If there was ever a land where cult icons can come and go without much reason, this is it. Buh bye Star Trek, Hello Michael Jackson. Buh Bye Elvis Museum, Hello Brothel museum. Buh Bye Stardust, Hello Hole In The Ground.

One Kool Aid cult item big these days is Apple electronics. The Ipod craze of the last few years has just about brought this cult to the mainstream. You can buy Apple products from vending machines in the airport and various hotels. If you aren't a Kool Aid drinker just yet, the next level up from the vending machines is the Apple Store. It is where those hooked on Apple products go to stare and let their jaws drop as they salivate over everything Apple and can get hands on experience and free advice on any Apple products.

So where can you can find an Apple Store? Most states have one or two, or even more if they have more than a couple of major cities. They even have one in Reno. But to find one in Las Vegas, all you have to do is put your finger on the map where the strip is. And depending on the size of the map, you might have put your finger on all 3 of them. Yes, 3 Apple Stores in a 3 mile area in 3 different shopping venues.

You can find the original Las Vegas Apple Store in the Fashion Show Mall. Go south past TI and Mirage, and you can find another Apple Store in the Forum Shops at Caesars. From Caesars Palace, go 3 miles south to Town Center, and you can find another Apple Store there.

If you are hooked on Apples, this is quite the phenomenon having Apples Apples everywhere. If you haven't acquired the taste for the Apple Kool Aid just yet, never say never.

There's something about those Apple stores. Every time I enter one, I just want to buy something (sort of like Sharon and Lee at Shepler's and the Bass outlet store!).

I'm not much of a shopper but those Apple stores really get me. The last time I went in I was "just browsing" and ended up with a new iPod Nano!

Well, first Sharon got the Iphone, then in october she got me an Ipod (yup, I put my first tune in it about 2 weeks ago late August) Now this past weekend we went to Baltimore and bought one of thier lap tops the Ilap or whatever it's called. The store experiance was interesting. We had a hispanic guy give us the tour deforce. But no joke, we had to ask him atleast 10 times till we finally realized he was saying Leapord opreating system! LOL
They want you to make an apointment to shop at the store! LOL

Anyway, I do like the products, and if all continues to go well, these IBM clones can kiss my A......, well you get the drift. I did see a lot of neat toys in that store, I'd like to have!

I don't know about you, Mike - but for David I think its the Star Trek effect.

You know, we grew up watching Star Trek, dreaming of living in that great universe where diversity was respected, technology was used for good, and most people were darn attractive.

An Apple store is so modern, its kinda like Star Trek in there. Without the Borg. So of course we want to bring a piece of it home (or several...)

And JMT, aren't they planning the Mother of All Apple Stores in the new City Center complex? We may need a bigger thumb on that map.

Maybe, it's the first I've heard of it. I'm not a hard core Kool Aid drinker and I don't follow City Center that close.

OTOH, City Center is within the the fingerprint of the other three. So that would put 4 stores in just over 3 miles.

Shopping malls on the strip are classics for having things that would be impractical to have, purchase, carry home on the plane, or otherwise acquire. Other than the stuff that you can get out of the vending machines, Apple stores don't sell a lot of things that you NEED to buy on vacation. Perhaps a lot of this is the Star Trek effect you spoke of and someone would get interested in a product in the store and buy it later at home.

and of course if you buy something large at the Apple store, you can simply use the transporter to get it home...

Lee, when you go to the Apple store within 30 days of the purchase of your laptop, you should do one of two things. One, start buying desktops for the home and office. Or two, take the laptop back and tell them it didn't convert you yet so it must be defective.

Yesterday afternoon, I pulled an old 2001 model Windows based laptop out of storage. I reformatted the hard drive and put factory software on via my resotre discs which made it factory fresh. I finsished at 4pm. Then I turned the computer on after the restore.

First it went through a Sony Vaio configruation. Then it went through a Windows configuration, welcome, and set up. Then it did windows updates. Then it did windows security updates. Then it loaded service pack 2. Then it did SP2 updates. Then it installed IE 7. Then it did IE 7 updates. Then it did SP2 security updates. Then it loaded service pack 3. Remember that it reboots after each of these processes and the reboot gets slower each time. When I left for work at 7:45pm, it was still loading SP3.

I got home from work and checked the computer at 8am. SP3 had completed and there were SP3 updates to load. FYI, these are only the updates that Microsoft considers high priority. It's NOT updates for Media Player, Adobe, Norton, Real Player, Quicktime, Sony, hardware or any of that stuff. I've been home over an hour and it's still loading updates. If it ever finishes, I wonder how much of my 60 gig hard drive will be available.

Frankly, I forgot why I pulled this machine out of storage. Maybe it will be finished by the time I remember. I did remember how much my iMac freed my computer time up. Like the iPhone, it doesn't do everything I used to do on my other device, but everything it does, it does well. I used to work on computers to make them do what I wanted. Now, I let computers work for me.

I'm serious as I can be. If you aren't blown away with the Apple, you might as well snuggle up to Windows and say Till Death Do Us Part.