At the Kitchen Table

So.. I was in an Apple Store near my client in the Detroit area last night to get a short, white firewire cable for my external travel drive (why it came with a long, thick, black cable is beyond me).

Well, I had seen the cable there before so I just got it off the rack and got into line to pay for it.

Now, it strikes me that supermarket designers must had a bolt of lightning style epiphany when they came up with the idea of putting the candy racks right at the tills.

And Apple is not one to pass by a good idea.

So… back to last night… I’m standing there in line with my short, white firewire cable.. waiting my turn. It’s a nice looking place so I glance around at the shelves, the latest iPod gadgets, the other ubercool people buying mac stuff.

Oh.. what’s this? A table next to the till with “stuff” on it. iPods and such… marked down… ah-ha… they have a clearance table.. demos & refurbs… nice discounts too.

Oh. Oh my. Oh dear. What’s that underneath the table? Oh. I feel the sweat start.

It’s a pile of powerbook boxes. 12″ powerbooks.. bah.. nothing interesting.. my 14″ iBook will go head to head with that. 17″ powerbooks.. gangly monsters… laptops on steroids.. abominations… nothing interesting there. iBooks.. got that covered already.

But what’s that? That in between sized black box? Could it be? No.. it couldn’t.. but alas, it is.

A 15″ PowerBook. hmm.. it can’t hurt to just look at it…

It’s nicely discounted. But still, it’s probably an entry level.. with a wee hard disk, and a combo drive. Nope… it’s top of the line… 1.67GHz, 80G, SuperDrive, Bluetooth 2.0, wifi, gigbit ethernet.. blah blah blah. 512M installed.

“You want to have a closer look at that unit?” GULP! “Um.. ya.. sure… it prob doesn’t have tiger installed”.. turn it on.. it dives into the perky tiger installer.

“And it’ll take 2 1G sticks?” “No I it has 512M soldered in and room for 1 stick”.. oh.. I’m off the hook.. but yet.. “Can you verify that….” “My mistake.. the 12″ has 512 soldered in.. this one takes 2 sticks.. there’s a 512M stick in it”. Damn.

Feebly.. “it has a superdrive?” “Yes”.. ok I give up. I resign myself to fate, destiny, the will of the gods… and hand over my credit card.

So now I have in front of me a shiny, almost new, 15″, fully loaded, Aluminum PowerBook

And a short, white firewire cable.