In case it's not obvious to the person asking... You guys forgot to mention that when standing Reserve, you show up in two hours in uniform, ready to fly with whatever other stuff you need.
Friends who were on Reserve typically kept a uniform, flight bag, and whatever else they traveled with in the trunk of their car. We could go meet up for lunch, but if the cell phone rang, they were gone.
I also noticed they got to know their crew schedulers very well. They might be able to call in the morning and see how far down the Reserve pool they were and get a feel for whether or not they'd be called later that day. (This could also backfire... If Crew Scheduling was slammed and needed someone "right now", calling them made you a target. Ha.)
And if the weather turned to crap, it was almost a guaranteed call-out. Someone, somewhere, would be timed-out and they'd need crews.
Isn't there also a "standing Reserve" where you had to actually be at the airport too? I seem to recall one friend getting stuck with "hang out at the airport in uniform" duty a couple of times.