RunPee...because

There are seemingly no end to the iPhone apps out there, which is one of the things that makes the iPhone just so darned desirable and appealing.  And when Apple says "Apps for everything," they really do mean apps for everything.

The latest app for everything that's come to my attention - thanks to my friend Valerie - is something called RunPee.

I'm not all that taken with the name, since it's not all that clear from the name exactly what you'd be signing up for. But apps do not live on name alone. (I think "PeeBreak" or "MoviePeeBreak" would be better, but maybe the url was taken.)

Anyway, what RunPee'll do for you is let you know what parts of a currently playing-in-the-theater movie you can miss without actually missing much. Plus it fills you in on what happened while you're takin' care of business.

You can do check things out already on their web site, so with a little planning ahead, you can learn that, in RunPee's estimation, the best time to run and pee during The Hangover is 43 minutes in, when Phil calls Tracy to let her know he's spending another night in Vegas.

You can then click on a block of scrambled text to learn what you'll miss during the 4 minutes that RunPee gives you to run pee.

Of course, this would be far more fun and easier if you could just do this checking in situ, on your iPhone, and not have to be prepared a priori.

RunPee is the brain child of one Dan Florio, a Flash developer, who sounds like a real character. (It would, of course, take a real character to come up with this particular application. Among his real character characteristics: he's worked as a nude model, lived in a tent while in college, lectured on celestial mechanics, been a massage therapist... He was also working in Manhattan on 9/11. Plus: note to my brother Tom, who's a professor there, he attended but did not get a degree from NAU.)

I'm sure that a lot of people will download this app for its novelty. But, truly, most movies last less than 2 hours, and even a middle-aged bladder like the one contained in my personal body can usually make it through a movie, especially if I don't go for the giganta flat, too-sweet, wretched Diet Coke, and stick with a more modest sized soda to wash down the god-knows-what's-in-it-and-what's-on-it popcorn. Anyway, these days, most of the movies I watch are on Pay Per View, so we take all the pee breaks we want.

And, if I do go to the movie thee-ay-ter, I'm not likely to be viewing Drag Me to Hell or Transformers - neither of which, I suspect, I would mind taking an extra-long pee break during.

I did check out the Classics movie list, but RunPee definition of classic is decidedly not the same as mine. (Yes, I know, it's his application - he can dub anything a classic. Plus the content is contributed by RunPee members, who are unlikely to share my cultural tastes.) On the RunPee classic list: Escape from New York, Terminator, and Die Hard.

Not that I didn't enjoy (more or less) these movies, but my list of classics includes titles like Casablanca and Wizard of Oz. (I am so pathetically yesterday. It's amazing I blog at all. I should probably be typing my poss on a manual typewriter and mimeographing them. Hmmmm. The just thought of that purple, foul-smelling mimeograph "juice" - whatever was in it - has irritated my bladder such that I feel as if I must run and pee.)

Well, now that I'm back, relieved and ready to blog from here to eternity (another classic, by the way), I do want to wish Dan and RunPee the very best of luck. And make a mental note to comb through the iPhone site to see what other peculiar little apps may be lurking there.