Never pre-order video games from Amazon.com. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

I thought I'd get the jump on the crowd by pre-ordering God of War II several months ago. Up until this morning, Amazon insisted that I would have my game by March 15th. Then, today, after it was too late for me to order it anywhere else, Amazon sent me an email saying the shipment was "delayed", which is bullshit code for, "we accepted pre-orders for way more copies than we actually expected to have in stock; please enjoy this free kick in the balls courtesy of us."

What has this experience taught me? Pre-ordering games is just as effective as not pre-ordering games, except that when you pre-order a game, you can rest assured that you'll be disappointed. When you don't pre-order, there's always a slight chance you might actually find a store that has the game in stock.

Update: Lo and behold, Fred Meyer had 150 copies in stock! Take that, Amazon.