I've meticulously put black tape over every single little light that glows in my bedroom to let me know something is plugged in. Don't make me tape over the entire light switch, too.
Ok, story time!!!!
It's January 2007. The Nintendo Wii had just released a couple of months earlier. They are IMPOSSIBLE to find right now. I'm frantically searching every store, calling asking when they expect restocks. Nobody is taking preorders, because each shipment is laughably low numbers. Every store just says "be here when we get a shipment" "and when is that?" "We have no idea. Maybe in 5 minutes. Maybe in 5 weeks. They will sell out instantly."
So, I've called hundreds of radioshacks, walmarts, best buy, gamestop, sears, target, local game shops, if there was a store within 50 miles, I was calling weekly since November when gamestop fucked over my preorder.
Then one day, I call best buy, again. "Heeeeey.....just wondering if you might have any info on any Nintendo Wiis?" "Ah, maybe." "Maybe? I'll take a maybe." "Well, you didn't hear this from me, but this Saturday overnight we're expecting a shipment. A big shipment. They usually only send 5-6. We're being told this shipment may even be bigger than our launch day shipment. We've cleared warehouse room that should hold 500 units if needed. We don't know how many we might get. We may get 0. But, we have reason to believe we're getting a big shipment which will be put out Sunday morning."
OOOOH MYYYY GODDDDD!!!!!!
Now the thing about January weather in Cleveland in 2007, is it was cold. Stupid cold. I'm talking like negative 10F. So I figured "I'm going to use the weather to my advantage."
Have you ever seen The Christmas Story? Where Ralphies brother was wearing so many layers that he couldn't put his arms down? I literally know what that feels like. I was wearing every pair of pants I had. 55 T-shirts, 13 hoodies, and a jacket that I couldn't even zip up. A pair of gloves. 5 scarves. A full face ski mask. 2 hats. And like 30 pairs of socks.
Yeah. I rocked that shit hardcore!
Because Best Buy opened on Sunday morning, at 10am. I went and stood in line at 8pm Saturday. There were 6 tents ahead of us. Literally all night I was worried they'd only get 5, and I was 7th in line.
I should have brought a tent. I didn't have a tent. But these guys went even harder than me. They had a extention cord running to a light post which had an outlet. That extention cord ran into their tent, to a 12 outlet APC.
They had inside their tent, a 13 inch tv, a vcr, a small light, a little mini fridge, and probably some other shit I didn't know about.
Outside their tent they had a small electric grill that they were cooking brats on.
And that's when I heard them in their tent say "which movie do you want to watch?" And they said "Jurassic Park!!!"
My ears perked the fuck up. No, you don't understand. I LOVE that movie. I have watched 5 bad Jurassic films in the theater on opening day because I love that first movie. I have seen it literally hundreds if not thousands of times. I know every scene. I've watched the dvd extras. I watched those same extras on bluray because I thought they might include more extras. They didn't. I know every single line by heart in that movie. It is an OBSESSION.
So them watching it, I couldn't see the screen. But I could hear it, and that was enough for me to watch the movie if I closed my eyes. And so for roughly 40 minutes I "watched" my favorite movie. I was cold. It was 2am. I was hungry. I was thirsty. I couldn't eat or drink because I had no plan for using the bathroom besides "don't". I had been out there for hours at this point, but all that said I was in my happy place. I was watching Jurassic Park! And they started the movie at the begining. Classic. So roughly 40 minutes in, the film has been building to it. It's the quintissential Jurassic Park scene. The most infamous scene in the entire franchise, and I know I'm biased, but I feel it's fair to call that scene one of the all time great scenes in cinematography history. Every frame perfect.....as long as you ignore the one shot that shows the fence ending abruptly making it essentially useless, and also as long as you forgive the convoluted way they failed explaining where the sudden cliff comes from where you think the T-Rex just broke out from. The scene shows that she broke out from an area a few feet to the side. It's hard to catch, and yes I get where the confusion comes from. But technically it's not a mistake. It's just very poorly illistrated. The fence is a total mistake. But the cliff isn't.
YES I AM OBSESSING AND GETTING OFF TRACK!
Point is, we're 40ish minutes into the film. The T-Rex scene is just starting. And that's when the guy in the tent says words that still anger me, confuse me, offend me, depresses me, and triggers me. He said...."Oh, I've seen this part. It's just a dinosaur trying to eat them. Lets fast forward to the good parts".
WHAT?? WHAT DO YOU MEEEAAAN??? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT???
He then fast forwarded past the scene. HE FAST FORWARDED THE T-REX PADDOCK ESCAPE SCENE!!! THAT'S THE MOST ICONIC SCENE IN NOT JUST THE MOVIE, BUT THE WHOLE FRANCHISE!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE YOU UNHINGED PSYCHOPATH!!!
I was sitting there just wondering if I could somehow call a psych ward to come evaluate him. Because honestly, who does that??? That's like masturbating, and then 1 minute before you cum you just abruptly stop, and say "that's enough".
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm getting myself worked up over something that happened 18 years ago, and I'm sure he doesn't remember. But I'll always remember.
deep breath
So anyways, the store opens up. At 8pm I was 7th in line. By 10am there are literally thousands of people in line. 95% of which have zero chance of getting a Wii. I'm still not certain if I'm too far down the line, but it's a chance.
My friend made a bad joke, which wasn't funny, and I don't remember the joke per se. What I do remember is, the basis for the joke was a low effort pun to assosiate the word "Wii" with male genitals. And I boo'd him. So he said "I'm sorry." And I said "No no, you have to appologize to EVERYONE!". To which he made his bad joke actually funny by spending time walking down the line, and individually appologizing to each person standing in line. 99.9% of which have zero context or clue what he's talking about. He just walked up and said "I'm sorry if I offended you. Do you accept my appology?". Most people just said yes, but if they questioned it, he said "I made an unfunny joke about the Wii, and now my friend has made me appologize to everyone."
Pretty sure he made the joke at 7am, and he was still walking down the line when the store opened. People who weren't even in line when he made the joke got an appology because by the time he got to the end of the line, it had grown. He already had a Wii since launch. He was just coming to hang out and get drunk outside a best buy in the middle of the night. Oh, yeah, he was also plastered by this point. We drank straight vodka all night for warmth. So he wasn't worried about the doors opening. These people just see this beligerant drunk coming up and telling them he's sorry.
At one point the cops showed up, because what the hell is going on? A random line of people that wraps out of the shopping plaza, down the street, and down several streets. I heard they were at one point blocking traffic, because the line went through a crosswalk and just stayed there. Blocking the road. But I never saw it personally.
So when the cops rolled up, they asked "what is this?" And me being drunk, I did my best at being funny. I yelled out "It's the dvd release party for Sleepless in Seattle 2: Restless Nights!"
Crowd loved that joke. I also remember something where the crowd was saying something, and then somebody else yelled to add onto it, and then somebody else added on.....and I don't remember that exchange, but I remember I added on "AND A HOT PLATE!" which is a simpsons reference, that made the crowd laugh. I was feeling good.
So then the store opens, and I got my Wii, and brought it home. I set it up. I played for hours. I exchanged friend codes with the friend who hung out with me. And eventually I went to bed that night.
Now, are you wondering why I've told this long neverending story that doesn't seem to go anywhere? Well, I told you to bear with me, that it would all tie together in the end to relate to your comment, and we're getting to that now.
So I've been up for like 30 hours at this point. I go to bed. I fall asleep HARD. It took almost an hour just to take off all those clothes, which was a workout in itself for someone already exausted.
And now, I'm in a dream state. I'm in my room, laying down on my bed, but my room is pulsating blue. Completely dark room, which now is pulsating blue. The walls, the floor, the air, it's all just pulsating. And I'm very aware I'm this is not real life, but I'm totally lost why the room is pulsating.
So I start getting out of bed, to try to search for something. And when I go to stand, I IMMEDIATELY fall on the floor. I had no strength. My legs were jelly, and the fall made me aware of one thing. This wasn't a dream. I never feel pain in my dreams. This was real life, and I likely had a head injury now, and couldn't stand. The room is also still pulsating, and my brain is just dead. I layed on that floor falling in and out of concious for about 20 hours. Eventually it was dark in my room again, and I had slept enough that I could stand, and my brain was functional enough to think. I pulled myself up, and could not for the life of me understand why the room was just pulsating this blue light. The walls were just blue. The ceiling was just blue. My brain was now functional, snd I said "turn the light on. See what happens" so now there's still a mild pulsating effect, but it's just under my bed, not the whole room.
So I get down on the floor, and cannot understand what is causing this. I'm looking under my bed, nothin. I see no source. I am so confused at this point.
So I get up and I lift my matress off the frame, now holding it 6 feet in the air. I can vaguely see the pulsating, but it's mostly gone now. That's when I see it.
My Wii which was 5 feet away from my bed, and at ground level, and was behind me when I was looking under the bed, was pulsating blue around the disc slot.
Well it turns out theres a feature if your friend sends you a mail to your friend code, you get the mail, and your wii pulsates to notify you. Even if the wii is off.
I abruptly turned that feature off. Then I smoked a bowl, because I needed to calm down. That was an ordeal!
My friend had light switches that glowed with a bright blue LED glow.
I couldn't stand it. I prefer to sleep in the actual darkness.
Blue light is horrible for sleeping. Red would be a lot more tolerable and less noticeable at night.
There were gentle warm orange neon switches that were popular in the 60-70s I think. They were in my cousin’s house in a bunch of rooms and bathrooms.
By Neon I mean these:
Lots of extension cords have them to let you know they’re live too.
Edit: I guess they still make them!
They make switches with built-in LED lights along the bottom for this.
It's a risky investment. Many people hate having lights glowing when they're trying to sleep.
Look for LED wall switches on Amazon. They come in a dozen versions: light shines up, lights in the faceplate, the switch itself glows... Any version you could possibly want.
I installed one of these in a hallway. It was nice to know exactly where the light switch was, since it was not near a doorway or other nighttime landmark. I'd hate it in my bedroom.
I think they're good for "common" areas, but my wife hates highlights of all kinds. We have a low-key war going on where I'll randomly put a nightlight somewhere, and she'll find it after a week or so and remove it.
Not in bedrooms, though; I agree on that. Although, I put one of this motion-triggered light bars in her walk-in closet, and she likes that enough to keep it charged herself.
Smart switches are so nice
Going to bed? One touch of a widget on my phone's home screen and all my house lights go off.
Front porch lights need to be on a timer? Smart switches do that
I recommend Kasa brand. Look for refurbished ones and you can get them under $10 a piece.
Easily worth ~$8 dollars per switch if you're doing it new.
I think worth ~$12 if you're willing to replace yourself
That would annoy me. I'm staying in a hotel at the moment where the TV can't be turned off at the mains so the standby light is always on which is annoying the hell out of me.
I was in a hotel last month that had that, and the led was blue as well. I pulled it forward out of it's little cubby and unplugged that fucker right away. I meant to plug it back before checkout, but I forgot, oops.
LPT: Pack a small roll of black electrical tape with you next time.
I remember having glow in the dark light switches when I was a kid in my parents home in the 90s
I mean you could simply put luminescent(?) stars on it
Better yet, I’ve seen some light switches made of the same glow in the dark material.
And some on the wall for visitors.
Or paint or a bunch of things.
Problem of course is that this tends to stop glowing after an hour or two.
Which may be a feature if you want/need total darkness to sleep.
I have a Tent with built in LED lighting and the switch is illuminated, so you can find it at 3:00AM when you go for a wee. It uses 5V over a USB-A plug. Quite nifty!
The problem is that it does not adhere to the USB spec so after a minute, the power bank decides that nothing is connected and stops supplying power (as a safety feature). You then have to wake up the power bank back up to can find the light switch, which you can’t do without lights on.
I have a keychain with a tritium vial. It was advertised as a tent zipper locator. I just put it on my car keys and like looking at the light when it's hanging up in the dark
Some switches here in europe have little neon indicators that come up when the switch is off, with filament bulbs they also acted as check lights to see if the filament was blown. Broken bulb, neon off. With that said most led lamps tend to glow a bit even when off unless you take the neon module out
They use to be. I've grown up with light switches with a neon element inside them and also been in places that have florescent switches. When I turned 18, I stopped seeing anything of the sort. Though you can get glow in dark outlet panels. That's about as good. I've seen people put glow in dark stickers on the panels too.
You can get clear switches with an LED in them that is lit when the light switch is off. I swapped out the switches in my windowless kitchen. They look pretty industrial though.
I remember my dad installed a switch with a little light in it decades ago. If the switch was off the little light would be on so you could find the switch. I wouldn’t want it everywhere, but certainly helpful in some locations.
Get some glow in the dark sticky tape and put it on the switches, works like a charm, been using it for years.
Here ya go.
https://www.technoglowproducts.com/glow-in-the-dark-light-switch-stickers/
I'm certain that you could probably make the stickers yourself though, now that you know they exist.
