Anyway, Tony and I planned a Mario Galaxy jaunt for today, so as to be sure not to miss Toys R Us's free $25 gift card offer. That really is an insanely great bonus. We figured on driving out to TRU over lunch.

So, because I've been burned by these situations before, at 11am I called. I was very specific in my language so as not to mislead: "Are you selling Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii yet?"

"No. That's not in yet."

I met that with complete and purposefully awkward silence. The speaker continued...

"I mean, it's supposed to be in today and it will be in today, we just don't have the shipment yet."

Bullshit. That truck was there, the box is on the dock, you just haven't gotten somebody's lazy ass to open it. I promise to call back.

Tony does the second call, around 12:30. I guess we would have continued alternating calls every hour or so until we heard what we wanted to hear... but the news is good. "I just opened that box ten minutes ago," the voice chirrups. And so we are off.

Tony drives and we forge the direct path (through the city) to the store. Within striking distance we get behind this guy, an old man in possession of a land yacht that cruises more than drives:

But his aimless drifting does not hinder our mission for long, and we're at the store... which was recently rebuilt but nevertheless lacks the newer, more compact and playful TRU logo.

On the car trip, I busied myself getting all of our paperwork in order. This is a very complicated purchase and I cannot leave anything to chance. This is called The Proof:

We both hold pre-order slips, so we both should get the coin. I have the sales flyer that mentions this, as well as the unexpected free Remote Glove offer. I also have the second sales flyer that has the $25 gift card. I mentally prepare myself for any resistance, imagining myself as Phoenix Wright presenting crucial evidence. "HOLD IT," I'll scream.

To complicate matters further, I have a coupon to instantly save $10 off any $100 spent. If we combine our games, this will save us another $5 each. However, the question looms: will we be allowed to use this coupon in conjunction with our already extravagant offer(s)? Tony suspects we should have brought a video camera.

But I am happy to report that the venture was 110% successful. We selected our gloves right away (a blue one for me and a black one for Tony; the stock was ample... I did not know Nintendo was making gloves with characters on them these days, although the art is too small to mean much), and the clerk knew exactly what we were talking about. He assembled the coins and the gift cards with no prompting. He did mention that he just got in 15 minutes ago, implying that we would not have been able to buy the game before that. WTF? Why is shelf stock determined by a shift change? That's fine if we're talking about Petz 2, but a big game with big offers behind it needs to be stocked at fucking daybreak.

The $10 coupon was accepted without incident. The only surprise was that the $25 gift card has to be used by year's end. I'm figuring on turning it into a $20 Wii Points cards and $5 on Smash Bros.

Then it was back to the office, to fill time until Galaxy. I browsed the manual and noticed a meager WiFi component: emailing a screenshot of your collection screen, so as to show off your progress to other Wii owners. If you can email a stupid inventory checklist, you better damn well be able to email actual in-game awesome photos. I'm sure I'll find out soon enough...