Hubby’s birthday isn’t until June 5, but since I always try to get him something really great I tend to start early on the gift. He’s been going on and on about getting a PS3, but frankly we just can’t afford it. I mean, first of all we used to have a Super Nintendo and the original Playstation. Where are they now? Exactly. We eventually got sick of them and they (I believe) are currently sitting out in the garage waiting for a yard sale. Then looking at the cost of the system and then the games on top of that…not bloody likely. I figured the only reason he even wants a system is to play Gran Turismo again. You’d think that when he drives for a living that he wouldn’t want to play games that involve driving. Like I don’t think it would be much fun to play a game that involved answering phones or typing. Just me though.

So I checked out ebay and found an auction that had 23 games, 3 controllers, 2 guitars plus the PS2 with a high bid of $280.00. I tried to see if it was a good deal by checking the cost of the new system with the important games that hubby would’ve wanted from the 23: Gran Turismo 4, Grand Theft Auto (x4), Guitar Hero II, III and Encore: Rocks the 80’s. I couldn’t even find all the games for sale, but suffice to say that the system, GT4, GHIII plus 2 guitars was already over $300.00. So I put in a big of $300.00 max and won the auction for $290.00.

Since the guy listed that shipping would be from Toronto I asked if I could pick it up instead of paying the $30.00 for shipping. Unfortunately Toronto is a big city and he was clear on the other side of it from me. He offered to take $10.00 off if I’d still make the trip, which I did. That was Monday. When I got home I hinted that I had a really great gift for him and maybe he wanted it early. After all it was exactly 1 month to the day before his actual birthday. (I’m so horrible) I just couldn’t wait to give it to him. Besides he has Mondays off and we weren’t doing anything that afternoon. I couldn’t seem to convince him to totally give in, but he he’d think about it and maybe the following day I could give it to him. He was started complaining that he was feeling dizzy by dinnertime and ended up staying home from work yesterday.

Laying it on thick at lunch, I asked him if he wanted a piece of cake for dessert. He said he did, so I asked if he wanted “birthday cake”. He laughed and said ‘fine’. So I got the candle in the piece of cake and sang Happy Birthday for effect. When I got home on Monday with all the stuff I had it stashed downstairs at my Dad’s since he’s out of the country at the moment, so we agreed that he would change GM and I’d get the gift ready. I made him close his eyes when he got downstairs and I had the games fanned out across the floor and was holding the guitar. When he opened his eyes it took him a minute to figure out what he was looking at and then he asked ‘you got me a PS3?’. “Nope sorry, just a PS2″. At which point he realized how many games there were and he was shocked.

So we played Guitar Hero III a bit downstairs while trying to keep one eye on GM who was loving crawling around new surroundings. Then we managed to get the very heavy tv (which my Dad gave us since he bought an HDTV, but hadn’t bothered to move yet) up 2 levels to our bedroom, where I got everything rearranged and hooked up. We’ve managed to spend an exorbitant amount of time playing games over the last 2 days (yes he called in ’sick’ again today).