Tale of two queues
Not so much a tale as a brief observation.
The first queue is one I spent half an hour in tonight, in the hope of seeing Source Code at the Paramount Theater on Congress Avenue. Sadly the time was wasted and the premiere of the kooky time travel drama went ahead without me.
The second queue was 100m down the road and quite noticeably longer. But while my line had lots of people in line hoping to see a film for free weeks before its release, the other made less sense as it contained hundreds of people desperate to hand over hundreds of dollars for a single ipad 2. (Or in some cases, a flipping pair of them).
This I guess is Austin in SXSW week, the closest thing the planet gets to a gathering of tablet computer fetishists. In fact I was told by one staff member that the entire store didn’t exist two days previously and had been erected precisely for the purpose of selling expensive magical trays. This, apparently, is most unlike Apple.
Still I find this second line baffling, as It goes against the traditional principles of queuing. As long as I can remember one would only stand around for ages if a) the totalitarian regime under which you live dictated it; or b) there was the real prospect of landing something free at the end of it. I guess times have changed.
