Okay, folks, get your retail mojo workin' again-- while Apple has indefinitely postponed the opening of its Saddle Creek store while it continues to try to worm around Germantown's excessive signage restrictions, the company has added the long-awaited Palo Alto store to the on-deck circle; this latest Gap-for-Mac-lovers location is slated to open on October 6th. Those of you lucky enough to be in the Palo Alto area should start forming your plans of attack. Helpful hint for those of you planning to camp out: tie your food up in the branches of a nearby tree to avoid attracting bears.

The Palo Alto store was one of the very first to appear in reports on the 'net prior to Apple's public announcement of its retail plans, and it's likely to get a lot of attention that the other stores don't. Why? Well, for one thing, it's just a stone's throw away from the mothership in Cupertino, but more importantly, it just happens to be uncomfortably close to the home of Steve Jobs himself. And given the widespread unconfirmed reports of Steve sightings even in the relatively distant Glendale location, we imagine that Apple's own Crown Prince of Micromanagement may be dropping in unannounced at the Palo Alto store rather frequently, just to make sure that things are being done "right." (Here's hoping that the manager of said store was granted a minor salary boost to allow for the purchase of copious amounts of over-the-counter antacids.)

We know what you're thinking: that since he's in the neighborhood anyway, Steve himself might show up for the Palo Alto grand opening. All we can say is, don't get your hopes up; we imagine that Steve would prefer that the star of the show be the store, and not his own mercurial self. In fact, we're thinking that the grand opening is the one day when you'd be least likely to spot him there, but anything's possible. Let's put it this way: if we were going, we'd probably bring the autograph book-- but we wouldn't exactly bother with having a pen at the ready, if you know what we mean. Trust us, an Apple store grand opening is a hoot and a holler even without His Steveness present, and an opening that close to Apple's headquarters is bound to be even more out of control than the others. You'll have fun.

As for the remaining grand openings, we may well have to get used to the idea of Apple opening two or more stores a week, because the word on the street is that the company still plans to meet or exceed its originally stated goal of having twenty-five of them dishing out Macs by the end of this year. After October 6th, there'll be at least sixteen more stores to open and only twelve weekends left in which to open them; do the math. Also, we have to assume that Apple's going to want to have most of those stores cranking in time for the holiday shopping season, so expect a frenzy of store-opening activity in the weeks to come. That's a lot of free t-shirts...