Last year, I helped eight people get Wii consoles. Well, nine, if you include mine. I didn’t camp out of any of them. Didn’t get to a store early for them. I wandered into a store and *wham* there they are.

This year, I didn’t expect to be on the hunt for one. Walked into the local Target a few weeks ago and they have a bunch of them – I didn’t think anything of it, since I already have a Wii; I rarely use and I didn’t think they’d be in short supply this year. Last week, I was talking to a friend of mine who was desperate for one – I said I’d look for one. I walk into the local Target the next day: there’s a stack of 80 of them, so I snagged one.

Today, I finally tracked down an Xbox 360 Elite at a local store. Harder for me to find an Elite than a Wii to be quite honest, but whatever. Unfortunately, I was there when there were about 200 people waiting in line to pick up their Wii’s. I got in line. A sales guy comes up and says “Are you in line for a Wii? Here, take this.” I asked if I could skip the line, if I didn’t want one – he said no. I took the ticket and waited.

So, yeah: the eleventh Wii and someone has already claimed it. Since there is a shortage and these have been mostly for kids, I haven’t even been putting on a surcharge on them…

Tis the season, after all.