When I read Shoals' piece the other day about players as mascots, the first name that came to mind was Mark Madsen. He seems like a nice enough guy, but he's a fan favorite for no reason that relates at all to his contributions on the basketball court. After all, he's best known in L.A. for a goofy speech and even goofier dancing at the Lakers' championship parade back in 2001. Please click that "goofy speech" link, I promise you won't be disappointed.
Something you may not have known about Mad Dog -- besides his fluency in Spanish -- is the fact that he's a full blown technology geek. So much so, that he was among the masses in Minnesota who waited in long lines to buy the latest and greatest gadget: the iPhone.
Look, when I heard the iPhone was coming out, I was ready to hire someone off of Craigslist to wait in line for me. I asked the AT&T people if this was OK, and initially they told me no. So I waited in line for the iPhone myself in Eden Prairie, Minn., where I think I was about number 21 in line. Luckily, I got one!
I don't know what's funnier, the sight of Madsen sitting in a lawn chair outside an AT&T store in Minnesota for hours and hours to buy a cell phone, or the prospect of him calling up people from Craigslist and trying to hire them to do it.
Either way, if the guy was really into his technology, he'd have known that waiting in line was completely unnecessary. Apple never releases new products in short supply, and I got my iPhone the day after it was released, no line at all, just walked into a mall in L.A. and picked one up. I guess in that respect, I'm actually geekier than Mark Madsen ... which, after seeing him at that parade, is something that I would have thought to be completely impossible.
