Last week, I was innocently checking in to various listings on Yelp as I always do, keeping unofficial tabs on where I’ve been. When it came to the 405 freeway, I found to my dismay that someone had ousted me from the Duchess spot (you become the Duke or Duchess if you have the most check-ins)! This got me all riled up. I refused to have someone beat me out like that, so I started a check-in war.
To better understand the context of this, let me lay down some of the rules we have to follow:
- You can check in to any given listing no more than once every 4 hours.
- You can only check in when you are within 1 mile of the listed address of the listing (with some exceptions).
- You can check in no more than 25 times in a given day.
So, immediately I started checking in every 4 hours or so. Of course, life would get in the way and it wouldn’t happen that much, but I did log multiple check-ins a day. I reasoned that I’ve driven up and down the 405 hundreds of times (if not over a thousand by now), so all these excess check-ins are making up for previous visits. Thankfully, I live and work in an area within a mile of the freeway, so I can check in throughout the day without having to move. I also don’t check in to places arbitrarily – I like for my check-ins to actually reflect my visitation to whichever listing, so I rarely ever get up to 25 check-ins in a day. That’s a lot of places to visit!
Well, unfortunately it appeared that little Ms. Piggy saw that I was catching up to her, so she started checking in full force as well. I call her that because she doesn’t have a real profile picture, but just a cartoon pigging saying something about pigging out. Every time I’d check in after a few hours, I’d find that she was also checking in to keep her lead. This went on for about three days and I was getting just one or two check-ins behind, but then came the weekend and my trip to NorCal. While I was away, I wasn’t able to keep the pressure on her, but it appears that she eased up as well. Maybe she thought I had backed down and let her guard down.
As soon as I came back from my weekend trip, I was checking in again at maximum capacity and today I’ve managed to tie her at times and be one check-in behind at others. By tomorrow, I think I can take her down and reclaim my title as Duchess of the 405 freeway. Once that happens, I plan on continuing until I have a healthy lead that reflects the hundreds of times that I have driven the 405. It’s a silly little thing, really, but this really brought out some of the competitive edge in me. I am not going to give up on this mission! Why it means so much may be beyond most people, but it’s a fun challenge for me.
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August 24, 2011 11:48 am
what say you we go out and meet this piggy woman?!?!
August 25, 2011 11:44 pm
Haha sure! Now that I’ve reclaimed my throne. ;-P