Those who follow me on Twitter may have been aware of my deal to quit smoking.  Stay quit for two months, get a Mac. Fall-off the nicotine-free wagon and lose the Mac. Seriously. Simon said he’s going to sell it, and I think I believe him.  So if you’re interested in a second-hand Mac, leave your contact details in the comments.

Some of you have been more than aware…one person at least has said “I wish you’d just go ahead and get it so we could stop hearing about it.”  And there’s an important lesson on message saturation – isn’t it.  I was quite careful not to Tweet about it more than once a week.

Anyway, I did it.  I didn’t smoke. And true to his word, we went to get the Mac on the day marked on the calendar.

The experience

Yes, I could have probably ordered online and avoided the throng of Regent Street in the last few shopping days before Christmas, but I wanted to get the full experience… so I headed down to the flagship Apple store and milked it for all it was worth. The lovely Adam helped steer me to the place where consumer surplus was fully extracted.  He nodded sagely at the right points, although he did laugh when I said the last time I used a Mac was in the 80s and tried to sell me the full tutorial package.

Ha, ha screw that – I’ll just muddle through the way I always do and ask for help from my Twitter friends.  “Are you sure they won’t get tired of that?” he asked.  “Not so long as I’m a gateway for funding,” I thought.

And he was a little bit dubious when my husband demanded the academic discount and displayed his university staff card. “Students, I can understand,” he says – “But you guys are earning money.”  (But maybe not for long…thanks Mandy).

Full social media douchebag package

Anyway – we got the thing home and I decided to do the unboxing video…because I can – go on – it’s only 40 seconds.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNScLJ_2Mkk]