I slept surprisingly well, considering that I am not accustomed to sleeping on the street. Team Blogger came prepared:
. . . though we were not prepared for the guy in the chair next to us, who snored with impressive volume and consistency.
I was awoken at 6:15 by a nice man from the Apple Store explaining what documentation we needed (driver's license, credit card, knowledge of our social security number--things without which no American is legally allowed to leave the couch these days). By then Peter had already woken up, gone to Starbucks for coffee, started blogging, and presumably, saved several Guatamalan orphans from an earthquake. He looks fresh as a daisy. I look like a candidate for Extreme Makeover.
Apparently, I also missed the first market transaction: someone who arrived here yesterday around six pm had sold their place in line for a rumored price of $100. This seems extraordinarily low to me, and indeed, he seemed to feel that way himself--reportedly, the negotiations included multiple exclamations of, "that's like $2 an hour man!" At $100, the hourly rate still isn't good, especially considering it involved sleeping upright in a chair--something less than $10.
Of course, whatever the inconvenience, you can only charge what the market will bear. But methinks he sold too soon. The line started growing sometime in the wee sma' hours when we were still in dreamland. My father reports that as of 6:15 am, the line at the AT&T store at 95th and Broadway, one block from my childhood home, was growing at 2 or 3 a minute. We're not doing that well, but it's still expanding at a pretty healthy clip, and I expect by 8, it will be fairly impressive. Nearer to the time will be the best time to sell--when the delta between the wait at the front and the wait at the back will be the largest. There is also a healthy market in quarters for the parking meters, since the cops have threatened to tow anyone who overstays their time by a minute.
But Peter and I have a healthy supply of quarters, and a premium place in line; these are the people ahead of us:
The line's a little disorderly, but no matter, because in a touching display of spontaneous order, the first people here started a paper list to keep track. Of course, I shouldn't be surprised--there's a Cato intern who's been here since 7 pm.
Let me echo the commenter from the previous post. What the eff is so great about the iPhone that you would go through all this? Or is this just a bit of investigative journalism? A peek into the motivations of first adopters?
I stood in a long line exactly once: to buy Tibetan Freedom Concert tickets in 1998. In that case I was buying something that sold out within hours and was for a one-weekend only event. I don't know why someone would stand in line overnight for something they could buy just as easily the following week. If you can wait months for the product to be released, why can't you wait another few days?
Is this like voting, and personal cost is way higher than the return, unless one counts the feeling of pride from doing it? Are you getting a thrill?
"was awoken at 6:15 by a nice man from the Apple Store explaining what documentation we needed (driver's license, credit card, knowledge of our social security number.."
Social Security number? Would - yes I have one be a sufficient response? I would ask the clerk if AT&T was going to be sending me my Social Security checks and if they weren't then they had no need for my SS#.
So...is Super Monkey Ball going to be your first iPhone app purchase? I might buy an iTouch just so I can play SMB on the road.
"What the eff is so great about the iPhone that you would go through all this?"
It's not the product, it's the preening.
Commented from my new iPhone 3G!
ostap wins hands down!
Stewie,
Too late. Even I have your SS#.
I've been reading Jane Galt for five or so years, and even after all those words I was shocked to see something like this here. It's just sad that someone would sleep in a line for a chintzy consumer product.
They also make tents and bags for those who don't want to bring a frigging mattress out onto the street.
I can't believe people wait out in the street for these phones. The only time I considered doing something like this was when Ikea opened its first store in NJ and the company announced it was going to give away $5k in furniture to the first customer. My sister and I thought of getting up early in the morning the day of the store opening to win the prize. Then we read in the paper that some homeless Vietnam veteran had been camped out there for a few days. What he did with the furniture, I don't know. Maybe Ikea offered him $5000 worth of meals from its cafeteria.
Sleeping on the street was fun, if not precisely restful. Frankly, I would have done it even if there weren't an iPhone involved, except I doubt anyone would have joined me, and also, probably the cops would have made me leave. It was a mini adventure.
The iPhone is cool and everything, but not worth sleeping on the street for if I didn't already think it would be kind of cool to sleep on the street.
And before the crazy commenters start foaming that I now think I know what it is like to be homeless--yes, obviously, it was fun because I didn't have to. I suggest funneling that rage into some more appropriate topic, like your bathroom mildew or the herbaceous border.
Oh, I doubt anyone is going to claim you now know what it's like to homeless, not even if you decided to. I'm sure it was a laff riot to sack out on an air mattress on the sidewalk, just in case a real homeless person saw you: way to show them how it's done. If they weren't smart enough to make the choices you made -- why, look at the advantages of being born on the Upper West Side: well played, you! -- they shouldn't grumble.
These kinds of pieces can work if they are written by someone with a trace of humanity or a sense of humor. If a mass spectrometer existed for writing, it would find no evidence of either.
Ms. McArdle: Next time you're in Santa Monica for a RAND Corp. gabfest, you can save yourself or whatever corporate/institutional entity the cost of a hotel room, & do some urban camping w/ me, 'cause it's so "cool." I don't actually sleep on the street, I sleep under a piece of playground equipment in a park, & there's no room for an air mattress, but it'll still be plenty of fun. And I promise I'll behave myself. Though if it's in those months between what I consider cold weather & when the cold-weather shelter actually opens, we may have to spoon for warmth.
wow ANYONE & I mean ANYONE who sleeps on the street in a line to buy a phone needs another life. For God's sake man it's a PHONE!!