This weeks sign of the apocalypse: iPhone insanity

As Justin Verlander is just having one of those games, as he couldn't find the strike zone even if you gave him a map, GPS, Google Earth, and a bloodhound trained to find home plate, allow me to go off on a non-sports tangent. Or more correctly, a rant...

I've been watching the jaw droppingly intense Apple iPhone insanity all day. If you read the tech blogs at all, the "Jesus Phone" dominated their posting for most of the week, and has reached a fever pitch today. The MSM has jumped in feet first, national and local, interviewing people who have so much time on their hands, they can afford to que up for a God damn cell phone.

This phone will make you smarter, sexier, richer, cooler, and guarantees you'll get laid, if you believe God Steve Jobs

Admittedly, it's a gorgeous, high tech God damn cell phone, but it's a God damn cell phone all the same.

I find it hard to believe that someone would wait in line for 8, 12, 24, or more hours just for the privilege of spending over 600 bones on a piece of 1st generation technology. Then again, I think it's insane to wait in line for anything for that length of time, be it concert tickets, a movie, a sporting event. You name it, I refuse to stand in line for it.

I never understood the rush to buy/watch something the first day it's available. I never see a movie the first weekend it opens. (I love fighting rude crowds, and sitting in the first row with loud as hell teenagers) I never buy a video game/album/DVD when it's first released, especially at full price. ($50+ for Madden? No f'n way. I'll buy it used, or wait for the $30 price cut a few months down the line) I'll never buy the latest technology in it's 1st generation. (Thank God I didn't buy a Betamax)

Look at the schmucks that waited in line for hours, if not days, for a Sony PS3. A few months later, those systems are piled up in the stores like so much cordwood. Those that bought a PS3 hoping to turn a profit either had to sell them at face value, sheepishly return it to the store, or God forbid, keep the PS3 and actually play it.

If you were so desperate that you actually paid scalper's prices for a video game system, when they were readily available a month later, well, you're a idiot. Patience is a virtue for a reason.

Unfortunately, you can't talk sense to the early adopters. They must have the latest and greatest, even though the latest and greatest won't work as nearly as well as the item they currently have. As cool as the Jesus Phone is, you know it's going to be just like any other 1st gen appliance. Expensive, fragile and buggy.

In fact, I'll venture to say that there's only 3 types of people who would buy an iPhone today, tomorrow, next week, or next month. You're either a crazy gadget freak (If you got the cash, more power to you), you are trying to one up the Jones' (Who owns last month's latest and greatest smart phone), or you're trying to cash in on iPhone frenzy, and will hope to sell the thing on eBay at a massive markup. (I hope you lose money on the deal, you vulture)

WWJD? He'd buy an iPhone, of course! Even He would want to be smarter, sexier, richer, cooler, and get some...

Thinking about it, there is 1 more iPhone buyer. The Apple fanboy, who will buy anything Steve Jobs tells them to. If it's priced at a premium, when something else can do the same job less expensively, but not as stylishly, it must be an Apple.

Personally, I'd love to have an iPhone. Who wouldn't? But I'm willing to wait till the price drops to a point where I don't have to give up eating for a couple of months to be able to pay for it.

Hmm, what to do with my cash? Pay the rent, eat, or...I know, I'll buy an iPhone! I'll be broke as Monty Burns after he lost his nuclear plant, but I'll be the coolest guy in the food stamp line. Hey, being on disability tends to limit your spending options, and make you a tad cranky...

I've done the math. $500-$600, depending on the HD size, for the phone. At least $60 a month for a mandatory 2 year contract with AT&T. If my rudimentary math skills are still working, that's $1940 to $2040 to have the honor of owning Steve Jobs' newest status symbol. That's not including any odds, ends, bling, or other cell phone related crap.

Again, if you have the cash to burn, more power to you,I'd love to be in your shoes. But come on, does anyone really need an iPhone, especially at those prices? Then again, who knew everybody and your sister would own an iPod, or one of it's variants?

I'll be thankful when the iPhone mania passes me by, when the MSM, bloggers, and everyone else moves on to the next big thing. Be it dead wrestlers, swearing toddlers, dramatic chipmunks, dogfighting football players, or the MLB All Star game...

When that happens, you can reach me on my slick, and working perfectly, Samsung phone so generously given to me by Sprint. I won't be a hip as those Apple fanboys buying their Steve Jobs approved iPhones today, but I won't be 2 grand in the hole, either. (I had to work my Sprint phone in somehow people!)