A month ago I bought an Xbox360 for Tammy. I really did get it for her and not me. I wasn’t too excited about the 360 but she really wanted one! And who am I to argue about a new toy for both of us? I was afraid to mention anything about it here ’cause I was pretty sure she’d read it!

Since she loved Morrowind so much on the PC I wanted to get her Oblivion, the next game in the Elder Scrolls series. Unfortunately it didn’t hit stores until yesterday, so I kept the Xbox wrapped up and hidden in a closet for a month…because what good is a new game console if all you have are mediocre launch titles like Gun, PGR3, and King Kong?

Tracking down a 360 was the easiest thing ever thanks to the Untitled Tracker. It checks the Best Buy and Circuit City websites every five minutes to find inventory in your local stores. As soon as something gets delivered you get a popup on your desktop and a text message to your cell phone.

Those blueshirts at the Fullerton Best Buy didn’t know what hit ’em. “Sorry, dude. We don’t have any in stock. I just checked.” “CHECK AGAIN BASTARD. You just got a shipment 15 minutes ago.” “Well I’ll check the computer, but I don’t see…SON OF A! How did you know?”

Of course finding a 360 now is a trivial affair. Microsoft says they’re tripling their shipments of 360s this week, and last night I saw two pallets full of ’em at Costco.

I guess I probably didn’t have to bother tracking one down last month. But the thrill of the hunt kept me going!