Blahg

2 July 2011

Wow.

I took in a great fireworks show. From the balcony of Matt Manor.

I don't recall ever having such a great view from the comfort of my own home. While this particular show was going on, I could hear the rumbling and see the light effects of another show north of me.

Earlier in the day, I had to run over to the Cherry Creek Apple store and get a new power adapter for my MacBook. After only 14 months, it conked out due to what I would describe as cheap engineering.

I do like the MacBook and it's been a better experience than the Dells I have had in the past, but I'm not ready to drink the Kool-Aid and allow Steve Jobs to run my entire life through his iTunes. When it comes to mobility, I do prefer BlackBerry. Lord knows Research In Motion is dealing with all sorts of issues right now, but they are in large part the result of past successes instilling an unhealthy cockiness that has to be resolved before future success can come. Surely that's a topic Jobs knows a thing or two about.

Anyway, I don't spend time in Apple stores and today's experience has guaranteed that trend will continue. I felt only slightly more comfortable there than I do at Walmart.

After spending 10 minutes on hold to confirm the store actually had the adapter in stock, I mosied over and found the store, as expected, overrun with customers. On top of that, Cherry Creek was all aflutter with the Arts Festival in full swing. Mass humanity everywhere.

One of the "greeters," for lack of a better term, since the guy was clearly no genius, took time to point out that I should have bought the extended warranty option, but I didn't get into the details of how, at least so far, I'm better off spending $79 than $300 last year for a warranty extension. That guy bugged me. I can't quite put my finger on why exactly. But he bugged me. Maybe it was some sort of smugness on his part.

Then there was the whole check-out experience.

They've taken chic obscurity to a new level; there's no real check-out line, just a guy with a wireless device (and an extremely bad network connection) standing at a table mobbed with people looking at stuff, waiting for their Macs from the repair shop, and so on. Then I saw the tell-tale glass sign on the end of the table that said something clever like "Purchase."

Yeah, there's a Genius Bar at the back of the store, but this purchase situation was decidedly retarded, to be gleefully politically incorrect.

So I waited while this one guy helped other people. It seems to me any one of those peole standing around should be able to use their mobile device, swipe my card, take my money, and let me be on my way.

But no.

Finally I paid, had them e-mail me a receipt since Apple apparently can't afford - or deign - to print one out for me, then hit the road.

On the way out, one of the other multitude of greeters said, "Congratulations."

Wow. Congratulated for buying a power adapter to replace one that pooped out before its time.

Hubris.

That's what bugged me about the whole experience.

The scariest part is so many people are favorably responding to it.

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