Mac Geeks Converge for Toronto Store Opening...

It seems some people will do anything for a free t-shirt - myself included. And today I was made painfully aware that I'm a macintosh geek. But let me tell you... I'm not alone.

This morning was the opening of the Apple Store in Toronto's Yorkdale Mall - the first of its kind in Canada. Basically it's a macintosh corporate store with the full line of mac products (all the ibooks, G5s, ipods, videocameras and software). The reason this is so unique is because up to this point, you could either order Apple products online via their website or visit an authorized mac store. Few stores carry much in the way of selection, but will gladly order products/software/memory for you. The new corporate concept means that you show up and have the opportunity to try the products before you buy.

When I heard last week about the grand opening today, I was so excited about this Apple Store concept since I now use mac exclusively to produce all of my magazines and the websites that go along with them. These days, I live about 2 hours north of Toronto, but I got up at the crack of dawn and made my way through cottage country and arrived at Yorkdale at about 9:20 (ten minutes before the store was to open). I figured there might be a bit of line, since Apple was giving away a free 'Yorkdale Apple' t-shirt to the first 1500 people to visit the store. I certainly wasn't prepared for the mob that had gathered to worship the Apple brand.

According to one rather weary security guard, the crowd of nearly 1,000 had started arriving at the mall the night before to secure their place in line. One guy had been there camped out since Tuesday (five days before the scheduled opening). I was awestruck. At first, I decided against waiting for 4 hours in line just for a 10 minute glance at some mac products that I wasn't going to buy anyway (I just got a new machine back in January)... I called my wife to tell her the bad news - that every mac geek in Toronto had come out of the woodwork to catch a glimpse of the new Apple Store. Her response: "Every mac geek in Toronto, and you - the mac geek of Rosseau". Ouch.

Is it really true... are we mac addicts really computer geeks in disguise? After watching the herds of folks in line at the mall earlier today, it's safe to say that some aren't disguising their 'geekness' very well. Some are downright blatant about it.

After I sat in the car for a while, I decided that I had driven for 2 hours and wasn't going to return home with nothing to show for my day. So, I waited in line with the rest of the commoners.... I had a few conversations about macs, the new Tiger OS (which I now have), and the brand in general. I sipped a bottle of diet Coke in the heat (yes, the line from the mall stretched all the way outside and around the corner) and waited for nearly 3 hours to get into the store.

At one point a guy approached the mob and asked, "Is this the line for Star Wars?" To which one rowdy mac fan yelled, "Star Wars.... what the hell is that?" That stirred a wave of laughter from the crowd because for as much hype as the Star Wars movie has been getting lately, it's almost a relief to be obsessing over something else for a change this week.

And so I got my free t-shirt (very cool shirt by the way), bought some RAM for the emac, and got a brief lesson on the new OS 10.4 Tiger. Lots of cool trinkets and gadgets at the new Apple Store, some of which I hope to add to the Playing With Words arsenal this Fall - so keep an eye on the Soda Pop Dreams Magazine website for some new innovations and technologies being implemented, courtesy of the Apple Store.

See ya, and Happy Collecting!