2004-07-12

best current thinking

How soon we forget. Just a day after I typed my famous last words about never owning an iPod, and I spend the better part of the past 30 hours stressing about my inability to get a rebate as part of the Cram and Jam promotion. I've spoken with sales, sales support, customer relations, the rebate processing company and even sent a written plea.

There it was, on the homepage of apple.com. Just twenty-seven hours after I called my order in, Apple launches the Cram and Jam deal for purchases of new computers via the education site. Just like I did. Between July 7th and September 25th, if you buy, let's say, a PowerBook and an iPod, they'll send you a $200 rebate. That means, for just $69 more than I paid, I could be enjoying 10GB of music.

Now, I stand by my words of yesterday, an iPod is excessive, more music that I would ever want and not enough battery to get me across the country. However, had I known about that deal, I would have considered getting one. I'd still look down my nose at the Pod people, and snicker at how I bathe in the backlit glow for a lot less money than they shelled out. I don't mourn the lack of the latest luxury item in my life. I rue the fact that I missed an opportunity to save money and get a great deal!

No, they won't make an exception. Yes, the dates of the offer are firm. No, I cannot return this computer, as it was a custom order. Yes, I'm just out of luck. No chance in hell that I'll ever have the opportunity to get an iPod under $100 ever again. But at least I tried. Repeatedly.

One could point out that by buying through the Education site, as someone who isn't currently affiliate with a university, other than being the boyfriend of a UCSF-sponsored, AIDS mental health agency, I was already benefiting, illegally, from a lowered price. An astute person may postulate, that with the money I saved off of retail, I could afford to by a full-priced iPod at retail.

So, I'm back to my anti-attitude to iPods. I don't need one and it would just distract me from making movies or writing stories. I'll just have to make do with my 420+ songs over and over again. My PC-based mp3 player's battery will even outlast this computer's. Besides, if fI did have an iPod, I'd then have to buy an external 160GB drive to house all that music.

In the end, I guess I'm saving more money!

... which is no small feat when it comes to Apple.

earlier - later