Monday December 26th through Sunday January 1st.
Muir Woods is home of the "last old growth coast redwood forest" in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is also one of the busiest parks in the nation. When I visited last week, the main trail was washed out near the end of it. It was a bit damp and cold, but the people, they kept on a-comin'. The payphone in question is next to a stream, across from the restrooms and is NOT A TOY, according to the bright red text written on both the payphone and receiver.
Thursday, December 29th, 2005.
Amazing coincidence. I was here the day before this was selected, took a picture of it, and said "Wow, this is a good phone for Phoneswarm!" Missed it by that much.
It's also the third payphone near water. See Berkeley Marina and Sausalito Ferry Pier. By near, I mean extremely near, so Alcatraz and Golden Gate Bridge don't count.
11:05 EST- seven rings, no answer. I'll try again later.
I called and some guy picked up the phone. I asked him if Joey dropped off "the package" and made him look around for it.
He hung up on me and I tried calling back 10 minutes later.
The guy is sitting there at a table right next to the phone trying to get people to sign a petition and he said he "is mad that the phone keeps ringing every 10 minutes and interrupting him" before hanging up on me again!
I've said this in so many ways already, but people are not picking up the phone because they want to be taunted. This isn't "Candid Camera" here. This is the last email of this nature that I will be publishing, it's just sad and wrong and boring and stupid. I was all excited to get some sort of automatic email processor going that would magically post emails as soon as they were sent, but now I can see that's not going to work.
hey there,
i called the muir woods and some kid answered the phone. he was kind enough to say the sky was "not good" but the trails weren't flooded anymore. :-)
bests,
andrew
Here's that Sausalito Cam again. It's not Muir Woods, but it's the closest you're going to get with a webcam, I think.
Sunday, January 1st, 2006.
I enjoy reading the occasional taunt or joke played on someone on the other end of the phone. It's a lot better than reading the never ending "I talk to a nice guy from [insert place here]. We talked about the weather."
WEEE ... how interesting!
Without something to smile or laugh at then I have no reason to continue visiting this site.
And lo, through the terrible winter of 2006, without the traditional games of taunting, Phoneswarm.com became a former shadow of itself. There was no laughter at the expense of unsuspecting phone-answerers. Joy was completely absent when no one made a service industry drone order a meal that was never to be picked up. Who will uncork the thirty-year old "Mike Hunt" jest, now? No one. Not a soul.
Sunday, January 2nd, 2006.
[same guy from previous letter] People will continue the prank calls whether you post it on your site or not.
What's it matter anyways? The life this site ever had was thanks to a Digg.com posting. Laaaame. Couple months later and it's dead with hardly any posts.
Yes, I suppose people will continue to prank unsuspecting callers. Count me out, though. But yes, you have skewered this site handily, sir. I tip my hat to you. It's good of you to stomp on flowers like this, it indicates a wholesome maturity. Wisdom ... I think I also smell some wisdom. Consider me ... publicly shamed. Is there anything you'd like to add before I go commit a little seppuku?
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006.
I personally think your site is funny as hell. I have always been facinated with public phones. I used to live in a second story apartment in Pittsburgh PA. There was a phone booth on one side of our building and a bar across the street. When we'd get bored, we'd wait for the bar to let out and then call the pay phone and have some pretty interesting conversations with the drunks that were stupid enough to stand there and talk to us. About 9 out of every 10 guys we talked to would touch themselves when asked.
So I called your swarmphone, in hopes to entertain my kids and teach them the proper use of payphones. I spoke to someone that insisted his name wasn't Jerry, that he was the only one standing there, and that he wasn't hiding Jerry from me. But he will have Jerry call me if he finds him.
I'm going to add the swarmphone link to my website at spiritedghosthunting.com
Thursday, January 5th, 2006.
It's too bad that it's weird to call a random person and have a friendly conversation with them, but normal to call a random person just to make fun of them.
I like PhoneSwarm just as it is. It's nice to see that two people can interact with each other without one making fun of the other.
Were I running things, I wouldn't post the prank calls either. If someone's into that sort of thing, there are plenty of websites they can visit. Websites focused on happy positive things are hard to find, and I'm glad to see that there's someone editing to keep things that way.
Sunday, January 8th, 2006.
I called twice around 9:43pm EST from New Jersey. The phone rang, oh, about a million or so times, and no answer...