Holy Crap. Tiger! Tours

Yesterday was a very long day. I was standing in line for about an hour outside the Apple Store in University Village in the rain, holding a place in the line for a couple friends. Our plan was ingenious: since Apple was giving out raffle-ticket-style game pieces at the door that could instantly win PowerBooks, 30GB iPod Photos, JBL Creature Speakers, iPod Minis, iSights, iPod Shuffles, and copies of iWork, we were going to hit all four Apple stores in the Seattle region in one day to increase our chances of winning some swag. (I was personally hoping for a PowerBook.)

Now keep in mind that this is Seattle, so I was treated at various times to generous amounts of rain. I was only about 15–20 places back in the line, which stretched back all the way across the parking lot. At one point, a couple employees came out to take pictures of the people in line. One of them yelled out “big smile”, which I accidentally heard as “sig heil”, making me wonder for a moment if I was at the right store or not.

Amazingly, my friends got there with only two minutes to spare, and at 6 o’clock sharp, the store opened, letting in a legion of sopping-wet Mac-heads who were greeted by the store’s eerily cheery staff. As we walked through the door, we were each handed a game piece, which I immediately scratched off to reveal… a 10% discount on anything except the one thing for which everyone was there—Tiger. However I wasn’t yet discouraged, as there were still three more Apple stores to hit. (And thus three more chances to win a PowerBook.) I looked over at Kristin, who revealed that she’d won the same thing. We started talking about the system requirements for Tiger, and decided we should go over to an iBook to find out exactly what they were. While huddled over the computer like the geeks we are, one of the employees decided to snap a photo of us. (Incidentally, if you happen to run across this photo online, please send me a link to it.)

Shortly afterward, Erik walked up grinning like a child. He held up his game ticket to reveal that he had won a 1GB iPod Shuffle. We exchanged some brief “high fives” and Erik scuttled off to go claim his prize. I decided then was an opportune time to go up to the Genius Bar with my broken iPod and try to get it serviced. The idea was that it was the most inconvenient time for them to work on it, and sure enough, the Genius Bar was closed for services until the next day. We meandered throughout the store for a few more minutes and once all our business was done we decided it was time to go to the next store.

At Bellevue Square we were greeted by a much more subdued crowd and no line. We were handed our game tickets—as expected—when we walked through the door, and enthusiastically we scratched them off revealing that we had all won… one free iTunes download. After walking around briefly to see if there was anything cool in the store, we left and headed for our next destination—Southcenter Mall.

I’d never been to an Apple Mini store before, so this was actually a bit of a treat. It was really tiny—about the size of my living room—with brushed-metal walls and very few people, relatively. Scratching my game ticket there revealed yet another free iTunes download. Only one more chance to win the fabled PowerBook G4. I did pick up a copy of Halo while I was there, which was really just an excuse to use my 10% discount as well as the POS. (Which were built into the wall.) After wrapping up our business, we then headed to the final store of the evening.

At 11 pm we arrived at Alderwood Mall, which was by this time the only place open in an otherwise dead mall. My game ticket this time was another 10% discount (no PowerBook for me…) which I decided to spend on a SightLight for my iSight. The staff at this point were exhausted from an incredibly busy day, but were still quite amiable. Kristin actually knew one of the employees, and we jabbered on for awhile. I talked with one of the employees who was in to Mac modding about my plans to put a Mac Mini inside a Colour Classic case. All in all, that store was the most fun to visit, but all good things must come to an end and so we left for our respective homes. But at least we weren’t empty-handed.