Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Pod People II

The Wife and I went on a trip this past weekend. We sort of went to Atlanta.

I say "sort of," because that's not where we were planning on going to start with. And not were we ended up. But where we stopped along the way. And not just to grab a bite. But we did some shopping. Or looking.

You might recall that the Wife got her an iPod. One of those little iPod Shuffle things. She likes it. And so do I.

When we were contemplating purchasing it, we actually said aloud that we'd probably get that one because we didn't want to spend a lot of money. Actually, a lot lot. Because, when you get right down to it, $79 is a lot of money. But the iPod Nano is $149 ... and higher. And the big iPod is $249 ... and higher. So, the Shuffle is a lot of money. But the Nano is a lot lot of money. And the iPod is a lot lot lot of money.

Anyway, we figured we'd spend the money on the iPod Shuffle and then want either a Nano or a big iPod.

We wanted the big iPod.

Okay, she's actually happy. I want the big iPod.

And, this weekend, we were going to South Carolina ... and just happened to be heading through Atlanta.

Yes, there are places in Columbus where you can buy an iPod. But not places where you can ask questions.

But Atlanta has places like that. Called the Apple Store. And there's one in Lenox Mall. So, we jumped off of I-85 (if Apple owned it, it'd be i85) and headed up Lenox Road to the Mall.

Being hungry and all, we ate first. Then worked our way up the elevators and escalators to the top level, where the Apple Store was located.

And got in line.

You might want to read that again.

We got in line.

There was a line to get into the Apple Store.

People were queued up to talk to 20-somethings who had either too much facial hair or too many bits of metal in their heads.

Okay, not all of the folks working there looked like that. But the PC Guy in me has to think that way.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/FdA51hlTKrM" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

So, we stood in line and were eventually seen by a young man ... "Kevin" according to his name tag ... who had facial hair, but in the "I grew a beard" style, not the "I'm too lazy to shave" style.

Kevin was actually quite courteous and helpful. He didn't seem to mind answering questions for a couple of folks who talked like they were from around there.

But I noticed some stuff about the folks there. Not the Apple folks, but the customers.

They stood in line to get into a store that sold expensive stuff. The line had as many people in it as there were people in the store shopping.

They stood in line to pay for expensive stuff. There seemed to be as many people in line to pay for stuff as there were people standing in line to get in ... or in between, shopping.

Oh, and it wasn't just a couple of Mac geeks or iPod salesmen in t-shirts keeping people in line. Mall cops were there with badges and uniforms and everything.

But the folks there were very helpful about the different questions we asked, whether about the iPod or the Mac computers.

How helpful?

There's an iPod in my pocket as I type this. The 80 GB. That holds 20,000 songs.

Yes, I'm a Pod Person, too.

5 comments:

  1. [placing_hex]
    Get a Mac...Get a Mac
    [/placing_hex]

    Did you know that the actor who plays PC Guy actually uses a Mac!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've been looking at the new Macs for some time now. Couple of stories about that. More on that later.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The capacity of those things amazes me. 20,000 songs? When would you ever have time to listen to all of them? Still, pretty cool. So, is the iPhone next?

    ReplyDelete
  4. For me, it's a case of their advertising irritating the piss out of me so bad that I'll never buy their products, even if they're good.

    Same with Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jim, I didn't even know there were 20,000 songs. Still, like you said, pretty cool. And, no, I don't think I'll be getting an iPhone. Unless the Wife really, really wants one.

    Harvey, I understand what you mean. I feel that way about Burger King.

    ReplyDelete

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