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Apple Store Fans Camp Out for 24 Hours
Xeo writes "A bunch of dedicated Mac geeks have camped out 24 hours early at the 3rd street Apple store in Santa Monica, CA. One of them is keeping a running web site of his experience. Refresh often to check out his continuing adventures." I waited for a couple of hours to get into the Cambridge, MA Apple Store when it opened. That's one night I'll never get back.
Don't they know they can shop online?
Or they could just drive to another store quicker!
Those crazy kids.
After reading the /. summary, and the first few pages of the article, I still don't know WHY they're doing this. More information in the summaries, pleaaase!
(Please forgive me if I've missed something obvious, it's early Saturday morning, and I'm stuck at work).
...then you could never understand!
Apparently, so do these people.
Well, we finally sat down and have somewhat of a line-type thing going. There are about a dozen people here, some of them have got StarCraft going, others are just socializing. There is a constant stream of unenlightened pedestrians constantly asking us one of three questions: "What time does it open?", which borders on imbecilic seeing as the sign saying "6 PM" is right behind me. The second question is "What do you get for being here?", to which I answer "A t-shirt." If they pressure harder, I admit my insanity and respond simply with "Satisfaction." The third question being the most obvious: "Why?" My answer is always "Because I can." It's not every day you have the oppertunity to do something that deprives you of sleep, saps your sanity, and borders on illegality, just for fun. I'm self-employed, I don't have to answer to a boss, and if I want to take a Friday off to camp outside of a compter store, that's my perogative, and one I'll willingly jump at given the chance.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Little stories like this always make me feel better. I may be a loser, but I'm not that bad.
My sentiments, exactly.
Here is where geek gets the negative connotation. Geez, what losers. You can get a t-shirt by walking up a 5:45pm. THE SAME FRIGGIN' DAY!!!
Will you not feel stupid when turning 50 and looking back to this UTTERLY WASTED day?
And you have not even gotten drunk / drugged up. Whose idea was this?
Code poet, espresso fiend, starter upper.
===
Friday, July 11 2003
As I write this, at nearly 8 PM Pacific time..
===
The new G5 is so fast, it warps time!
By my watch, it's only 5:46pm Pacific Time.
-ajb
Or Triumph rehashing his Starwars line jokes.
Decisions decisions.
It'll be interesting in 10 years, when much like new albums from popular or unpopular artists, trading cards, and pogs, this guy realizes he wasted his life persuing things when life just passed him buy.
24 hours at a time.
-n
The word you are looking for is; zealot.
1.
a. One who is zealous, especially excessively so.
b. A fanatically committed person.
2.
Zealot A member of a Jewish movement of the first century A.D. that fought against Roman rule in Palestine as incompatible with strict monotheism.
As seen at dictionary.com
Some people take this corporate loyalty a little too far.
It's not like Apple is releasing some gotta-have-it new product. They're just opening a store.
Do Sears fans camp out in front of the Sears store?
Do Home Depot fans camp out in front of the HD store?
I know people that camp out to get concert tickets for a good band, but that's because there's a limited number of tickets, the tickets sell out very quickly and the band doesn't come around all that often. The tickets are hot and rare. The apple store is common.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
That Los Angeles has an apple store not 30 minutes away in decent traffic.
Photos.
Well I never.....
> Do Sears fans camp out in front of the Sears store?
Do Home Depot fans camp out in front of the HD store?
Likewise, can you tell me why there are more mac user groups than windows user groups (and not just per capita)? It's almost enough to make me think there might be something to this whole MAC computer thing.
Actualy, I saw people camp in front of a Sears store on boxing day (dec 26).
Apple store openings are creepy! I went to the Knox Street opening in Highland Park, Texas and was probably one of the forst 50 inside the store. At lease I had a girlfriend there with me, though, so the geek factor went down by 20%
Anyway, when you're giling in there after they open the doors all the employees are cheering, clapping their hands and yelling a lot. I don't like being a frigging rock star when I walk into a store. My girlfriend walked to the back of the store, turned around, and as we walked out we got our free shirts.
There was nothing special about the store. I'd come back many times over the successive months, but all the stuff there was just as easy to see at my local CompUSA 10 minutes away from my apartment.
The kind cool thing is that these guys stayed up all night, foregoing any sleep at all -- and when dawn came there was still no one else in line. So the effort wasn't just to beat out other fanboys (there being no one to beat out that early), it was also to hold an expectant vigil on the doorstep of thier favourite fruit company. Everyone else who got a good night's sleep and woke up to condemn them is missing the point, big time.
Why would they buy their Mac online with a measly OneClick(tm) when they can have a real-life adventure? Makes sense to me... it's not like they were holed up in a line for a new Gateway Store or Attack of The Clones or something.
Not that he's horded around different local shops to get power for his iBook and still maintain his airport linkup. even left his 'post' by driving around the block trying to charge his iBook batteries. Visiting other stores to get food, drink, and horde electricity from them.
Not that the group of them where there for 13 hours before anyone else showed up
Not that he has done this before http://emayhem.org/photostories/1027803100.shtml
But this little tid-bit,
I'll point you to the photostory from the last Apple Store opening I attended with friends, this time of the flagship Los Angeles store at The Grove last year. As an antecdotal side note, I split up with my ex-girlfriend not much longer after that... she bought a PC and it kind of went downhill from there.
http://emayhem.org/ramblings/10579271374.shtml
Seriously now, is your life that sad or delusioned that you will end a relationship with your woman because she bought a PC !!
Of course, what probably really happened is she got pissed that going to an apple store opening and living, eating, sleeping Apple Computers was more important than her, she said "c ya"
I follow the SDK and GDN principles.. Spelling Dont Kount, Grammer Dont Neither
What else can you expect from a bunch of Canadians, eh? You hoser! "Yeah, and their beer sucks!" - John Candy, "Canadian Bacon"
I went to the chicago store opening a couple weeks ago and there were people that had camped out in front of the place all night, I have a job.
I did get there around 5 pm, the store opened at 6. I was ~460ish in line, and it took an extra 45 minutes for me to get in from that spot, but by the time I got in the line had circled the block twice and there had to be over 2000 people lined by then.
it was worth the wait!!!
don't go too late, but don't waste your time spending the night there either!
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
I'm sure I'll get modded down as a troll for this, but my god!! I was wondering what could be more pathetic than someone hanging out waiting for a new computer store to open. Then, there it was: someone who would sit there clicking refresh in his browser in order to follow the "adventures" of the person hanging out waiting for the computer store to open....
Yes, nothing says dork like cult worship of some guy with too much time on his hands doing more cult worship.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
Less Than Jake is performing. As well, they are giving away 250 iSight cameras.
Vonal Declosion
Looks like this little stunt helped them get #2.
Go get your Mac groove on!
> this guy realizes he wasted his life persuing things when life just passed him buy. [sic]
Perhaps doing something interesting like this, once, is less of a waste of time than, say, sitting around and griping illiterately about how only losers would do this.
Heck, I'd do it once, just to say I did it. For a really good movie, for the introduction of the iMac, for a live performance of a favorite artist... camping out for something is an experience. Doesn't so much matter what it is, as long as you're doing it with some friends.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Better to sit alone in front of your computer on friday night mocking him on a web discussion board he may not even read. :-)
It's not a computer store, it's an Apple computer store. If you don't understand, you are not one of us, you should not be reading apple.slashdot.org and you should just stick to the main /. page... :-)
Granted they don't seem old enough for some of what third street has to offer, however I know they at least had an opportunity to meet intersting people during the night hours (as I've met some without even sleeping there), but there's tons better stuff to take a picture of than a tree or an extension cord, at least snap some chicks.
I guess they get street cred for hanging out there all night, try that 2-3 years ago before they started hardcore cleaning up the area and the webpage might have been titled:
"How me and my two friends got recruited by a pimp and then shot twice in the back in front of the apple store."
I was one of the guys there, and let me tell you, it was an awesome experience. It wasn't about just going into the store, it was all about the waiting. I wasn't as hardcore as Hal, I only got there 10 hours early.
Waiting in line, camped out with a bunch of mac users, with network games going on all around and meeting all sorts of new people was really cool. It was the ultimate group experience.
It's been refered to as the "Cult of Mac", and it's really true. When you get it, you just get it. It was easy to pick out the PC users who came by and said "hi" because they just didn't get it.
And the apple store employees were awesome to us. They brought us bagels and everything!
___ alwaysBETA.com - Hey, you've got nothing better to do.
Boxing day? Was that the day of the Tyson-Holyfield fight? Oh wait, no that was on June 28th. So what boxing event was this on December 26th?
Sapere aude!
I showed up at 4pm and was maybe 40th in line or so, and I made it into the store with the first group of people allowed in (at 5:45, a little earlier than expected), which included the people who stayed overnight. I have no clue why anybody would stay overnight for that, unless they just wanted to experience sitting around overnight on third street.
I actually got back into line at 6pm to meet up with a couple friends who got there then, and we got in to the store just in time to see Less Than Jake play.
Two trips into the store = two t-shirts, a trip to get my powerbook looked at at the genius bar before it got too crowded, a chance to win an iSight, and live music. Score!
...if thinking of others as foolish or pathetic makes you feel better about yourself then you may not be as well-off as you think.
-- thinkyhead software and media
I don't know how to tell you this - I hope it doesn't shatter your tiny little mind - but not everybody who likes Apple is completely insane. :p ;)
It's 5:24 am here and the last update is 2 am. What are these guys doing, sleeping? Let's get with it, folks, these fine Apple products are not going to appreciate themselves!!!!
They wanted the satisfaction of getting on Slashdot, and so they did.
:-).
Nothing wrong with that.
I think it's kinda cool, in a "once in a lifetime" sort of way.
I went to the same Apple Store opening, getting there at 6:00, and there was such a horrible line I just walked away. As others have said, there are plenty of other Apple Stores in LA, and this one isn't even particularly exceptional from what I could see.
It looked from the outside like another regular-sized Apple Store. To tell the truth, I was a bit disappointed - I wanted it to be one of the upscale urban Apple Stores like the one in The Grove.
The line stretched around the block for most of the day, only slowing down around 9:30pm. I thought of going in, but even then I would have had to wait about 15 minutes, and I was tired.
I guess I'm a big Apple fan but not quite that fanatical
D
...and some Wireless StarCraft will be had.
Its just another excuse to have a day off in the christmas period in the UK.
I know, I know. I was just taking the opportunity to be a bit "cheeky". It's the name "Boxing Day", it always makes me think of two guys duking it out over some leftover Christmas presents. But hey, I'm all for more days off from work!
Sapere aude!
To quote a certain James Bond movie (Tomorrow Never Dies), the most important part of any news story is not the who, or the where, or the when, but the why. This story is clearly lacking that, and I still have no clue why this is happening. Would someone care to clue me in?
I made a PHP/MySQL library that prevents SQL injection & makes coding easier!
Where is the pull-down menu for modding this up to Delicious?
I used to live 3 blocks from there. What a great place to live. Everyone where I live now (East coast) keeps asking why I moved back. :(
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
If someone did this every time a Dunkin Donuts opened up in Massachusetts, they'd be a bona fide homeless person.
"First you gotta do the truffle shuffle."
If nothing else, this is proof that the geek job market is far from recovering...
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
Triumph, definitely. One of the most hilarious things I've ever seen. For those who missed it, google it (but be careful of that first link, their 404 page almost made me puke!).
I don't necessarly agree with the guy about camping out for 30 plus hours for just a computer store. But I think the idea of live blogging from a news event or activity is actually kinda cool.
Think of it as unfiltered and uncensored (excluding personal view here) news report by the people who are actually experencing it first hand (not but some news caster that wants to win the next big award so adjusts the story accordingly) and it is made available to world.
Ok an opening of an apple store is not something to shout about but imagin this at more serious events, protestes, rallies, wars etc.... open source journalism in a way
It said "windows 98 or better" so I installed Linux