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Saturday, August 1st 2009, 11:46 AM
APWatching the 2005 'King Kong' remake inspired Dan
Florio to create RunPee.com, a Web site that tells when it's safe to take a
mid-movie bathroom break.
The mid-movie dash to the restroom can turn us into calculating Usain
Bolt wannabes: Ah, this looks like a lull - time to dash.
When we return to our seats, we pray the answer to "What did I miss?" isn't
"Darth Vader is really
Luke's father" or "the girlfriend is really a guy."
The Web site RunPee.com can help with such anxious guess work.
The site provides recommended opportunities to race to the restroom. It tells
you when the action or romance wanes, and gives you a cue ("Baby O.J. is taken
from Bruno") for your exit.
The site tells you how long you've got and even summarizes what you missed.
Since early July, RunPee.com is available
as an iPhone app, too.
Launched last August, RunPee took off earlier this summer. It's been one of
the season's runaway hits - a clever idea that has spawned a lot of
word-of-mouth from moviegoers.
"Helping your bladder enjoy going to the movies as much as you do," the site
boasts.
It was created by Dan Florio, a
42-year-old Flash developer who got the idea during the three-hour-plus "King
Kong" remake in 2005.
Florio, who lives in Orlando, Fla.,
with his wife, does everything for the site, though he gets some help from his
wife and his mother. He's become a regular opening day attendee of movies,
busily taking notes in the back row.
On Friday, he's planning a double-feature of "Funny People" - which runs
nearly 2 1/2 hours - and "Aliens in the Attic."
"I never intended to refocus my energies on this," says Florio. "And I never
thought that I'd be seeing every single movie that comes out, either."
The site averages 3,000-6,000 visitors a day, Florio says. The iPhone app is
available on iTunes for $1. It's
not a huge moneymaker (Florio estimates he'll make $800 this month) but is
providing him a little extra cash.
He believes that not only do moviegoers benefit from the service, but theater
owners do, too.
"Lots and lots of people comment: `Ah! I can get that 64-ounce drink now!'"
Florio says.
Florio designed the site to be wiki-based with break times submitted by
users, but it's turned out that he's done most of the work. Finding the right
moments and recording the correct time is more work than it might sound - most
moviegoers leave their stopwatches at home.
"It's not fun," says Florio. "I would literally have to pay someone to do
this."
Generally, the better the movie is, the harder it is to find a break. The
96-minute "Up," for example, is one film where no bathroom break is advisable.
But there are suggested options - after all, movies that children flock to are
the kind where bathroom breaks are often unavoidable.
There are, of course, limits to the usefulness of RunPee. But it's also found
friends in cyberspace like WhereToWee.com, a
site in the works that tells you where the nearest restroom is.