I got the console at about 3:30, but I didn't have a chance to hook it up until about 7:30. I hooked it up, and everything started up normally. I did the upgrade to 1.50 (using the network), and then walked through the initial setup process. Everything was fine up to this point, but I hadn't tried a disc yet.
After the setup, I went to put in Killzone, and the disc drive wouldn't accept it. The motors that pull in the disc would stop after the disc was about a quarter of the way in. I'd then have to manually pull the disc out because the eject button would just beep (like there was no disc inside) when you pressed it. I also tried Knack; same thing.
I tried entering safe mode and resetting to defaults; no luck. Then, I tried orienting the system vertically - this actually fixed the disc insertion problem! I was able to put the system flat again, and disc insertion worked fine, but I had a new problem - the drive was never spinning up to read the disc. No icon on the main screen, nothing in my library - nothing. I fiddled around for a few minutes but nothing made any difference. So, I downloaded and played Resogun for a little while, put the system in standby mode, and left it until this morning (when I planned to call Sony).
This morning, I brought the system out of standby. The strange part is that the system made the disc eject noise for about 5 seconds or so while doing it. When the system was running, I popped in a disc to check it before calling Sony up, and it worked. I loaded and started Killzone and Need for Speed without any problems.