Three Wii for Bri, Mr. Lee, and Me (hehehe!)

It seems that I am locked with Kevin in an eternal struggle: he has been sent to suck me into his hair-brained get-rich-quick schemes, and I to rebuff him. These schemes usually involve the exploitation of my house. (For example: a) using my house as a T-shirt printing factory; b) running an autistic daycare center out of my house in the morning, and running an SAT prep course out of it in the afternoon. I labeled this idea "autistic SAT."; c) turning my garage into a gym, and charging others to use the facilities.) But, because his newest idea did not involve any of my personal property, and was a zero-risk investment, I conceded and decided to go along for the ride.

Kevin and Brina run a little Ebay operation called "fundourwedding." From this account, they sell a variety of items (usually tickets and small electronics) for purpose expressed in their company name. Brina's newest brainchild is using the relative scarcity and high demand for Wii gaming consoles to turn a quick buck. Through back door channels, she locates the date and time of Wii deliveries to Target retailers, then lines up early in the morning to purchase them. After tax the consoles run $270, and she can turn a $40-50 profit on each unit. There is no risk since unsold Wiis can be returned to Target within 90 days of the purchase date.

So I arose at 4:30 last Sunday to meet Kevin and Brina at the Target in Fullerton by 5am. When we got there, we discovered there was already a young man named Stewie waiting for the Wii. (That's Stewie's hand you see on the far right in the photo below.) He had been hoping to acquire one since before Christmas, and was very glad at having found out this Target might be his chance. Brina, her dad, Kevin and I set up camp, consisting of lawn chairs, some blankets, bottled water, snacks, and a deck of Bang! game cards.

At left is the photo Mr. Lee took of us after we were given our tickets guaranteeing one Wii console to each ticket bearer. We received the tickets around seven o'clock. Mr. Lee sneaked to the back of the line later to get a second ticket. To "disguise" himself and prevent being caught, he took off his glasses and changed his shirt. I know, it's a very "Clark Kent/Superman," unsophisticated disguise, but it worked. He walked out of that store with two units! The buying process using the tickets was considerably more complex than a usual Target purchase, but I will spare the reader the details as they are not very interesting and not critical to the story I am trying to tell. In any event, as we were walking out of the store, a customer coming in got the last ticket.

We called a second Target right down the street, and they said they had a few more Wiis in stock. I drove Kevin in the Prius, while Brina took her father. We picked up the last remaining units there, and headed to the Target in Anaheim—a city apparently not particularly interested in new technological advances. Although we had to arrive at 5am in Fullerton to assure ourselves of a Wii, we arrived after 8:40 in Anaheim to find plenty of units ready for purchase. This gave me a total of three Wiis to be sold on Craig's list, which does not charge commission and allows us to meet our buyers directly in order to avoid shipping costs.

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Addendum, 6/17/07: Kevin helped me sell two of the units for $210 a piece, and I sold the remaining Wii to Eddie at no cost. So much for my venture into venture capitalism.

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While I was blogging one day at Brina's house, Kevin saw the title of this entry and decided to impersonate me by composing a little story. What follows is what he typed, which, for better or for worse, I am publishing unamended:

Well the day started off early. At the crack of dawn. My best friend's girlfriend convinced me to camp out at the entrance of Target for the possibility of buying the elusive Wii. Ahhh the Wii, some say it was made for the female demographic. But I beg to differ. The gaming system is absolutely splendid and made for every man, women, boy, and girl. The Wii combines the precedence of classic nintendo games with the ingenuity and cutting edge technology of motion sensored controllers that move as you move. But I digress. I ended up waiting three hours in front of a Target with my best friend, his girlfriend, and the girlfriend's father. The wait was actually unexpectly delightful. The perverbial cherry on top of waiting in line for three hours was with our serendipidous friendship with our neighborhood Wii hunter, Stewy.