Friday, April 15, 2011
ANOTHER THING THE INTERNET HAS RUINED: Every morning, my bus passes by the Apple Store on Walnut Street, and each time there are at least 20-30 folks queued up outside to purchase from that day's allotment of iPad 2s ("iPads 2?"). And I certainly remember from growing up having to wait in line for concert tickets and the like, but I can't recall waiting in line at a store for something in years, not since one of the Harry Potter release parties at a bookstore. (Goblet?) For what purchases have you queued in recent years?
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I queued for a Wii a few years back, and also queued for Wii Fit when it came out (neither of which get a ton of use any more).
ReplyDeleteIf you exclude Harry Potter, I can't think of anything. I Kindled Mockinjay, but I guess that *might* have been a wait had I gotten it on Day 1.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I've queued for anything. I think I might have planned to queue for Billy Joel Stormfront tickets, but there was no line when we got there.
ReplyDeleteIf there is a line to get it, I absolutely believe that my personal distaste for waiting in line will MAJORLY impact my enjoyment of whatever it is I am waiting for. I can't remember the last thing I waited in line to buy that wasn't food. I buy things online so they just pop up at my house on the appropriate day. My only exception is willingness to line up to get optimal seats/standing position at concerts. And even then I am not the kid I once was for sitting on concrete for hours.
ReplyDeleteI have only one memory of standing in line for something at a retailer. Back in what Wikipedia tells me must have been 1982, I went with my dad on a Saturday morning to a store (I think it was one of the now-defunct northeastern chains, like Bradlees or Caldor) to get a Cabbage Patch Kid for my little sister when Coleco had just started selling them. They didn't even let us inside the store; they had us line up at the trailer outside the store where all of the dolls were being kept. It was a madhouse. They basically just had a guy in the trailer tossing dolls to people as they reached the front of the line. I remember my dad yelling, "any girl with hair."
ReplyDeleteThe last thing I queued for was Order of the Phoenix. Before that...I remember standing in line for U2 tickets back in 2001, and maybe Paul McCartney in 2002 or 2003?
ReplyDeleteI waited in line for HP 5, mainly because of the midnight release party my local store was having.
ReplyDeleteDo restaurants count? I have waited in the infamous DC lobster truck line, and that was just a few months ago.
I suppose that I technically queued up for a couple of the Harry Potter books. But as the queue was at Kroger, it was not terribly long. That was, I think, the last time that recall feeling like I was truly participating in a shared event, where I could anticipate that ijust about anywhere, there were other people sharing the same piece of pop culture as me.
ReplyDeleteI queued up for free Shakespeare tickets at the Lansburgh "Shakespeare Free For All" last summer - the show was terrific, and I queued with friends, so we were entertained.
ReplyDeleteEvery Sunday, when I drive to Hebrew school, we pass a very long queue of people lined up for Georgetown Cupcake. I always want to roll down the window and yell at them, "They're good, but not worht the line when there are ten other cupcake places in town! Go to Hello Cupcake at Dupont Circle!"
That was me.
ReplyDeleteThe last line I waited in was for Halo 2. That was rad.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Wii came out, I knew of an unlikely store that might carry it. I went in and asked one of the cooler clerks how many machines they would have, and he said:
"I can't tell you that. But I will tell you that the first person to show up here to buy it will be the only person satisfied with their wait."
An hour before they opened, I was first in line. Behind me in line: A Ronnie Dobbs type who kept saying, "I don't even know what a Wii is, but I know it'll get me 500 bucks on the eBay!"
JUSTICE: SERVED.
That is what I want to tell the people queued up at Sprinkles here in Chicago especially when More is literally 1 block away (with better cupcakes in my opinion) and has often half the line or LESS!
ReplyDeleteI lined up in a twenty minute line recently to try a doughnut from Doughnut Plant on the Lower East Side. Good doughnut, but not sure it was worth the wait.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, I did go to a midnight release party for Harry Potter Book 7 - and I won the raffle to be first on line to buy the book, so technically it wasn't much of a wait. But with at least 200 people in the store, it sure would have been.
I also saw the last two Harry Potter movies on opening night, and got there early to stand on a line to make sure we got decent seats.
Last summer I waited on line for tickets to see Merchant of Venice in Central Park (but only at 7am, not all night). I also waited on line for standing room tickets to see Fences. Other than the last Harry Potter book, I guess I tend to wait for theatre tickets.
ReplyDeleteI was glad that I wasn't in the Shake Shack line yesterday afternoon at Madison Square Park. There were lots of people anticipating burgers and shakes while enjoying the warm weather and sunshine that occasionally (if randomly) appear during springtime in NYC.
Reading the comments makes me feel ancient, but the last time I queued up for anything was U2 Zoo TV tickets in college. Gasp, 20 years ago! I think I decided that it wasn't worth it after that--waiting in line for hours and getting tickets on the opposite goal line from the stage setup at Arrowhead.
ReplyDeleteIt has been almost 20 years for me, too. 1993 for Billy Joel tickets at Iowa State University. We had 2 people calling Ticketmaster, and 2 of us queued up to buy tickets. One of us had to call the ones phoning in to see if we still needed to buy tickets. Oh how much easier it would have been with cell phones!!
ReplyDelete<p>I waited in line to see Revenge of the Sith at midnight with some friends, but that was more out of dedication to the long tradition of Star Wars fans than anything else.
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When I waited for a Wii a clerk told us there were 20 of them, and so we bought a piece of posterboard and some markers and made a list. When people got in line, they would sign in. Once we had 20 people, we started a waiting list. That simple act turned what could've been a tense, adversarial 11 hours into a gloriously fun temporary community.
ReplyDelete1998, a Tori Amos concert (the Plugged tour, I believe), at the Park West in Chicago. Worth every second to see her first tour with bass player and drummer in such a wonderful, intimate venue.
ReplyDeleteSince she retired, my mother has been taking day trips based on whatever catches her fancy in the newspaper's travel section. A couple years ago, she actually stood in line at Three Floyds Brewery to buy beer at their "Dark Lord Day."
ReplyDelete<span>This thread has made me realize that what I stand in line for most frequently is food (at restaurants here in Portland, I mean). Arrived early at Screen Door last month and waited in line for 30 minutes to get a table when they opened. I'm not crazy about lines, but when a good meal is at the end, I'll stand for a while.</span>
ReplyDeleteAt a store? Probably bread, Moscow, 1974.
ReplyDeleteiPhone 3G (took me three tries, too). Though I had just shattered my previous phone a week before the new iPhone came out, so I couldn't really wait.
ReplyDeleteI think the last physical line was Harry Potter 7 book, which was a lot of fun. Can't remember the last time I stood in line for concert tickets - maybe Barenaked Ladies ca 1998?
ReplyDeleteLast movie I lined up to see was probably Terminator 2 - the first showing on the east coast was the Thursday midnight showing at my local movie theater. It was, back then, the largest single-screen theater on the east coast, and a great place to watch a movie. We got a lot of premieres and such there. I was in college then and we were all home for the summer - my high school friends and I lined up around noon and stayed there all day, taking turns going for food and drinks. We had a ball and the movie was great.
However, don't forget that there is now such a thing as a virtual line. I spent way too much of last Tuesday (I think it was Tuesday) madly clicking to get tickets to Next Restaurant. I'm happy to say I was successful.
Free tickets to the NY Philharmonic memorial day concert at St. John the Devine. Should have queued earlier -- I couldn't see a damn thing. Good reverb, though.
ReplyDeleteDan, have you ever watched Felicia Day's webseries, The Guild? There's a great bit involving such a line, crashed by the evil guild (led by kilted Wil Wheaton!) that's like the flipside of that.
ReplyDeleteThis calls to mind two fond memories:
ReplyDelete(1) Waiting in line for Empire Strikes Back in 1980, with my then best friend and my dad at the Meadowbrook Four on Long Island. (Anyone? Marsha? Sue?) We waiting through several showings before getting in. A long day, well spent.
(2) Waiting in line to get the pretty awful Atari 2600 version of "Pac Man" when it came out. I may have felt otherwise at the time, but in retrospect that feels like a worse use of my time than ESB.
God I bet that was awesome, in that venue especially!
ReplyDeleteIf food counts, I stood in line today for about 20 minutes for the Grand Opening of the Whole Foods Taco Truck on the roof of the Whole Foods in Plymouth Meeting. It was totally worth it since my gang of friends was 2nd in the line and we each scored a coupon good for 7 free taco orders - that's 21 free tacos each! There was also live music, a pinata, and a dancing chili pepper. Great fun for a Friday afternoon! And for locals -- the tacos are really yummy. I plan to redeem every one of my freebies!
ReplyDeleteThe last tangible thing I stood in a long line for was tickets for Springsteen's Ghost of Tom Joad solo tour, on a cold night in the fall of 1995. This was at the old Electric Factory ticket office on Vine Street in Philadelphia, and we brought coffee and hot chocolate and stayed up all night. And then, they gave out random numbers in the morning, and my middle-front of the pack camp-out position turned into a back-of-the-line-no-way-in-hell-you'll-get-tickets-for-the-Tower-Theater position. Sure enough, they ran out of tickets before I got to the front. Fortunately, two sets of friends had been luckier in the draw, so I still got to go. Which meant I didn't have to wait in that line after all.
ReplyDelete(Now that I have written this down, it sounds a lot like the exact inverse of a story Bruce might tell about the Vietnam draft.)
I'm trying to think if I've ever stood in line to buy a physical thing. Concert tickets, sure.
ReplyDeleteLast standing in line experience (voluntarily - airport security lines don't count) was probably Salumi in Seattle in 2008. But it's kind of awesome because they send out free samples to people waiting in line.
I try to avoid lines now because the older I get the less tolerant I am of bad line behavior and assault charges don't sound like fun.
At least it wasn't ET for the 2600.
ReplyDeleteI've never actually watched The Guild, probably because it would hit a little close to home. My high school friends and I all took up World of Warcraft to keep in touch during college, which led to some pretty weird stuff.
ReplyDelete<p>I waited in virtual line for nearly 45 minutes about a month ago to get tickets to the Railroad Revival Tour (Mumford & Sons, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros) before the website crashed. Luckily I was able to refresh and get tickets, but I did find myself momentarily wishing that people still had to physically stand in line to buy tickects because real lines don't crash.
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Me too! I want to yell "they are JUST cupcakes!"
ReplyDeleteI like Hello and Curbside so much better.
You can also get Doughnut Plant doughnuts at the Dean and DeLuca in the New York Times building.
ReplyDeleteOh, I remember that. It was bad, too. But I remember the Indiana Jones/Raiders game being very cool.
ReplyDeleteor, oddly enough, at a number of places in Tokyo
ReplyDeleteI have to line up for local stuff all the time. If I want to use employee discounts to get classes and tickets in this town, they make you go in person because they won't/can't give you the loophole prices online. I also spent all day long in line yesterday at the campus festival, waiting from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. for a half hour magic show starting at 10:30. It was that kind of day.
ReplyDeleteI occasionally wait in line at the Bethesda Georgetown Cupcake, but I think the longest I've waited is maybe 15 minutes. Worth it, in my opinion. I wasn't overly impressed with Hello Cupcake, but do enjoy Red Velvet. Sprinkles frightens me with their HUGE cupcakes.
ReplyDelete