4% of the computer market loves free T-shirts, too...

In what passes for high excitement for me, a new Apple Store opened in my local mall. So, at about 10 am, I shook off last night's poker game, made sure the cat had food, and off I went to make sure I was one of the first 500 for my free tee.

This one is one of six new "mini-stores"; the setup consists of iPods on one side, Powerbooks and the new iMacs on the other side, shelves with iPod and iMac peripherals (no printers, digital cameras, etc.) and software. Very bare-bones. There weren't even any cashier lines; the cashier "stations" were embedded in the wall, with the screens, touch-pad, and card-swiper poking out. Mmmm, high-techy! Well, in a Logan's Run kinda way...

Anyway, though it's fun to play with the tech toys, and I got my free T-shirt, ultimately I won't be spending money there in the immediate future. I'm still on OS 9, you see, and as Mac users are to PC users, OS 9 users are to OS X users and the available products for the platform are rare indeed.

Hell, it would've been nice if they'd carried Linux stuff, just to up the geek quotient...