Giving up smoking, cutting back on the sauce and getting in shape ain't easy. Ask Joel. Right now, he's sweating his bollocks off in some dingy Brooklyn basement, training for some serious DDR-ing. We fear a headband is somehow involved.

While Mr. Johnson puts the dance-dance in revolution, AOL Joystiq points to this DIY DDR set-up. The "pad" boasts a pimpin' lighting system, and it's made from acrylic, steel, springs and rubber grommets—just like Joel himself. Brian Ashcraft

More Here [AOL Joystiq]

The press conferences are done and dusted, and now it's time to look back with twenty-twenty hindsight. So did Sony amaze, Microsoft impress and Nintendo knock your socks off? Or was it Joel and Crecente's live blogging that was doing the wowing?

(Ed: Sorry guys! Someone's employed their robot army to bump Sony up by about 10,000 votes. We doubt there are 10,000 people worldwide who were impressed by the Sony presser, let alone reading this site. So we're officially and unilaterally declaring Wii the winner! Congratulations, Miyamoto and Co!)

Forget bees, Joel loves beer. And just for Joel, Bungie's online shop has a Spartan keychain that opens bottles of brewski. Drink up, space cowboy.

Product Here [Bungie] Thanks, Scott!

It's people. Xbox 360 is made out of people. They're making our console logos out of people. Next thing they'll be breeding us like cattle for food. You've gotta tell them. You've gotta tell them! Oh wait. This isn't so bad. This is just a cool snap from the Xbox 360 Water Balloon Challenge that Joel "Mr. Executive" Johnson attended in Australia.

(Thanks for the heads up Mac!)

More Kotaku WBC 360 Coverage

To promote the upcoming water balloon fight (check Joel's liver's coverage), Microsoft Australia has done-up their site. One glaring problem, MSoft: sucky grammar. We're not ones to point and snicker, but even Crecente knows the difference between "your" and "you're." We're still working on teaching him "its" and "it's."

Update: The original site has been updated, and the grammar is now correcto.

Original Coverage [Waferbaby] Thanks, Joel!
Microsoft Can't Spell [Kotaku]

In between nervously eyeing the swaying fronds of Caucasian breeding stock on the dance floor, I enjoyed many animated conversations about the topic burning a hole through the lobes of Microsoft's best and brightest: Is the Revolution going to be 'awesome' or 'fucking awesome?'

Microsoft's Cesar Menendez commented how odd it was to see his name in a 'tab' on posts. If I had not been busy constructing a chitinous armor around my liver with the scaly flotsam of ruptured brain cells, I would have barked, "I believe you mean tags, sir. Tabs are what Microsoft's Internet Explorer Version 6 does not have!" Instead I ate a scallop covered in what appeared to be an exploded rabbit.

Now I have just gotten a call that says I have twenty minutes to post this, shower, and head to the lobby to travel to Microsoft AU. I bet I will be late.

I managed to persuade a power plug in LAX to give me a little of that sweet electron nectar, exactly what my PSP needed to update its firmware. Until my PSP ran out of juice, I had a thoroughly enjoyable time playing Daxter (even though I hate jumping puzzles). For a game as generic in both gameplay and conceit, they sure do know how to spit shine what they've got.

The sun isn't even fully up here in Australia and all I can think of is how good a beer would be right about now. (Yes, that's a slight deviation from my normal 'beer-thirty'-heavy internal clock.) Considering I have no idea how to contact my Microsoft handlers—my GSM phone that should have the right frequencies still hasn't found a carrier—I might just make my first day in this country a saucy one. Now if I can only find a way to charge it to my room...

My cab driver, Dedi, says he doesn't have time to play videogames, because he works twelve hour days; The taxi company rents him a car for $120 AU per shift. Instead he plays badminton two times a week. I'd suggest he look into Crazy Taxi, but then I'd feel compelled to have him take me to a KFC just to make the game experience seem more valid.

Hey, I wonder if I can figure out a way to charge KFC to my room...

April 18th, 4:40P EST - I AIM'd Crecente before I left, "Probably a good time to break out the PSP again, huh?" Even though the battery life of the PSP isn't everything it could be, I figured between the PSP and the DS, I'd get a few hours of gaming in on the flight. Before I left for the airport, I rushed to my corner game store and bought a couple of games: Daxter and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories. (In retrospect, I probably should have picked more dissimilar titles.)

Imagine my frustration as I popped in Daxter only to find that the game requires a firmware update to be playable—a firmware update that's impossible to do sitting here on my plane with no AC plug in sight. I'm sure the package gave me fair warning of the firmware version required. That makes the concept of updating firmware on a mobile gaming device no less infuriating.

So thanks for this, Sony. I just spent nearly a hundred bucks on new games for my PSP, but because of your stupid anti-piracy procedures—stubby flailings against the tide of free time graced in abundance to eastern European crackers—I'm carrying around three hundred dollars worth of useless hardware.

On the up side, I'll probably set a new personal Tetris DS best.

And while I've got you, I'll add in one trivial anecdote: Last night, I was walking through Manhattan on the way to the train, finding myself next to the Nintendo World Store. It was closed up tight, but the equipment was still humming as the employees wiped down the DSes in the center dais. So I stood outside in the damp spring evening and downloaded the demo of Brain Age through the glass.

Impressive? No. But it felt futurey.

Anyway, more soon from Australia. If you live in the Sydney area and would like to meet a real, live blogger's liver, send me an email at joel@gawker.com

And he isn't chowing down on a plate of scrambled eggs! Amazing! Brian Crecente, his facial hair and Executive Editor supreme Joel Johnson hit the Blogger's Breakfast with Peter Moore this morning. As soon as Crecente decompresses from the PS3 press conference, expect a full report on Moore, the Xbox 360 and doughnuts.

Blogger's Breakfast [Major Nelson's Flickr Stream] Thanks, Chilly!

Joel from sexy sister site The Consumerist chucked a Flickr link our way. Apparently, the rusted pile of metal is an Xbox that washed up on the beach or was buried in the sand for shits and giggles. I'm not sure, but blame Halo and cheap tequila. More head-scratching pics after the jump.

Full Set [Flickr] Thanks Joel!

Joel, former Gizmodo head-honcho, is throwing a little PAR-TE to raise money for Penny Arcade's Child's Play. CP, which gives toys to childrens' hospitals, is my personal favorite charity of the holidays.

He hit me up to see if I could mention his Last Minute Guitar Rock Videogame Beerfest and ask if I knew how he could get any donations for a raffle. I did him one better and told him I'd send him my entire schwag collection as well as some joysticks, controllers, keyboards and games I've accrued over the past year or so.

Sadly, the event will be in Brooklyn instead of my own freezing Denver, at the Barcade. It's going start at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 13. No charge to get in, but bring money for the raffle tickets so you can give my schwag and the other cool stuff he's collected a good home.

Check out the details on Joel's site or hit him up directly at joeljohnson@gmail.com.

ALERT: LAST MINUTE GUITAR ROCK VIDEOGAME BEERFEST FOR CHILD'S PLAY NEXT TUESDAY [JoelJohnson]

So ignoring your serious consumer electronics consumption issues, we're going to try and help you snag a 360 post-haste. Hit up your ATM and clear off some space from your high-interest credit cards—we're about to get spendy.

No, fucking seriously, come on. I'm sick of convincing you to buy this thing. Jesus, your room smells like the pickle aisle at Foot Locker.

Best Buy

While Kotaku has given a disproportionate amount of coverage to Best Buy's launch plans, I can safely say that you'd be sort of dumb to try to grab one from Best Buy this evening. Each store is going to have around 50 of the full, 'Premium,' or 'Not Retarded' systems and maybe 20-ish of the 'Core' systems. (We don't have to tell you that it's better to wait for a full system than get the heavily-neutered Core system, right?)

The problem is, these stores are going to be packed tighter than R. Kelly Summer Camp. They're going to have a healthy amount of consoles, games, and peripherals—that's good. And you're going to be able to stand in line and play PSP and DS games with all the other nerds waiting around. (I'm thinking early-adopters are going to be playing a lot of Mario Kart DS, for some reason.) But you're going to have get in line early and get in line often. With unit counts varying from store to store, there's really no way to guarantee your spot unless you budget a few extra hours before midnight. Hope the weather holds, suckers.

Bonus Best Buy Tip: Many stores already have the peripherals and games out for sale (some stores are putting the extra 360 controllers over in the PC gamepad section, for instance). Take a whirl though early today and get the other crap you're going to need. You can always sell it to someone else if you don't end up getting a system tonight. Bonus Bonus Best Buy Tip: Google "site:kotaku.com best buy" may offer up a wealth of otherwise hidden treasures.

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart, where the devil himself shops for socks, is a pretty decent place to pick up a 360 if you don't have a preorder. Our sources are saying around 50 units per store total, but bear in mind those numbers tend to vary depending on the overall sales of each store. Wal-Mart's the genital-crushing colossus of American retail, however, so Microsoft isn't going to short them.

The 'official' word we have is that most Wal-Marts will not be allowing lines to form in the store (or, for that matter, outside the store). Instead, tickets will be given out in the Electronics department store on a first-come, first-serve basis. These tickets will be redeemed for a chance for one fun-filled byproduct of American hegemony at the Lay Away window at Midnight. We're not joking—the Law Away window, last seen holding a Jolly Rancher for use in a joke about Your Mama.

But it gets worse/better: Wal-Mart won't allow you to form a line at the Lay Away window. So those tickets that you get from the Electronics department don't really get you anything but a chance to mill aimlessly around the store, where you may just happen to linger near the Law Away window, ready to trap or maim anyone else nearby.

Bonus Wal-Mart Tip: Wal-Mart is one of America's leading retailers of shotguns.

Toys R Us

TRU has infamously boned people by saying they weren't going to do pre-orders, then switching gears at the last minute. If you don't have a pre-order, don't bother.

Bonus Toys R Us Tip: Toys R Us (most of them, anyway), have pretty lenient return policies. That means you can get one of those insultingly expensive $1,000 bundles, then walk right over and return what you don't want.

Buying Tomorrow

Target, Circuit City, and CompUSA all get a fair amount of consoles, but won't be putting them on the shelves until tomorrow morning. If you can stand waiting another 10 hours, showing up at those locations on the morning on the 22nd will probably be just as likely (and more
convenient) than waiting up all night tonight.

Unlikely Sources

You can be headstrong and wait it out at one of the big retailers, or you can play it smart and—did you hear a gong?—strike where the crowd is not. Sears, for instance, has a 'Funtronics' section. They usually get a few units. FYE and other music stores like Suncoast often get in a few units. Local electronics retailers and home theater stores might have a few. And all of these places, with just a few units, might be willing to sell you one tonight (or today,
even) if you slip them a twenty, since they aren't going to be under the scrutinous eye of Allard and his goblins.

Final Tips Recap

• Waiting in line is for sucks, but if you're going to do it, bring some water, warm clothes, and your DS and PSP. • Try and return unwanted, bundled games and accessories. Some stores will allow this, and it does not make you an asshole. • Be prepared to spend upwards of $1,000, especially at stores that force bundles. • If you can't be arsed to stand in line until midnight, try other stores tomorrow. • Small retailers have smaller crowds (and smaller allocations of inventory).

And the final, most important tip:

• Product shortages, while possible, are often engineered as a marketing stunt. (See: the Sony PSP, which "sold out" while thousands sat on store shelves.) If you don't get an Xbox 360 in the next 24 hours, don't worry. I promise you that Microsoft will be happy to sell you one for the next, say, four years. And if you wait, you'll even be able to buy an Xbox 360 plus a game you actually want, not one of the many launch titles that will have to do.