It's weird how things happen for strange reasons. If I remember right, the PS2s were first released in the States around the holidays in 2000. I had just started working for the Blockbuster franchise in October 2000. We had access to the machines before most of the retail stores so we advertised the shit out of them...when we'd be getting them, what games were available for rent and how much, shit like that. Back then, I had no desire to play games.
One day my friend called and asked if he could actually purchase one. I checked with the product lady (who I now sleep with every night...my wife) and learned we'd ordered 50 to put into our roughly 25 stores. The idea was to put 2 into each store. That seemed fair, but it was hardly equitable since some of our stores were 3-4 times the size of others. So after I ran some numbers, we decided we'd put more into the larger stores and fewer into the smaller stores and that would leave a handful of consoles to use at our discretion.
So, yes, I could get one for my friend. Due to him wanting one, and only because he wanted one, did I bother to get one for myself.
I learned to enjoy the Tiger Woods golf games, the Madden football games, and GT3. As it turns out, I really loved GT3. New to the game, I played it for hours upon hours using the controller. When GT4 came out, I told our receptionist I was leaving for lunch and while I was away, I was picking up both GT4 and a wheel to go with it, and not to expect me back for a couple days.
Fast forward a few years. I still wasn't a gamer and had never heard of GT4 Prologue, nor was I aware of anything called GT5 Prologue. For Christmas one year, I'd received a gift card from Best Buy. I happened into the store one day and saw this thing called GT5 Prologue. It was $39.99 and I had a $40 gift card. I bought it.
After little time, I was through all the offline stuff and the game got stale. I didn't have any intentions of going online because my previous online experiences with the Tiger Woods games weren't all that positive. Only out of complete boredom did I venture online. It was 'different,' to say the least.
In one of my first races, some asswipe in a red car put me into the chicane at Fuji. After a few laps I caught up to another red car to return the favor. Before the race had finished, I had a love letter in my inbox with 4 characters...there was a 'W', a 'T', an 'F' and a '?.' Apparently, there were TWO red cars in that race and it's possible I picked the wrong one. Some dick named "FatLeadFoot" had sent me the love letter to explain what he thought of my driving (he wasn't impressed).
I apologized for my faux pas and we exchanged a few more messages before becoming friends and eventually partners in crime on the track. He brought me to the 4-letter before it was called the 4-letter and to the Death Star, places where I eventually ran into most of you.
And to think, none of you would have the amazing pleasure of knowing me had it not been for my friend wanting a PS2 some 13 years ago.
