We can now speak from experience: walking into an Apple retail store during a grand opening event is a trip. For us, we mean that both literally and figuratively, since we flew 900 miles from Boston to Chicago the night before, and boy were our arms tired. Sore wing muscles and a late arrival time notwithstanding, we still managed to drag our carcasses out of bed at six o'clock on a Saturday morning-- an hour clearly invented by an evil government agency bent on making this wonderful world an uglier and less-rested place-- and pilot a rented motor vehicle some seventeen miles from our luxurious Jacuzzi suite at the Days Inn to the Woodfield Mall, all without running over more than two or three small children in the process. (Well, it might have been more, but we were napping during the last three miles, so that doesn't count.)

When we arrived inside Woodfield's hallowed halls and made our way towards the Apple store, we discovered perhaps forty or fifty people already in line-- and at least four of them were wearing AtAT t-shirts. To witness such devotion to our little soap opera made us weep deeply and openly (or, at least, we would have done, if sleep deprivation had not sealed off our tear ducts tighter than a Ziploc freezer bag). We settled down for the wait and whiled away ninety minutes chatting with viewers who came by to say hi, distributing stickers, and establishing our alibi for when the Viewer Mail Police came a-knockin' due to us not having broadcast a new segment yet; just to prove we were indeed waiting at the Apple store opening and not sleeping in and slacking off, we shot a few seconds of video footage of the crowd, edited it on our PowerBook in iMovie, compressed it into QuickTime format, connected to the Apple store's T1 Internet connection via the wireless magic of AirPort, uploaded it to our iDisk, and posted a link to AtAT. Not five years ago, this stuff was sci-fi; now we're doing it sans electrical outlet in a mall. Thank you, Apple.

What of the store itself? Well, like we said, it's a trip-- when nine o'clock rolled around, we marched in to the lilting strains of "Love Shack" by the B-52s blaring over the store's speakers, and the staff applauded and high-fived the customers as we entered Retail Nirvana. We don't need to tell you what the store looks like physically, because you've seen all the pictures. However, it's one thing to see the photos on the 'net; standing there live amid all of Apple's latest hardware and software, all in good working order, and maintained by Apple reps radiating enough genuine enthusiasm to set most military-grade Geiger counters on fire... that's a whole 'nother ball of wax. The place was packed with Mac fans grooving at a retail love-in. In retrospect, you know what it was? It was a little slice of Macworld Expo preserved in a time-proof bubble and placed on display in a shopping center-- only with, if anything, even more energy and enthusiasm.

We were far too busy being the proverbial kids in the candy store to be bothered snapping photos or taking video footage, but that's quite all right, because plenty of others had the presence of mind to document the occasion. For stills, check out Adam Karneboge's gallery at MyMac.com and faithful viewer Carrie's collection of snaps. Incidentally, as far as we can make out, the AtAT staff doesn't appear in any of the photos-- anyone wearing an AtAT t-shirt is instead a loyal fan. But faithful viewer David M. Putney spied a brief glimpse of us in line roughly thirty seconds into Phased Reality's video footage, and there's a lovely shot of Jack's back (and Katie's front) about 2:15 into the Phase Shift video, as noticed by eagle-eyed faithful viewer Mike Zornek.

Eventually we felt we were overstaying our welcome, so we bought a couple of games we're never going to have time to play (just to get the free Apple logo notebooks with the purchase), collected our free t-shirts, and stumbled out. By the time we finally left, we were cleaned out of AtAT merchandise (just what we brought with us-- don't worry, there's still plenty more in the AtAT Store), the lapse of the adrenaline rush had us shaking like a pair of junkies, and we reluctantly dragged our trembling bodies out of there in search of coffee and something to raise our blood sugar. It was gratifying to see that the line still stretched all the way back to Watch Station. The high point? Probably getting to meet existing AtAT fans face to face-- and hooking new ones. We sold a pair of t-shirts to one woman who had never heard of our show, but was a huge fan of both Apple and some other show called "As the World Turns," so she was eager to buy. Go figure.

We'd like to extend special thanks both to the AtAT fans who showed up and said hi, and to the Chicagoland Apple employees who made Saturday a day to remember. It was a terrific, though draining, experience. Now we have a whole week to recover before we do it all over again...