And the tech karma wheel just turns and turns. We usually don't have much trouble with our high-tech stuff, what with the computers being Macs and all, but remember how we whined about a slew of bizarre hardware and software failures last week? Well, it looks like the universe decided to equalize the pressure by cutting us a huge break in the area of tech distribution. As usual, certain Apple products are apparently pretty hard to come by; unfortunately, one of the tougher items to find is the new PowerBook we need to pick up before an imminent trip to Vegas next month. Poking around last week revealed that the 1.67 GHz 15-inch PowerBook is practically mythical in nature, like a unicorn, or a UPN sitcom: everyone knows what one is, but no one's actually seen one.

But we need to get our grubby little mitts on one, so we went shopping around, and since price is a pretty major factor for us right now, we eventually decided to order from Amazon.com (since they offer free ground shipping and a $150 rebate) despite the scary note that said "In stock soon. Order now to get in line. First come, first served." After all, we've got a few weeks' leeway before we need the thing, and when we checked around before the weekend, no online vendor seemed to have the SuperDrive-equipped 15-incher in stock, so the price incentive seemed worth the gamble. After all, if it got too close to travel time and the order still hadn't shipped, we could always just cancel it and pray that they'd be in stock in Apple's retail stores by then. So we placed the order yesterday morning, and spent the next twenty or so hours hoping that the estimated arrival date of March 18th that appeared in our online order status was actually based on real facts and inventory figures, as opposed to just being generated by a concussed ape throwing darts at a calendar (as so often seems to be the case).

Imagine our surprise, then, when we received a shipping confirmation message at 4:24 this morning.

Imagine our further surprise when tracking the shipment, which, according to UPS, actually shipped just before midnight on Monday from Harrisburg, PA, passed through Hartford, CT (just a hundred miles from our doorstep) as of 9:16 this morning, and had already arrived at the routing center in nearby Chelmsford by 12:28 PM. Assuming all of this is correct, we should take delivery of this hard-to-find PowerBook at noonish on Wednesday. Two days from order to delivery? Not bad for free ground shipping of a product that Amazon still lists as being "in stock soon." But doesn't it strike you as a bit odd, given how scarce this particular PowerBook seems to be? Heck, even the Apple Store is claiming a wait of "4-6 business days." We still half-suspect that it's all a mistake and when the box arrives, it'll actually contain a gift assortment of Cheeses of Many Lands or something.

If it's not all some cruel hoax, then maybe the universe cut us a little slack this time, granting us Timely PowerBooky Goodness when, all around us, far less lucky fools are going positively geriatric waiting for their preorders from over a month ago. Far likelier, though, is that for once in our lives we just happen to have impeccable timing and SuperDrive 15-inchers are just now starting to flood the channel. After all, iPod shuffles have been pretty thin on the vine, too, but according to AppleInsider, retailers just received scads of 'em over the weekend, with one retail source going so far as to say, "There are too many to count; we have a ton." So maybe SuperDrive 15-inch PowerBooks aren't quite so rare anymore either. Just for the heck of it, we called our local Apple retail store today-- and whaddaya know? They had the elusive lil' critters in stock.

But regardless, we refuse to stop feeling lucky-- at least until we hear that the UPS truck carrying our PowerBook was blown over an icy cliff in our current high-winds horizontal-snow situation. And then we'll probably still feel luckier than the driver. Marginally.