late night antics...
I use an online social networking application called BrightKite (brightkite.com). The purpose of the site is to assist your friends that live in your city to know where you are. For instance, when I go to Starbucks I "sign in" to BrightKite and it sends out a message to the people I have friended that use the site, and, if any of them are in that neighborhood they could drop by and visit me. Kind of cool, eh?
Well, the only thing is that I don't know anyone in my town other than people that work in the businesses I frequent, so it's kind of a waste of my time to use this application. Except that I do have "friends" I know on the Internet that also use this program. Like "Brad", who lives in Los Angeles. I met Brad on Twitter. He's about the age of Billy, my son and he has a music blog (he writes reviews of albums, songs, concerts, etc.). Well, we've become sort of chummy. We even have the same phone. So we kind of geek-out together, use the same online apps, use the same phone apps, and now, we both use BrightKite. So Brad posts pictures of himself in restaurants with his girlfriend, and I post pictures of myself sitting alone at Starbucks. It's a daft and slowminded thing, but, it's a thing.
So, to keep myself from getting bored I check into BrightKite almost anywhere I go. If I'm at Costco having a hot dog with my mom, or if I'm buying gas out on Dougherty Road, or like in this photo, if I'm standing in line at Safeway. The cool thing is that the phone's GPS system pinpoints your exact location and even provides a map for your "friends" to see. Once I even posted to BrightKite while I was driving across the Bay Bridge!
This was a funny situation last night at Safeway. Our Safeway now has those automated self checkers where you can scan all of the items you want to buy and pay without the assistance of a check out clerk. Thing is, they turn off the self checkers at 10pm. What happens then is everyone in the store that wants to check out gets into the one open line where there is a checker. And at 10:00 on a Saturday night there were A LOT of people out shopping. Some nights I've gone to the store at 10:15 and there will be 20+ people waiting for that one checker. Eventually someone will wise up and shout out for them to get another line open, and they will. And by 10:45 everything is back to normal. Last night though it was like a circus (not as wild as the Safeway on Santa Cruz's west side gets on a Saturday night), but for San Ramon, it was a bit of a hoot!
Well, the only thing is that I don't know anyone in my town other than people that work in the businesses I frequent, so it's kind of a waste of my time to use this application. Except that I do have "friends" I know on the Internet that also use this program. Like "Brad", who lives in Los Angeles. I met Brad on Twitter. He's about the age of Billy, my son and he has a music blog (he writes reviews of albums, songs, concerts, etc.). Well, we've become sort of chummy. We even have the same phone. So we kind of geek-out together, use the same online apps, use the same phone apps, and now, we both use BrightKite. So Brad posts pictures of himself in restaurants with his girlfriend, and I post pictures of myself sitting alone at Starbucks. It's a daft and slowminded thing, but, it's a thing.
So, to keep myself from getting bored I check into BrightKite almost anywhere I go. If I'm at Costco having a hot dog with my mom, or if I'm buying gas out on Dougherty Road, or like in this photo, if I'm standing in line at Safeway. The cool thing is that the phone's GPS system pinpoints your exact location and even provides a map for your "friends" to see. Once I even posted to BrightKite while I was driving across the Bay Bridge!
This was a funny situation last night at Safeway. Our Safeway now has those automated self checkers where you can scan all of the items you want to buy and pay without the assistance of a check out clerk. Thing is, they turn off the self checkers at 10pm. What happens then is everyone in the store that wants to check out gets into the one open line where there is a checker. And at 10:00 on a Saturday night there were A LOT of people out shopping. Some nights I've gone to the store at 10:15 and there will be 20+ people waiting for that one checker. Eventually someone will wise up and shout out for them to get another line open, and they will. And by 10:45 everything is back to normal. Last night though it was like a circus (not as wild as the Safeway on Santa Cruz's west side gets on a Saturday night), but for San Ramon, it was a bit of a hoot!
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