furious

I'm pretty angry right now. I just have to get it out of my system and move on. I've gone on and on in multiple posts about the coming of the new Rockstar game, Grand Theft Auto IV onto the PS3. I mean, this is basically one of the 2 games that I have been waiting all along to play on the PS3. Needless to say I'm pretty excited about it and I couldn't wait to play it when it was finally released in stores. I even pre-ordered it from Best Buy so I could be assured of getting it on Day Zero. That day is today.

And yet, here I am at home after work and am I firing up the game, assuming the role of Nico Bellic and terrorizing the streets of Liberty City? Negative. Instead I sit fuming in front of the computer, just plain angry. Did I get the game? I did. I worked until about 8pm, got the hell out of the office as soon as I could, and went down to the Best Buy to pick up my order just before closing time. The chick behind the counter gave me a blank stare as if she'd never done this before. "Is it the special edition?" she asked me. Not wanting to lie, I said I don't think so, but she seemed almost bent on trying to hand me the special collector's edition which costs about $30 more and comes with all kinds of extra stuff like a metal box and a book of artwork. If she was going to give that to me I sure wasn't going to say no. But eventually she actually checked the order and realized that it was just the regular game. She put it in a bag and handed it to me, and I was outta there.

It wasn't until I was nearly home, half an hour later, that it occurred to me that the package she handed me in the bag was unusually large. The PS3 games come in a Blu-Ray disk case which are slightly smaller than a DVD case. But something felt wrong somehow as I sat at a red light, caressing the package in my passenger seat. The case felt... unusually large. Ohoh. Surely the dimwitted cashier had not given me the wrong game? Or for the wrong platform (GTA IV is also available for the X360)? As I sat there in the car I held up the package in the pale yellowish illumination of the streetlights and made the horrible discovery -- the silly b!tch had forgotten to take the game out of its security packaging! Unbelievable!

So the game sits on my table, sealed in its tamper-resistant packaging and I'm halfway tempted to just go at it with my rotary cutting power tool to get it open. But I think it has one of those exploding ink cartridges that wouldn't be too fun to see splattered all over the room or my shirt. So yeah, I'm pretty damn angry. I'm going to go back tomorrow to get it opened, and I'm gonna let somebody have it. I guess in meantime, I'll go play some more Gran Turismo 5: Prologue instead.