Phasing into the Cupertino Fruit Zone: The Mac Mini arrives

For like the nth year in a row, I have been subjected to purchasing my own Christmas gift without being able to unwrap a gift on Christmas day with the anticipation of the surprise of not knowing what it is...

This year however, I have no room to complain, since, after listening to a whole slew of podcasts devoted solely to the Mac, I have taken the plunge and started my journey into the land of the Cupertino Fruit with the purchase of my 1st Mac.  A Mac Mini to be exact.

This evening I drove over to the Manhattan Beach Apple store at the Manhattan Village Mall in Manhattan Beach, CA to see what options I had.  When I got to the store, even thought it was really, really busy, I was able to speak to someone in a bright red Apple iPod Nano tee-shirt and she found  a sales person to help me.

They guy that came over asked me a few questions and then went to the back to get the Mac Mini that I had specified and also got me a Apple Wireless keyboard and an Apple Wireless Mighty mouse.

All in all, here is a list of what I purchased:

• An entry level Apple Mac Mini for $648.72 that includes:
  
  • 1.66Ghz Intel Core Duo CPU
  • 512MB RAM
  • 60GB Hard Drive
  • Super Drive
• Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse for $74.69
• Apple Wireless Keyboard for $63.87

So in total, $787.28.  And I still need to get speakers, an Airport Express, More memory, an external Hard Drive... Yikes.  Swimming in the Apple pool is quite expensive. 

Still, I think it's going to be a hell of a lot of fun creating podcasts in Garageband and playing with photos in iPhoto and playing with the rest of the apps in the iLife suite. 

Good times ahead after I surpass the initial learning curve...  I'm really looking forward to it.