I assume I wrote a bit tooo much last time to be commented on, indicated by the lack of comments. :P Still, it was a pretty amazing vacation and I had to do it justice.
I feel lazy for not writing between now and the 3rd, but I’ve been a bit tired and busy lately. During the week I picked up a sweet little portable harddrive to back up with Time Machine on my MacBook - 320GB and a vivid blue color. It’s maybe 5″ x 2.5″ x .5″, and was only $120.
I’ve been doing a lot to prepare for today, which was the release of the iPhone 3G. I updated to iTunes 7.7 which introduced the App Store to the iTunes Store, and picked up a few of the free applications for the iPhone: Facebook, AIM, Light (which simply puts the screen to full brightness and turns it white to substitute as a flashlight… c’mon, we’ve all used our phones as flashlights before), PhoneSaber (wave it around and it makes lightsaber noises - too much fun), Pandora, and Remote (an application by Apple that hooks into iTunes to remotely control iTunes from anywhere on the network). Very fun.
Yesterday afternoon was illuminated by rapid lightning and thunder when I left work, and it poooured all afternoon. I decided upon periodically checking with the AT&T store for a line, beginning when I left Stan’s after hanging out for about an hour with Dally and Kao and Tesh. Dally’s still ticklish; therefore I ABUSE. XD We had fun - Cocoa wanted in as well, though, silly puppy.
Well, nothing at 5PM at the store, so I went home and played around both online and in GTA4, getting some dinner while I was at it. 9PM was my next excursion, and this time the ropes were being set out for line formation, yet no one in line yet. I talked to a “Customer Coordinator” and the security guard hired for the night very shortly before leaving for home. This was it, I was going to do it. I got really anxious and decided to grab the folding chair I visited Stan’s for, some water bottles, and an umbrella in case it rained, and headed back around 10PM. I was first. So, I sat in the car for a bit and waited for someone else to arrive so I had a reason to leave my car’s comfort.
This is where the night got… interesting.
A silver Scion xB pulled up next to my car (which is right next to the line formation), and 4 teenage kids got out. Virtually at the same moment, a heavily tattooed man in a t-shirt and gym shorts walking a small… hmm. It was either a small French bulldog or French pug, I forget which he said it was. Anyway, he and his dog joined the teens in line behind me. Turns out only one of the teens was purchasing a phone, the others were there just to hang out. So, essentially, only 3 people were in line at this point.
The kids were the first for the iPhone last year, too. There’s a video of them on Youtube somewhere of that particular launch. I didn’t catch all their names, but I think the one who was getting a phone was named Tanner. The tattooed fellow’s name was Jimmy, and he was a trucker for a company called Bekins. I found Jimmy to be fascinating, honestly. He showed us (us being teenagers and me) his truck (we had an understanding of which places we had in line, so “line standing” was rather casual). The truck was his personally owned tractor trailer, the cab ringing in at about $150K, and the trailer was an additional $70K - he seemed to be doing pretty well for himself, with nice vacations and real estate speculation. I had no idea trucker cabs had beds in the back, either! Coulda fooled me… Told us stories about trucking and how expensive it is to fuel his truck… jeez, 300 gallon tank - $1300 per fillup. @_@
Meanwhile, the only thing the security guard did was sit in her gigantic SUV and watch DVDs and sleep all night. At one point she took off and disappeared for an hour, during which the kids broke out their pot and makeshift bong and puffed away. @_@ I’d never smelled the stuff before. Kinda… just… odd smoke, that’s all really. *shrugs* They didn’t bother me with it, and it wasn’t like it was dangerous or hindersome.
I think the next crew showed up around 3ish? Turns out he stood in line last year with the kids as well! Everyone knew each other, it felt like - Jimmy and I just laughed. Another guy showed up a bit later and throughout the night exclaimed how much better it was this wait than the “Chik-Fil-A” wait he did… The story behind that is that the Chik-Fil-A in front of the new Target here celebrated its grand opening by giving the first 100 customers free Chik-Fil-A for a year. Naturally, he and his girlfriend wanted in line… well, Hurricane Rita hit just then, and he didn’t say too much more about details other than wind, rain, lightning, and misery. Personally I’m not so sure it’s worth it. XD
I tried to sleep a bit throughout the night, but it was humid and as the temperature dropped and the wind blew, everything got surprisingly cold (and damp, naturally, from condensation). I didn’t get much rest, but people were trickling in very sporadically until about 6-7AM, where people started really amassing. I couldn’t help but laugh at the smug elite attitudes of those strolling up supremely to the back of the line at ten til 8AM, assuming they’d get a phone when I full well knew they didn’t have phones for anyone past like…. the 25th person. It just made sense to me that there wouldn’t be many, yknow?
Well, employees came along and after some confusion about whether or not I could do the transaction on my own or get Mom, my account holder, to come down… they began letting us in, me first, at 8AM. And I got my iPhone 3G, 16GB and black and shiny. :3 Turns out I was lucky to be in the front - they only got in 30 (as I had guessed), and it was something like ten 8GB, ten white 16GB, and ten black 16GB. So I got my personal pick without any struggles. After they activated it on the spot (later I heard the Apple iTunes servers for activation failed hardcore, so I was again lucky to be in front), I went home, synced all my goodies back to the phone (iTunes had a backup of my last phone, so no playing with settings again :D), took a shower, and crashed for 9 hours. XD
I had fun! Anyone ever been a complete nerd like me and camp out for a sale or a release of something (movie, game, etc)?