After an impatient wait on my part, I was up earlier than usual to hit the San Bruno AT&T store for my new iPhone. Friday traffic was typical. All the way there, all I could do was hope there were enough stores to diffuse demand and keep the lines short. Maybe there's a chance.

Yeah right, and I've got a chance for a date with Scarlett Johansson this weekend, too.

If the line had been reasonable, I was more than willing to wait a bit. After all, it was 8 am. But no, this line was about 40 feet long and was barely moving, and as Dave reminded me yesterday, Jupiter does not pay me to stand in line shopping. The office called.

I didn't have a chance to talk to the store's staffers, but it seems the mad rush for the phone is the reason for lines. The overload of people trying to register the phone, activate it and download iTunes 7.7 is taking its toll, causing severe problems on both Apple and AT&T's ends. All of this is being documented on MacRumors.com and Gizmodo, and likely elsewhere.

A few people in line joked about being very late for work, while others said they took the day off. A few even camped out overnight. As a teen, I did that sort of thing for concert tickets. It was the kind of thing you do when you're 18-19, hanging out with people whom you share a mutual interest. It wasn't the concert so much as it was the experience. Of course I took grief for it at home, but I didn't care.

At my age now, this sort of thing looks ridiculous. It's just a phone.

Great, I'm finally seeing things from my father's perspective.

I'll get my phone another time.

Update: I went by the story during lunch and the line was gone. That's because so were the phones. They were all sold out, and taking waiting list orders.