I orginally posted this as a response to another thread, but thought it deserved it's own thread...enjoy!
A lil story for everyone:
So I'm stationed in the middle east and needed to get my GTA on. I made the mistake of preordering in-store in the states at EB games (this is before my orders changed) and then i get sent here with no way of getting my game (on top of screwing me out of multiple things...fiance, GTA, family, etc). I kept reading articles and getting pumped up for GTA, but I knew I wouldn't get it the day it came out. Our navy retail outlet is horrible about getting any games out the same day or in any sort of timely fashion (i would be waiting another two months for it to get here and ordering online means having to wait at least three weeks...i wanted it now). So on a completely ludicrous whim I went to the mall that they have here in Bahrain and went hunting for it...i mean it said "worldwide release" on the R* site.
Now I haven't been to this mall that much and this thing is fucking massive and really nice (Bahrain is a pretty nice place...google it) and I start my search. After an hour of walking around, pissing myself in anticipation (no not really), i finally find a videogame store that has some American imports, european, japanese....I'm looking and looking and I find nothing so I left. I keep wandering around for another hour, saw a Sony store....nothing
...I was disgruntled...I started to leave, but went into the same store i mentioned first out of desperation and went straight to the counter in frustration.
"Excuse me, but do you have GTA IV?" I asked
The clerk looked at me funny, i thought he didn't speak english so a said it again slower ... and then his eyes twinkled and he cracked a smile. He looks around like he's looking out for the 5-0 during a drug deal and tells me to "come into the back room" (which this store was tiny so it was just a friggin partition that was 5 foot tall 
). He reached into a box and holds up a European version of GTA IV! Convenient considering PS3 games are non-region specific 
"This game has been banned from the Middle East, but we expected people like you...how much you wanna pay?" he asked in a heavy accent with a shark-toothed grin.
"30 BD" I replied quickly, oggling the game the entire time.
"Okay boss! You got it!" he replied even quicker...the man didn't even barter with me which is almost customary here. He rang me up and handed me the game which he lovingly giftwrapped.
"Thank you!" I said excitedly.
He snatched the game from me
and put it into a black bag and wrapped it again. "Uuuuuuuuh...." 
I was confused. He looks at me and points to a mall cop and goes back to quickly wrapping the game. So he double gift wraps it, puts it into a box, tapes the shit out of it, wraps once more, puts it into a game store bag, grabs a bag from another store, throws my triple-wrapped / bagged game in the store bag and randomly throws a fucking teddy bear into the other store bag then says, "Leave now" and points to the door and then says " 
be careful".
I fucking hauled ass out of the mall and into my car and sped off home looking out for cops. I felt like a damn criminal. I get home and my girlfriend looked at me with a worried look knowing something was wrong. I tossed her the teddy bear (which she gave a genuine "aaaw, thanks baby") and told her to unwrap the game while i was smoking two cigarettes...
She laughed while trying to open the mulit-giftwrapped bag of fun and asked why it was wrapped up so much, so tightly. I told her the story and all she did was laugh and call me a crimnal nerd and an idiot for paying 30 BD for a "nintendo game" (30 BD is about $86...it's so worth it though). I realize i hadn't eaten so we ordered in food and talked for a bit. the food arrived, we ate, and continued to talk about work, stuff, blah, blah, blah. The next thing I know I was waking up for work today.
I FUCKING FELL ASLEEP AND DIDN'T EVEN GET TO PLAY THE GAME YESTERDAY!!!! I BROKE THE LAW HERE (they're hardcore about that), PAID WAY TOO MUCH FOR THE GAME, ATE MY SPICY CHICKEN SANDWHICH, AND FELL THE FUCK ASLEEP. NOW I HAVE 6.5 HOURS LEFT HERE AT WORK WHILE MY GAME JUST WAITS FOR ME. Massive fucking fail on my part 
The End
A lil story for everyone:
So I'm stationed in the middle east and needed to get my GTA on. I made the mistake of preordering in-store in the states at EB games (this is before my orders changed) and then i get sent here with no way of getting my game (on top of screwing me out of multiple things...fiance, GTA, family, etc). I kept reading articles and getting pumped up for GTA, but I knew I wouldn't get it the day it came out. Our navy retail outlet is horrible about getting any games out the same day or in any sort of timely fashion (i would be waiting another two months for it to get here and ordering online means having to wait at least three weeks...i wanted it now). So on a completely ludicrous whim I went to the mall that they have here in Bahrain and went hunting for it...i mean it said "worldwide release" on the R* site.
Now I haven't been to this mall that much and this thing is fucking massive and really nice (Bahrain is a pretty nice place...google it) and I start my search. After an hour of walking around, pissing myself in anticipation (no not really), i finally find a videogame store that has some American imports, european, japanese....I'm looking and looking and I find nothing so I left. I keep wandering around for another hour, saw a Sony store....nothing
...I was disgruntled...I started to leave, but went into the same store i mentioned first out of desperation and went straight to the counter in frustration."Excuse me, but do you have GTA IV?" I asked
The clerk looked at me funny, i thought he didn't speak english so a said it again slower ... and then his eyes twinkled and he cracked a smile. He looks around like he's looking out for the 5-0 during a drug deal and tells me to "come into the back room" (which this store was tiny so it was just a friggin partition that was 5 foot tall ). He reached into a box and holds up a European version of GTA IV! Convenient considering PS3 games are non-region specific "This game has been banned from the Middle East, but we expected people like you...how much you wanna pay?" he asked in a heavy accent with a shark-toothed grin.
"30 BD" I replied quickly, oggling the game the entire time.
"Okay boss! You got it!" he replied even quicker...the man didn't even barter with me which is almost customary here. He rang me up and handed me the game which he lovingly giftwrapped.
"Thank you!" I said excitedly.
He snatched the game from me
and put it into a black bag and wrapped it again. "Uuuuuuuuh...." I was confused. He looks at me and points to a mall cop and goes back to quickly wrapping the game. So he double gift wraps it, puts it into a box, tapes the shit out of it, wraps once more, puts it into a game store bag, grabs a bag from another store, throws my triple-wrapped / bagged game in the store bag and randomly throws a fucking teddy bear into the other store bag then says, "Leave now" and points to the door and then says " be careful".I fucking hauled ass out of the mall and into my car and sped off home looking out for cops. I felt like a damn criminal. I get home and my girlfriend looked at me with a worried look knowing something was wrong. I tossed her the teddy bear (which she gave a genuine "aaaw, thanks baby") and told her to unwrap the game while i was smoking two cigarettes...
She laughed while trying to open the mulit-giftwrapped bag of fun and asked why it was wrapped up so much, so tightly. I told her the story and all she did was laugh and call me a crimnal nerd and an idiot for paying 30 BD for a "nintendo game" (30 BD is about $86...it's so worth it though). I realize i hadn't eaten so we ordered in food and talked for a bit. the food arrived, we ate, and continued to talk about work, stuff, blah, blah, blah. The next thing I know I was waking up for work today.
I FUCKING FELL ASLEEP AND DIDN'T EVEN GET TO PLAY THE GAME YESTERDAY!!!! I BROKE THE LAW HERE (they're hardcore about that), PAID WAY TOO MUCH FOR THE GAME, ATE MY SPICY CHICKEN SANDWHICH, AND FELL THE FUCK ASLEEP. NOW I HAVE 6.5 HOURS LEFT HERE AT WORK WHILE MY GAME JUST WAITS FOR ME. Massive fucking fail on my part The End
You sure the government isn't spying on your internet hehe?
