An island with an ancient tape-based answering machine. Crap.

As I'm bringing my carefully-selected newfangled digital answering machine with cordless phone and call-waiting caller ID up to the counter, I stop by the area near the video games and ask the girl what time they start selling these life-changing Xbox360s. She tells me that they will go on sale at 9am the next morning, and that is why all the odd people are lined up outside. I politely ask her if she'll sell me one right now so I can go outside, show it to the dorks in line and then drive home, pointing and laughing Nelson-style. She considered it a fabulous idea, but also mentioned that I was likely to get killed since one dork is easy to combat, but they can swarm me with numbers, zombie style. The store was also likely to become a riot zone of angry nerds if such a thing were to pass anyway. She really seemed to want to do it, though. I guess when the PS3 launches I'll just have to find a Best Buy employee a little less attached to their job. I pay for my answering machine (considerably less than $399) and head home, shaking my head at the miserable-looking nerds in line. I'm sure today brought them great joy of some sort. One can only hope.

I still wish I could've proved just how much cooler than them I am by flaunting a system in their faces a day early. But $399 is a steep price to pay for coolness. And I've still gotta buy Christmas presents. Such is life.

Side note: For those who wonder why I still have a home phone and not just a cell, I need it for the security system in my house to work properly. My cell phone is also only vaguely functional in my house. By "vaguely functional" I mean "the damn thing misses calls like that female NBA ref last season." (Oh, no he di'n't again!) I don't need that kind of frustration, believe me.

Another side note: You can all feel free to point to this post and make fun of me when I'm in line outside a Best Buy for a PS3 next year. Because it's bound to happen. Because I, too, am a dork deep-down. This post coveting a PSP is all the evidence you should need. I will not be pitching a tent, though. Mark my words.

One last side note: In the interest of full disclosure, I own a PSP. And a PS2. And an old Xbox. And a Gamecube. And a Gameboy. And a Dreamcast. I too am amazed that I wasn't in that line myself. I can now hypocritically mock due to the fact that I wasn't in that line, though.

Stop looking at me like that.