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Decided to go see how the ipad2 interest was after listening to the news about the lines all across the nation.

I knew I was in trouble when I got stuck in traffic waiting to get into the Town Center's parking area. The traffic reminded me of Black Friday. But, this was Apple Friday. Finally find a parking space and begin the hike to the Apple Store. There were news trucks and photographers all over the place. They had half the sidewalk roped off for those waiting in line to camp out. I started counting people in the line, down the block around the corner and down another block and on and on. People camped out with lawn chairs. Many had ipads and many were selling their original ipad. It was most fascinating to see. Quite a few were buying 2 ipad2's, there to buy for a friend. I stopped counting at 900 people in line and the line went on for a hundred or so more people. Police were there too. It was like a party. Everyone was so excited.
The store was closed and a guy at the front door was telling people they will be open for ipad 2 sales at 5 oclock. Went over to the little park area where more people were waiting, some with their ipads. Two were playing a piano duet on their ipad piano app. I've never seen anything like it except maybe at a church revival meeting when I was a kid.

So I left and figured this was just one store. I went to Best Buy which was a couple miles away and they had a line outside that had about 300 people waiting. There was this BB sales guy barking at the line of people the rules on engagement on how the buying of ipad2's would work. Everyone would remain in single file and there would be no demo to play, just to purchase up to 2 ipads per person. You could also buy accessories for the ipad2 as well. I decided to go in and see what the store looked like and observed there was nothing out for ipad2 at the Apple center. I walked over to play with the Xoom a bit and sales guy came over. I told him I already had an ipad but wanted to get a feel for the Xoom. I said quite a crowd out there. He said yeah, the pallets of ipad2's would be at the front of the store near the registers. Nothing would be on display until after the crowds of buyers end. So, I played with the Xoom for the first time. I saw it had a video editing app too and worked very smooth. At CES They wouldn't let anyone play with the Xoom so this was my real first time to hold one. Basically handled like the ipad in size and weight.
The salesman also told me that Samsung pulled their Galaxy second generation from release as they do not want to go head to head with the ipad2 frenzy. Compared to the ipad1 and the experience I had with the Xoom, the Galaxy Tab was a bit sluggish, but I still thought the size is it's best feature.

OK, so I'm weird to go watch this phenomenon. But it was fascinating watching a bunch of people get so excited over being first to have another new product from Apple. There isn't anything else like it.