I WANT TO EAT A NUT OF LAERMA!

LOCAL LOSER GETS ARRESTED IN PLAYSTATION 3 KERFUFFLE.

Fights and riots break out all over North America as asshole scalpers hoping to score between $1500 and up to $10000 U.S. and beyond on eBay and one or two honest-to-goodness big-spending actual gamers lined-up at "Big Box" electronic stores everywhere to buy the first intentionally limited in number for maximum media hype and presumably glitch-infested PlayStation 3 units to hit stores.

From CBC News:

Police in Ottawa arrested one man on Thursday night as lineups for the new PlayStation 3 game console turned ugly.

Ottawa police said one man was arrested in the west end after fights broke among people waiting to be among the first to pay $659.99 for a console when the store opened at 8 a.m.

Gamers lined up outside stores across North America last night ahead of the Friday morning launch of Sony's new gaming console. Some of those lineups, including in Ottawa, were the scenes of injuries and altercations.

Police were called to the Merivale Future Shop at about 2 a.m. Friday, where many people had been waiting in the rain for hours for a limited number of available consoles.

Police said those involved in the altercation were removed and were not permitted to rejoin the line.

MERIVALE ROAD FUTURE SHOP, REPRESENT, YO!






To the ne'er do well who got arrested, Nelson Muntz says "Ha-ha!"







Merivale Future Shop (and Merivale Best Buy) is also mentioned in this Ottawa Sun piece by Jorge Barrera:

They gathered in the dozens for hours under tents covered by plastic tarps on the rain-slicked sidewalk outside hi-tech big box stores across the city for today's release of PlayStation 3.

But many didn't do it for the love of gaming. They did it for the money.

"I'm not interested in the actual thing. I'm interested in the money," said A_____ J____, 20, who was waiting outside BestBuy on Merivale Rd. "You can get $1,000 to $1,500 for it on E-Bay."

There were only 26 PS3 consoles for sale at the BestBuy store and last night there were 26 people lined up on the sidewalk. Next door at the Future Shop, there were only 12 consoles in stock, but 16 people waiting.

(I dashed the name of the scalper mentioned in the piece, since... I don't want to hear from him.)

Come to think of it, to everyone else locally in Nepean who waited in line in last night's foul November Rain, Nelson Muntz says "Ha-ha!"



I'll probably buy my PlayStation 3 from either the Merivale Road Future Shop or the Merivale Road Best Buy stores... but that won't likely be until around 2010, by which time the price of the PS3 would have dropped significantly, like to around $200 Canadian, and by which time most of the good games will already be available in "Greatest Hits" editions for below $30 Canadian, or used at EB Games for less than $20 Canadian. Since I only got a PlayStation 2 last Christmas, I still have the best part of half a decade's worth of video games for me to tide me over until then.

So far, the only thing about the PlayStation 3 that I find enticing is that Gran Turismo HD will finally feature a few licensed Ferrari cars, the F430 and the Ferrari 599 GTB Fioriano. But that game isn't even a launch title and won't be out for a while and I would not be surprised if they release a downgraded version on the Playstation 2 as Gran Turismo 5. And I may eventually get an (old) XBox, so I can drive Ferraris in Project Gotham Racing and PGR 2 and Forza Motorsport, not to mention the fully-licensed Ferrari games I already own, Out Run 2006: Coast 2 Coast on the Playstation 2 and F355 Challenge: Passione Rossa on the Sega Dreamcast.

For Google Image Search ranking purposes,

The Merivale Future Shop (and Best Buy) at night...
The interior of the Future Shop on Merivale Road in Nepean.
Merivale Road Future Shop and Best Buy in Nepean.

Labels: Canada, Future Shop, Merivale Road, Nepean, Ontario, Ottawa, Playstation 3, PS3

posted by Steve Brandon @ 7:59 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

BICYCLE ACCIDENT

Hmm... I haven't been able to find anything about this on Google News, but, on Monday evening, I voted in the Ottawa elections at St. Mark's Anglican Church on Fisher (and am writing a separate article about the election that should be up in the afternoon), and I was walking back up to Meadowlands Drive when a city of Ottawa fire engine came rushing westwards along Meadowlands and stopped for a minute at the intersection with Fisher, like they weren't 100% sure where to go.



Then it continued along Meadowlands, but just for a block before stopping at Ness.

I crossed Meadowlands at the intersection with Fisher, hoping to take the 86 or 111 bus west to Merivale, as I had to take the Playstation 2 game Phantasy Star Universe back to Blockbuster.

Then an ambulance came rushing south along Fisher and turned west along Meadowlands.



I decided to go and see what had happened.

I stayed on the opposite side of the street so as to not interfere. As soon as I got to the accident scene, a city of Ottawa Ford Crown Victoria police car pulled right by me.



Then a second ambulance arrived.



I could see that a bicycle was laying on the ground at the corner with Ness Street, and there was some unfortunate person, presumably the cyclist, lying about a metre further along Meadowlands. All I could see was that this person was wearing a red sweater. I couldn't make out gender or whether the person was conscious or unconscious, or even the age of the person, though I presume from the look of the bicycle that this person was probably a teenager.

I didn't see any car stopped nearby, so it might have been a hit-and-run, or it could just be that the driver that knocked this person off the bike had parked nearby and called the cops. Or, it's possible, though I think less likely, that there was no driver involved and the cyclist might have just had a seizure or just fell off and hurt him or herself badly.

One good thing I can say is that I didn't see any pools of blood, though whether there are broken limbs, internal injuries, or severe brain injuries, I really can't say.



You can see a general overview of the accident scene in this photo, though the victim is hidden by the ambulance and the wheels from a stretcher. If you look at the full-size version of the accident scene photo, you can see the upturned bike and various paramedics and police officers attending to the victim.

Not to be too much of a "Looky Lou", I didn't even attempt to get a photograph of the victim, but I do like taking photos of emergency vehicles, for various Flickr pools I belong to, and here are the two shots I particularly like:





Since I haven't heard anything on the radio about this yet, I presume that, while the accident was not a pleasant experience for the victim, it was neither fatal nor life-threatening, thank God.

Labels: accident, hit-and-run., Nepean, news, Ottawa

posted by Steve Brandon @ 9:06 AM 0 Comments Links to this post