Thank you Walmart System Error!

This is one of the best emails I could ever receive from Walmart:

Dear Nate Gillick,

Thank you for shopping with Walmart.com.

Due to a system error, we have shipped you duplicates of Alan Wake in your recent order ##########.

Because this was our error, please enjoy the extra item – on us! You will not be charged for it. If you don’t need the extra item, please give it to a friend or consider donating it.

Again, thank you for shopping with Walmart.com.

Sincerely,
Your Walmart.com Customer Service Team

So, I got not 1, but 2 copies of Alan Wake for $49.96 + a $10 eGift card. Incredible. This raised the question: What do I do with that second copy of Alan?

Do I

1. Sell it to recover the cost of the copy I paid for, essentially getting Alan Wake for free?
2. Give / Trade / Sell at reduced price to a friend in exchange for a massive IOU of some form?
3. Offer it up as a prize to podcast listeners for winning some suitably crazy contest? (And I do mean crazy... I need to get $50 worth of entertainment out of it to want to part with my copy LOL)

Contraty to Silva's opinion, I'm not rich. Option #1 has the high lead at the moment, as that would make my AW copy free, plus probably take some of the edge off of the price of Red Dead Redemption. I will listen to compelling arguments for options 2 and 3 though.

Alan Wake $49.96 + $10 Gift Card

If you don't check out Walmart.com for video game deals much, you should get in the habit of it. They have a deal for a $20 gift card with Red Dead Redemption, which almost made me cancel my Gamestop preorder, but I really want that game ASAP. The Alan Wake Deal I can't pass up.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Alan-Wake-w-Bonus-10-Walmart.com-eGift-Card-Xbox-360/13376070

They're selling it for $49.96, plus you get a $10 gift card for your next purchase off the site. Save $10 now, save $10 on your next game purchase. That's A-OK by me. Pulling the trigger on this deal since I'll have Red Dead to keep me entertained until this one shows up at my store.

Gotta look for other deals on the site now too...

EDIT: The one downside to this (for me) is that I can't use my associate discount on egift card offered games. Still, I find I'm saving more than I would with my card. After taxes and shipping, Alan Wake cost me about $2 less than if I'd bought it in-store with my discount, and I have a $10 gift card carrying over to my next purchase, which I've used on a preorder for Halo Reach. That one is now $2 cheaper than if I used my discount, and I'll have $20 off my next game purchase. Total savings: $36 off retail. Not too bad. Have no idea yet what the $20 gift card will go to yet.

Rainy Days = Gamerscore Blitz

I feel the itch... the need to inflate my gamerscore a little bit. With it pouring outside now, and tomorrow, it appears my next two days off are ideal days to play video games. Not only does the weather suck, but these days off are weekdays, where I probably wouldn't find anyone to do anything with anyway.

In the name of grabbing some more gamerscore, I made a push in Cameron's Avatar, completing the Human campaign. I now only need to go through Conquest for two achievements and I'll have everything done but wrapping up the Na'vi side.

I also re-rented Saw from my local Family Video, to try to get through the nearly 800 points I have left there. Deciding that wasn't enough for two rainy days, I also drove down to Gamestop and picked up Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper, which has been interesting so far.

Yes, I know I should be playing Record of Agarest War and the Halo Reach beta... and I will be continuing to do some of both, but my gamerscore has been stagnant lately, and since I'm in a competition where I could win some microsoft points, now seems as good a time as any to make something of a gamerscore push. In a perfect world, I complete Saw, Sherlock, and Avatar in the next two days... but that may be overly ambitious. We shall see.

Count me out on Lost Planet 2

A little internet research just saved me $60. After reading IGN and x360a's reviews, and getting an overall impression from Metacritic, I'm quite convinced LP2 is not a game I should be purchasing on Day 1 with my hard-earned cash. With an achievement list that looks insane enough to make Warriors Orochi 2 look like the new Avatar, I'm not even sure I'll put it in my tray period; four player coop be damned. I think I'm better off continuing on with what I've been playing until Alan Wake and Red Dead Redemption come out. We'll call that $60 towards my fantasy TV instead LOL.

Possibly PAX?

I'm trying not to get my hopes up lest cruel reality crushes my dreams, but early September could be the best opening to a month EVER lol. Here's the scoop: In mid-June, I'm going to hit my 1-year anniversary with Walmart, and have my first week of paid vacation. If no other assistant has already claimed the week of September 4-10 off (Walmart weeks run Saturday to Friday) or I can convince them to switch, that will be my week of vacation.

Should this almost-perfect scenario come to pass, I work Friday, drive straight to Minneapolis after work, and catch a late night flight to Seattle. Check in, crash for a few hours, then hit the ground running for Saturday and Sunday of the Penny Arcade Expo.

Now, if my partner Chris (who works when I have my days off) agrees to work that Friday shift for me in exchange for me working one of his shifts sometime, I would essentially have an 11-day vacation (Aug.31 through Sept. 10). In this ultimate scenario, I crash at my parent's house on Wednesday night, and catch a Thursday morning flight to Seattle. This would give me some time in the afternoon to get my bearings before meeting up with people for the Pre-PAX festivities, and I'd be on hand for all three days of the expo.

If I can do this, it would rock on so many levels (in no order):

1. The chance to meet in person some of the site staff I've been working with so long.
2. Rumor has it Bishop is going, so I'd have the opportunity to meet another member of the Hand of Thrawn... and FINALLY meet someone (in-person) with a higher gamerscore than mine.
3. Assuming I can go, I can get in as press, and I'll be writing as many articles as I possibly can for x360a (none of you have any idea what I'm capable of when I go into one of my Super Saiyan manic writing sprees). Plus, I'll have at least a week's worth of blog and podcast material out of it all.
4. Writing those articles would allow me to continue honing the skills I need to find paying work in the gaming industry, and covering PAX is as directly related a work experience as I could ask for.
5. The chance to meet and network with people in the industry, learn from them, and maybe even pass out a few resumes if opportunity knocks.
6. Memories that would last forever.

After the expo ends, I'd still have five days of vacation left work on churning out articles, and possibly spend some extra time in Seattle if I can afford to and found things I wanted to do there.

As you can see, being able to go to PAX would be an incredible experience for me. So, I'm fully read to beg, plead, bribe, and trade days so I work on holidays if I had to to make going to PAX a reality. Since I am slated to work September 3-5 (all three days of the Expo), getting vacation that week is my only shot.

Here's to hoping I can make the stars align when I go into work next. If not, I'll try not to be too crushed, and set my sights instead on E3 2011 or some other gaming conference, where I have enough lead time to make sure I can get that week off. Plus, I'll actually have a hell of a lot easier time getting off for PAX 2011, so all is not lost if I can't do it this time acround. I will let you all know when things are official one way or the other.

Countdown is Over, and Empire Rises

That funky countdown clock on the right of the blog has hit zero, and with it, the official unveiling of the Hand of Thrawn Podcast. You can check out our forum at www.handofthrawn.com. Right at the top of the page, you will see a button to click to launch the first episode of our podcast.

This is the start of something that will hopefully grow ever more awesome. Of course, this is our first episode ever, so things won't be perfect, but we'll improve with time. We've got the skill sets, we've got the planning down. Now we're just going to get better and build our audience.

Oh, and be warned: Episode 1 contains explicit language. Silva only got beeped out about 60-70% of the time. Again, practise makes perfect LOL.

Enjoy the show, and feel free to give us feedback. We'll be back again next week =P

P.S. forgive the messed up blog format. I've been trying to tweak it so I have two columns, but I don't like the current look. Once I'm off from work again, I'll be tweaking it some more.

Plagarism is the Highest Form of Flattery

I'm absolutely livid about this, and yet at the same time, I find it incredibly hilarious. How do you know your writing is good? Someone else want to rip it off and try to pass it off as their own. I have now been the victim of plagarism three times over, by one complete moron.

Name and Shame time: The idiot in question is Xenoz I. I've conveniently linked to his profile here so you can send him whatever messages you deem appropriate.

What did he steal? From me, he took my Metro 2033, Modern Warfare 2, and Mass Effect 2 reviews. From Webb, he stole FFXIII and Just Cause 2. From jackanape, Bioshock 2. Those are just the ones I know about. Apparently, this dude posted up a LOT of reviews, so we probably had even more stolen than that. The site they appeared on is www.readyuplive.com. Their community manager send me a friend request on Live and we discussed the situation over a party chat.

I was able to confirm for him (Everyone send SourNotHardcore thank you letters LOL) that those were our reviews from x360a. It wasn't hard... THEY WERE DIRECT COPY/PASTE JOBS (epic, epic fail), down to the exact same pictures and captions. Though he actually changed my scores! Metro went from a 76/100 to an 8.5/10 LMFAO.

It's not hard to check for Copy/Paste plagarism. Copy just ONE sentence of any of my reviews into Google. If it links you to anywhere but X360a, someone jacked my review. With the amount of time I put into those, it's not like I'm going to forget my words.

The stolen content has already been taken down, and that moron has lost his rights to "write" reviews... and hopefully will get worse to boot. Apparently, he even claimed he was me. Oh no you didn't! Kudos to ReadyUpLive's staff for being proactive about looking into this and resolving the situation. I respect and appreciate that.

What's the silver lining in this? If my reviews sucked, nobody would want to steal them, so I must be decent, at least =)