Doing it since before http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/2013/07/25/are-automated-bots-are-making-hot-online-reservations-impossible/ was cool....

gistfile1.txt

# License: Public Domain

$crontab -l
#6 * * * * /home/philip/bin/reservation.sh

###########################################################################
$cat bin/reservation.sh 
#!/bin/sh
if curl -s http://rez.urbanspoon.com/reservation/start/2086 | grep -q 'Unfortunately'; then
  exit
fi

mail -s "State Bird Provisions?" my_email_address@my_provider.com < /dev/null > /dev/null


###########################################################################
$stat bin/reservation.sh 
  File: `bin/reservation.sh'
  Size: 196       	Blocks: 4          IO Block: 32768  regular file
Device: 15h/21d	Inode: 14733379    Links: 1
Access: (0764/-rwxrw-r--)  Uid: ( 1004/  philip)   Gid: ( 1004/  philip)
Access: 2013-01-31 22:54:06.524474640 -0800
Modify: 2013-01-31 22:54:06.538909769 -0800
Change: 2013-01-31 22:54:13.815649109 -0800