Cult of the Mac is alive....

[Pradeep]

RICHMOND, Virginia (AP) -- A rush to purchase $50 used laptops turned into a violent stampede Tuesday, with people getting thrown to the pavement, beaten with a folding chair and nearly driven over. One woman went so far to wet herself rather than surrender her place in line.

"This is total, total chaos," said Latoya Jones, 19, who lost one of her flip-flops in the ordeal and later limped around on the sizzling blacktop with one foot bare.

More than 1,000 people turned out at the Richmond International Raceway in hopes of getting their hands on one of the 4-year-old Apple iBooks, which retail for between $999 and $1,299. The Henrico County school system was selling 1,000 of the computers to county residents.

Officials opened the gates at 7 a.m., but some already had been waiting for hours in line. When the gates opened, it became a terrifying mob scene.

People threw themselves forward, screaming and pushing each other. A little girl's stroller was crushed in the stampede. Witnesses said an elderly man was thrown to the pavement, and someone in a car tried to drive his way through the crowd.

Police would not immediately comment on the number of or extent of injuries, though witnesses said they mostly had scrapes and bruises.

"It's rather strange that we would have such a tremendous response for the purchase of a laptop computer -- and laptop computers that probably have less-than- desirable attributes," said Paul Proto, director of general services for Henrico County. "But I think that people tend to get caught up in the excitement of the event -- it almost has an entertainment value."

Blandine Alexander, 33, said one woman standing in front of her was so desperate to retain her place in line that she urinated on herself.

"I've never been in something like that before, and I never again will," said Alexander, who brought her 14-year-old twin boys to the complex at 4:30 a.m. to wait in line. "No matter what the kids want, I already told them I'm not doing that again."

Jesse Sandler said he was one of the people pushing forward, using a folding chair he had brought with him to beat back people who tried to cut in front of him.

"I took my chair here and I threw it over my shoulder and I went, 'Bam,"' the 20-year-old said nonchalantly, his eyes glued to the screen of his new iBook, as he tapped away on the keyboard at a testing station.

"They were getting in front of me and I was there a lot earlier than them, so I thought that it was just," he said.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/16/computer.frenzy.ap/index.html

 

[mubs]

The whole thing seems incredible to me. Especially the part about the woman who made a really bizarre choice. There were no arrests, so she got away with wetting herself in public. Yuk.

 

[LOST6200]

There is no telling what a bunch of cheapskates and losers will do.

 

[Buck]

Where is there a shrapnel bomb when you need one?

 

[Mercutio]

The funny thing to me is, my father has a customer in Richmond. When I was in high school I used to go with him to visit that customer from time to time, and then we'd hit museums in Washington DC...

Anyway, the area around Richmond is quite well off. I'm not saying there aren't poor people there, but my impression is that in the suburbs around Washington, the poor people are the ones driving five year old domestic cars (GS3s or whatnot).

In other words, people who could afford to purchase a laptop regardless.

Can a four year old Mac run OSX?

 

[LOST6200]

The whole thing seems incredible to me. Especially the part about the woman who made a really bizarre choice. There were no arrests, so she got away with wetting herself in public. Yuk.

Is that illegal if one is wearing clothing? There are so people with very real urinary incontinence that I doubt there would be any charges.

 

[Fushigi]

Is that illegal if one is wearing clothing? There are so people with very real urinary incontinence that I doubt there would be any charges.

Not to mention babies in diapers...

 

[mubs]

Lost6200, Fushigi, you've misunderstood me. Older folk mostly wear pads for incontinence; if they still leak, I wouldn't blame them. Likewise for infants/children. This woman made a choice not to go to the restroom because she'd lose her place in line, preferring to wet herself instead. That's what I'm appalled about.

 

[Fushigi]

mubs, the way your statement was phrased, "There were no arrests, so she got away with wetting herself in public.", implied that wetting yourself in public was illegal.

Obviously, since she knew to show up hours in advance, she should have made plans, i.e. wore Depends or some other alternative, to avoid having to leave the line to find a restroom.

 

[mubs]

I guess what I meant to say was this: If I need to relieve myself, and decide to do it on the compound wall of Disneyland in broad daylight on Harbor Blvd., would that be acceptable? We have certain written and unwritten rules of conduct and behaviour. Obviously we make allowances for the infirm, elderly and the young.

Nowhere in that new item did it say that the woman was elderly; the person behind her is quoted as saying that the woman wet herself in preference to losing her place. That trade-off is what struck me.

If my first statement made me sound like an oaf, I apologize; it wasn't intended that way. But my thinking that a "normal" person shouldn't be peeing in public still stands.

 

[Pradeep]

I think there is a difference between whipping it out at Disneyland and peeing on a wall, and peeing your pants. One is obscene, the second is disturbing but not as serious as the former.

Of course a 4 year old Mac wouldn't cause me to wet myself, I might vomit at the lack of performance tho

 

[Mercutio]

Lack of performance, but astonishing battery life. I've heard of OS9 Macs getting 10 hours out of a single charge when they run everything out of a RAMdrive.

Sometimes the trade-off is worth it.

 

[Tannin]

The game was released with basically no content, so those hard-core Sims addicts who joined really had nothing to do. The more savvy users started to get together and find interesting things to do.

This group, which eventually was knick-named the Sims Mob, would basically spend their time harassing people -- especially new and stupid players - for any reason that you could imagine. One of their more interesting tactics would be to get a very large number of their members to show up on the target's lot. This would make the game chug, even on the most powerful computer, disallowing anyone from being able to reasonably control their character. After enough time had passed, each player character would hit a threshhold for its bladder requirement and, uh, leave a puddle on the lot. With so much of this happening, the lot got to state wherein it was pretty much impossible to clean it to a usable level. The target lot owner would then have to sell the lot back to the game at a major loss and find elsewhere to live -- where the Mob would find him again.

Life imitates art.

 

[tazwegion]

Geez! violent & aggressive shoppers, sounds like an end of season clearance sale @ Myers Melbourne LMAO :lol:

The shop assistants would require 'riot gear' & danger money!