So I finally got my iPhone 3G last night, and I somehow find it blogworthy. It isn't often that I will go out of my way to buy a product. But, I committed to buying one several months ago when the new phone came out, and there have been so many times I would find myself in a situation wishing I had access to an email, website, or map. This past week I was unable to find a doctor's office and later in the week a bike shop. It was a lot of wasted time when I could have found it quickly with an iPhone, if only it had come out. The frustration festered, and that's why I went out to get one yesterday.

I decided to go to the AT&T store before work. I figured all the crazy people would be camping out at the Apple store because they would feel the need to get their cherished toy direct from Apple. With the economy in the state it's in, how many people could be lined up outside an AT&T store before work to drop money on a new phone?

A lot, it turns out. About 80 to be exact. Seeing how long it would take, I drove straight past the AT&T store wand went to work. I thought that I could come back in the afternoon before people got out of work and have a relatively short wait. So that's what I did, only to find the words "IPHONE 3G SOLD OUT" plastered on the AT&T window. This struck me as odd because there were plenty of iPhones during the 2007 launch. Last year, people hoarded iPhones like Playstations at Christmas time, but found out the hard way that Apple could produce enough to meet demand. So, how could this store be sold out?

Undeterred, I went to the Culver City AT&T store. I pulled up and found no ominous papers posted to their windows, but they were in fact also sold out. Culver City! I figured my last and only shot was to go to the Apple Store in Santa Monica at 3rd Street Promenade. It was still before 5:00, so hopefully I could avoid some of the work rush.

In retrospect, I shouldn't have been surprised to find a line that was well over a block long. A couple of the people said that the wait was 2-3 hours. A nice Apple employee came out and assured us that there were plenty of iPhones to go around if we wanted to wait. I really didn't want to wait in the line, but I really didn't have anything better to do for the next few hours unless I wanted to go home and work on a website project. I also figured that if I came back tomorrow the line would be just as long, and if I went to AT&T in the morning, I'd risk not getting a phone because they'd sell out again. So I decided to wait.

At this point, I had to stop ask: why didn't AT&T stores have more phones? After all, Apple only has a small number of stores scattered throughout the US. The whole point of partnering with AT&T is that AT&T can reach far more customers than Apple can by itself through cell phone stores in towns all across the country. And they don't have enough phones to go around. Seems like really idiotic planning.

Anyway, there I stood in line. In between phone calls to burn my remaining Verizon minutes, I started pigeon holing people into groups:

• Vanity Enthusiasts
• Tech Enthusiasts
• Me

The vanity enthusiasts were typical Angelenos obsessed with having the newest gadget because they considered it a status symbol.

Some might raise an eyebrow to me taking me out of the tech enthusiast group, but trust me, I don't belong with those guys. Some were computer graphics programmers working in movie production, and they were alright. Others were the same adults that stand in Star Wars lines. "Can you imagine what Tetris will be like on the iPhone!?" they would ask. They debated back and forth about whether you would drag the pieces into place or if there would be an on-screen button to drop the pieces into place. Yes, really. What really blew me away about this group was an older guy who told an inquisitive passerby that he was so excited because he was changing history. Right then and there, standing in line to buy a product, he was changing history. If this guy didn't have a son standing next to him, you couldn't have convinced me that he had ever been sexually active. To dull the inane conversations going on around me, I played with a dog that a woman in line had. I should note that I made a point of not watching the clock. It would only have annoyed me more.

Once I finally made it to the front of the line, I got a better glimpse of the idiotic things that passersby were saying to people in line. Chatting up an exhausted Apple employee, a man came to the front of the line and said, "I'll just cut in here!" The Apple guy assured me he couldn't count the number of times he had heard someone say that. I didn't understand at first why there were no less than three huge men guarding the door at all times until I saw just how many people tried to negotiate their way into the store. Honestly, what chance did you think you had with hundreds of people standing behind you? One woman came by and said rather loudly, "I just don't understand what these people are waiting in line for!"

"Printer cables!" I yelled.

At the front of the line, I gave strong consideration to writing on a piece of paper:

I definitely would have sold my spot, and I bet somebody would have taken me up on it. I joked about it with a couple of the computer graphics guys, but they didn't share my enthusiasm. They frowned on the idea, as if I were suggesting that babies be legally sold.

I finally got into the store and had to wait even longer. Any level of excitement I had was gone by then. I just wanted my damn phone. Once someone finally came to set me up, he helped me dupe AT&T into letting me keep my DC phone number using the address of a friend. Sweet. And then I was out of there.

The phone is solid.