The dangers of being an obsessive fan with disposable income.

[baratron]

I DO NOT NEED TO FLY TO NEW YORK THIS WEEKEND.

I DO NOT NEED TO FLY TO NEW YORK THIS WEEKEND!

I'm finding flights for £380. I'm not sure if that's a good thing. I could afford £380 without really blinking too much. Come back, £900 flights, all is forgiven!

*hyperventilates*
*attempts to make a list of better things to do with £380*
*attempts to convince self that couriering her game cartridges to a NY local along with some cash to help "persuade" them to spend Saturday standing in a long queue with a bunch of kids would be much more environmentally-friendly*
*continues to hyperventilate*
*wonders why these things always happen when Richard is away from home and uncontactable*

(Yes, this is a Pokemon fandom thing. Did you even need to ask?)

*blinks*
OK, anyone near NY and want to earn US $50 for a few hours' work?

Comments

[redbird]

What sort of work do you have in mind?

[redbird]

Let me clarify that--how long a queue, where, and at what hours?

As much information as I know (!)

[baratron.livejournal.com]

This Saturday, May 14th, the new Nintendo World store is opening. It's on the site of the old Pokemon Center, in Rockefeller Plaza. During the opening party thingy, they are giving away "tickets" to unlock a couple of very rare Pokemon on your game cartridges. The tickets are pieces of code rather than physical tickets. You prepare the game cartridges somehow (I think it's just making sure the game is saved at a certain location - I'd do that before I sent it over) and then go to the store and plug the cartridge into the amusingly named "Wonder Spot" (or maybe it's "Joy Spot", I'm not quite sure). The program runs and in a minute or two your game is updated with the item.

The way the item works is that it cannot be transferred between game cartridges, so if you are the sort of anal "no cheating" game player that I am, Nintendo Events (http://dynamic3.gamespy.com/~psypoke/lab/events.php) are the ONLY way to get certain Pokemon. (The funny thing is, I'm happy to cheat in other games like Animal Crossing...)

This is all I actually know for certain. The Nintendo World (http://www.nintendoworld.com) site is utterly dead; Pokemon Center (http://www.pokemoncenter.com) has no news on it, only the online shopping thingy; Nintendo.com (http://www.nintendo.com) claims that there are no current "Nintendo Events" (clearly a lie! or at least, out of date); and the official US Pokemon site, Pokemon.com (http://www.pokemon.com) is the only place that has the news at all - and it is a site that uses flash in a highly annoying way to stop you being able to bookmark an individual page to point people at. Argh. Most annoyingly, the article on Pokemon.com mentions nothing about the opening hours of the store on Saturday for this opening party thingy.
Length of queue - unknown. Possibly hours-long. Really quite difficult to tell :( I'm suspecting it probably wouldn't be suitable for anyone with mobility difficulties. I'd do it myself, but then it's my game, and if I decide to throw a week's worth of spoons into standing around for hours that's my choice.

Hours - also unknown (You see my problem here?). The old store was open from 11am to 8pm, iirc, but the hours may be different for the opening party. The most frustrating thing of all is that I can't find out whether the "Wonder Spot" with the Mystic Ticket is only going to be there on Saturday itself, or if it'll be there for a few days - as that obviously makes a big difference to the expected queue length. If it's there for, say, a week, Monday would be fantastic, as kiddies will be in school - presumably.

If I don't hear anything else by tomorrow, I'll try to find a phone number for someone who might know... meh :X

hours

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I have times now: 1-5pm.

That's a mere 4 hours, so I take it they're anticipating that the vast majority of people who hear about it won't actually be able to go?!

If you know someone who might be able to wander along, I can send off my cartridges by courier in the morning. Hell, it may even be possible that there'll be virtually no queue because people can't actually get there in time and/or all the local kiddies are busy playing against this unnamed "celebrity".

I hate this "Nintendo Event" system, not least of all because New York is the only place apart from Japan that ever has them :(

[elfgeek.livejournal.com]

Makes me all nostalgic when I think back to the time in early 2002 when I could fly to New York for £240. I guess kerosene has gone up in price substantially since then.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

My flight to the US in January this year cost me £180 + taxes - I think it was £240 including them. If I cared enough to log onto my online banking, I could find the exact figure, but I really can't be bothered unless you're actually interested :)

I was quite surprised to find plenty of flights around the £380 mark at such short notice. It's seriously in the "argh" category, because if my work schedule was different (i.e. if the kiddies' public exams didn't start in 2 weeks) I could easily bugger off for a week and see various US peeps. Ah well.