Below I just had to let go of some annoying feelings. Here, I’ll explain my complete and other dorkiness and revel in my computer geekhood.

Like many an asshole who’s living debt-free and holding some spending money, I decided to by the much published, hyped, discussed, critiqued and overblownedly dissected Apple iPhone. I’d link, but fucking seriously, all but those without TVs, newspapers and computers have heard of it. The Amish have probably heard of it.

My smartphone universe was collapsing into itself from a variety of broken reasons, and I live an easy bike ride from the ihome of the iconic himself head of the iconic Apple and two different retail stores. I work at a job completely and wholly made possible by tech dollars in the middle of Silicon Valley.

I also have wanted for years a smartphone that would sync well to my Mac computers without workarounds, software add-ons and various partially working hacks.

What the hell, I thought, I wanna see the “historic” event for myself. (I wish there were smaller letters for that reference to historic, because product release isn’t quite historic. Least not compared to something fun like Ronald Reagan getting shot in the 80s.) I had the time and the means and the ease of access. I also don’t mind waiting, and I fucking love people watching at any and every kind of event. That’s what I like most about parades.

It started at around 10:30 a.m. on Friday, here in this hallway, where the mall security (who ride Segways), cordoned off the riffraff away from the front doors of the largely upscale establishments of the Stanford Mall.

It ended just about 8 hours later, like this:

That picture may look like what my friend Hbee emailed me as my “geekgasm.” Truly, I was telling M. to cut it the fuck out with the camera and completely laughing at the applause that met my purchase.

When the first bout of applause greeted the first folks in line to come out of the store, I tried to get the crowd around me to join in a chant of “Yay, SHOPPING.” I just got laughs. Everyone near me knew it was absurd to wait so long for an expensive toy. But, it was a pleasant wait. Friendly geek conversations, sharing of power sources for our laptops and tons of free samples from local businesses recognizing a pre-made marketing opportunity.

Here’s a couple of my favorite shots. In the first one, you gotta love the row of boys with their ‘puters. Two seconds later the security guard, whose sleeve was caught on film, wheeled his Segway (yes really) over to tell us no pictures were allowed at the mall. The flowers of the gardens in and around the mall were OK, but no stores were to be photographed. Um, what the fuck?

In the second, my new line friends. My line-buddy Rick is a Bay Area native who was a wealth of info for the Canadian couple who had literally moved to town the week before.

For me there was nothing in the cliche of the soulless, mindless followers of fashion that weblogs and some media have portrayed. Just regular folks of all kinds with the kind of flexible time that let them shop on an unusual day.

I get a sense, we’re supposed to think that everyone who bought one the first day was style conscious and looking for “hip” and “cool” the worst way possible, through acquisition.

Why then was I sandwiched among some non-dickish people? There were a couple of friendly Mexican guys who traded off the waiting during the day and came prepared with a camp chair and a bit of tequila to take for the afternoon siesta. They wee joined later by their super friendly seeming, senior citizen Caucasian boss, who paid for the day of waiting, as well as both phones. The Canadians were in town getting ready for his new residency at the Medical Center doing open heart procedures. The native Silicon Valley jockey was working a duct-taped phone and a laptop all day, logging time coding and whatnot as a telecommuter. The young guy was a student just finishing his semester and contemplating grad school after his last year in either law school or film, just a crazy kid. My favorite was the guy who brought his Newton with him. This day was a special day for the true fanboy.

Myself, I sleep at night. I only buy what I can afford. I owe no one. I work hard. I work in non-profit and have for a million years (it feels like it). Both M. and I do what we can to throw in for charitable and political causes. I know us, and we are not assholes.

I know me, and I have always made a point of getting gadgets and using the hell out of them. No different here.