Seeing people camped out in tents outside Circuit City waiting to buy a PlayStation 3 on my way to work today reminded me of the time I stayed up all night outside a store to get a PlayStation 2 a few years back.  Here's an old blog I wrote last year thinking back on that night when the Xbox 360 came out:

There’s something nostalgic about video games that turns grown men back into children.
Maybe that’s what possesses adults and teenagers to wait in line for hours or even days to get a new video game system.
While talking to excited gamers waiting in line a day before today’s nationwide release of the Xbox 360 console, I had a flashback.
Five years ago I was one of them.
After sporadically playing video games in college since my childhood Nintendo days I decided I wanted to get back in the game.
I had to have a Playstation 2. But after hearing of supply shortages similar to those afflicting the new Xbox 360 consoles, I knew I had to act fast.
So I enlisted my most trusted shopping expert — my wife — in determining a game plan.
Somewhat surprisingly she suggested we (not I, but we) camp out overnight to make sure I got one. How cool is my wife?
We got there around 2 a.m. if memory serves and waited in the car for about 15-20 minutes. But soon after realizing there was another car idling in the parking lot waiting, we decided to brave the cool wee morning hours.
Our mad dash for the front of the store ensured our spot as first in line — and a cold slab of concrete to sit on for the next several hours.
There we sat bundled up with winter jackets and sleeping bags as others slowly added to the growing throng.
It was cold and we were tired, but I don’t recall sleeping. I was too excited. Those in line anxiously chatted about how sweet the revolutionary new system would be. It could play older Playstation games and DVDs, had a memory card and you could even prop it up sideways.
When the doors finally opened the select few of us who were at the front of the line — and guaranteed a game system — ran for the electronics department like giddy little kids who couldn’t wait to get home from school to play their favorite video game.
Suffering from the affects of sleep deprivation, I was sufficiently groggy upon returning home. But I still managed to spend a few hours playing video games before finally trudging off to bed.
I don’t think my video game playing adversely affected my relationship with my wife, with the exception of a few stern looks telling me when it was time to shut the system down.
But I can see how that could happen.
I saw on a national TV report this morning that some college students have banded together and formed a support group for girlfriends of video game players.
Playing video games can become an addiction.
I’m Ryan Schuster and I was addicted to Playstation.
“Hi, Ryan.”
I know, I know, I’m a nerd.
I used to try to pretend that it wasn’t so, but as I approach 30, I have stopped trying to fight it and embraced my own nerd-doom.
At one point I was spending almost every waking hour at home playing Playstation (which I was able to do because my wife and I worked opposite shifts).
Sometimes I would get to work a few minutes late because I had to finish a game before leaving home.
But the arrival of my daughter about a year ago threw a monkey wrench into my video game playing.
These days changing dirty diapers and playing peek-a-boo with my daughter trumps finding the new Grand Theft Auto cheat codes.
Sometimes I miss the action, the adrenaline of playing.
But I guess we all have to grow up eventually, even if it takes us 29 years and a night camping out in front of Target to do it.