Okay, folks, the Apple Store San Francisco opens in mere days, now, and Apple even issued a press release just to make sure you remembered. As you are no doubt aware, the SF store is one o' them there "flagship stores," meaning it's grotesquely huge and has a glass staircase or something, which means the press will be watching. This is an important opening, and Apple needs all the celebrants on hand it can muster, so we don't want to hear any excuses like "oh, I live a thousand miles away" or "oh, I'm in the hospital with a crushed pelvis and an exposed liver" or "oh, gambling is against my religion and just being the same store with those gift bags will condemn me to an afterlife of everlasting torment." C'mon, people, deal with it! We live on the opposite freakin' coast, here; don't you think we'll be there for the grand opening?

Well, okay, no, we won't. But only because we have an appointment at Supercuts, and you really don't want to cancel on those guys. They get twitchy on you. Otherwise, you know, we'd totally be there.

Now, we know you've heard about seventy-something retail grand openings over the past few years, and you're probably taking them for granted, but we've got news for you, Beavis-- the grand openings won't be around forever. You already know that Apple has slowed way down with the whole retail expansion thing; the days of three openings a week are long gone. What you may not have processed is the fact that, eventually, Apple will have reached saturation here in the U.S., and then the party's over.

According to ifo Apple Store, Fred Anderson recently confirmed that Apple only plans to open another four stores (that's including this Saturday's San Francisco shop) by early September, and won't plan any stores that it doesn't think can make a profit in a year's time. Since the profitability factor is based solely on the prediction of a Metropolitan Statistical Area projection (that's fancy talk for "we only build 'em where Mac users live"), sooner or later-- and probably sooner-- Apple is simply going to have a store serving every viable market, and the grand openings will cease forever. According to Fred, "Apple does not intend to have 300 stores-- only profitable stores."

Now, while we agree that it's wildly irresponsible for Apple not to keep opening new stores just so we Mac fans can continue to get free t-shirts at the grand openings, at this point you can surely see why you have to make it to the SF gala on Saturday; your chances are running out. So unless you can honestly say you're all partied out and you've gotten all the free shirts you'll ever want, you've only got a few chances left in which to get the whole grand opening experience out of your system. That is, unless you're okay with leaving the country just to attend openings overseas. Heck, we'd fly to London for a grand opening. Except, you know... Supercuts.