I guess I should have expected it, seeing as how so many Japanese people line up for days waiting for the next iteration of the latest gaming system, but I was still a bit surprised when I heard that lines have started to form in front of the Omote-Sando and Shibuya branches of SoftBank four days in advance of the release of the iPhone. I mean, in New York, people started lining up a week before, and it’s just a version upgrade to them, so I guess this is not a big thing. Still, it’s nice to see if not popular interest yet, then at least intense fanboy interest.

Some of the people near the front of the line are doing a streaming video live blog from their position in line. They do stuff like interview people and generally gab. For the first hour or so of broadcast this morning, all they did was show this guy’s crotch, so I didn’t really hang around for long.

But since then, whenever I checked back, they were doing something or other a bit more interesting to say the least. It looks like they’re showing the interviews with all the media people who are doing stories about them.

Sorry, but even for a strident Mac fan like me, these people are nuts.