So a few weeks ago I posted about giving up my XBox 360 pre-order.  I did this because I just couldn't afford it.  Well, with the new business and such, things changed.  Yesterday Circuit City started taking web orders for the 360.  I was already to purchase.  They opened their inventory at 2 PM.  I was refreshing the page just waiting for the “Add To Cart” icon to appear.  As soon as it did I added the 360 to my cart and tried to purchase.  I was so excited.  I also wasn't alone.  Apparently every geek who wasn't smart enough to pre-order tried the same thing that I did.  Circuit City's site buckled under the load.  I could get the 360 into my cart, but couldn't get through checkout.  I tried for about an hour without any luck.  Finally I made it all the way to check out, entered my CC and clicked submit.  Again it crashed.  When I went back to the page to try again the red sold out sign appeared.  Bummer, no way I was going to get one now.

On a whim I reloaded the page one more time.  I noticed that the core packages still had the “Add To Cart” button enabled.  I added the 360 to the cart and went all the way through checkout.  This time it took.  I got a 360.  I didn't really believe it until I got the confirmation email with order number and everything.  It's not perfect, because now I have 2 wired controllers, no hard drive, and no headset.  I'll have to buy those things.  I'll probably trade in my original XBox and all my games in order to purchase them. 

As a side note, I must say I'm not impressed with Circuit City's shipping options.  They were charging $100 for overnight shipping so you could get the 360 on launch day.  Maybe I'm wrong and it really does cost Circuit City that much to coordinate it, but I doubt it.  In my eye's it's price gouging.  I didn't bite.  I'll get mine a few days later (the 27th I believe).