We love the smell of commerce in the morning! The official commencement of the annual carnage known as the holiday shopping season is now just a week away, and Apple is busy suiting up for battle. Faithful viewer Johnny Asbury reports that, according to MacCentral, General Steve's Special Retail Forces division plans to have no fewer than three more stores open come the morning of S-Day, November 23rd. Those openings haven't been publicly announced by Apple, who still lists the Valley Fair, Fashion Valley, and The Falls stores (in Santa Clara, San Diego, and Miami, respectively) as "Coming Soon," but MacNN's recon also turned up the November 23rd date; furthermore, it lists the Miami and San Diego openings as "confirmed" and the Santa Clara one as "likely."

Now, those of you planning to attend these next grand openings may face a circumstance completely absent from previous Apple store openings: when you gather at the malls at 6 AM, this time you may not be alone. You may well see some crazed non-Mac-fiend holiday shoppers lining up to hit the other, lesser stores, since it's common for retail establishments to kick off the shopping season with early bird sales the day after Thanksgiving. If you do encounter civilians armed with credit cards and eager to max them out on non-Apple goods and services, you might be tempted to steer them into the Apple store for the good of our beloved platform, the short-term economic outlook, and the taste quotient of the general public.

That's a noble strategy, to be sure, since getting eager-to-spend shoppers in front of Apple's wares may well cause them to incur some nice, healthy debt right there and then. However, we must stress the importance of avoiding the use of physical force to channel traffic into the Apple stores; do not bodily drag frightened shoppers in front of an iMac, as this tends to confuse them and suppress the spending reflex, and it may also attract the unwanted attention of mall security. Instead, we recommend guile and subterfuge as a more effective (and less actionable) course of action. Most U.S. consumers out at that early hour are likely to be sleep-deprived and still coming down off the turkey coma, so they're going to be easily fooled Tell shoppers that Apple's selling half-price Xboxes in the back, and count how many come out lugging an iMac instead. Heck, it's worth a shot.

Alternatively, of course, you can simply ignore the other shoppers and concentrate on maximizing your own accumulation of debt by purchasing tons of Apple gear for friends, family, and maybe even those blessed souls who work hard to entertain you day in and day out, year after year. On a completely unrelated note, we sure do think those Cinema Displays look pretty. Happy shopping!