A few iGeeks hanging out at the mall waiting to buy a cell-phone:

In the comments, BusyMom says she likes the song. Here’s a link to it on iTunes.

After hanging out with about 300 fun folks at the Green Hills Apple Store, I thought I’d head across the street to the AT&T Store in Green Hills where only about 30 people were line — at the time. Mistake. By 6:45 only four people had actually made it out of the store with phones. Rather than merely selling phones, the AT&T Store was running credit checks on non-AT&T customers. They were handling things with all of the efficiency of a cell-phone store. A quick back-of-the-envelop calculation led me to believe I’d be there for another ten hours — so I’ve punted. I’ll order an iPhone online later tonight. It will get here when it gets here. What was I thinking? It’s the phone company.

As I noted during Steve Jobs’ Macworld announcement of the iPhone, the Cingular/AT&T president, Stan Sigman, came on stage and proceeded to spurt out business buzzwords written on 4 x5 cards — the worst canned speech of all time. Jobs responded, “We come from different worlds.”

Having just seen the difference in how iPhones were flying out of an Apple Store and being slowly “processed” at an AT&T Store, I think there are going to be some culture-clashing in the coming months.

Update: I was not the only one who had the ATT Store vs. Apple Store experience. Here’s a quote from author/entrpreneur Steven Johnson: “Tried to be clever and buy at the downtown Brooklyn AT&T store, which was a nightmare and limited me to only one phone. Came home and my wife was so irritated at my having the only iPhone in the house that I got back into a cab and went into Soho at about 10:30, where I bought a second phone at the Apple Store in maybe 45 seconds.”

I’m un-plugging myself from this blog for the rest of the day, but you can catch me on Twitter as I, well, join the other dorks who couldn’t help themselves.

I feel really bad. I cheated on Southwest. I flew to DC earlier this week and the person making the arrangements found a good deal on an American Airline Flight from Nashville to Reagan-National. And so, last evening I found myself waiting for an American Airlines flight to Nashville when, after a two-hour delay, the announcement came that the flight was canceled.

While I started making alternative arrangements via the Internet and a phone-call to American Express Travel, an editor from Hammock Publishing who was traveling with me called the 800 number the AA desk agent provided for us. Via the web and phone, within a few moments, I had us booked on a Southwest Flight for 7 a.m. this morning and two rooms in an economy hotel near BWI airport.

However, here’s what the conversation went like with American Airlines: “The earliest we can get you out of Washington is Saturday afternoon.” (This was Thursday night.) (What about a hotel?) “We don’t have to pay for any accommodations because this is weather related.” (What about a refund?) Sorry, I can’t provide you any information about refunds because this is merely a portion of the trip.” (You’re not being all that helpful.) “I’m 3,000 miles away and that’s the best I can do.”

The weather was bad up and down the eastern seaboard yesterday. That I understand. However, this type of attitude is why I avoid flying on anything but Southwest. I’ve been delayed — due to weather — on Southwest, but I’ve never been insulted or harassed or treated like I was doing them a favor by being their customer.

I would rather fly Southwest to Baltimore — and go through all the hassle involved with getting from BWI to downtown DC — than fly on American to Reagan National, which is practically in downtown DC.

In my experience, Southwest seems much better capable of re-booting their system whenever some major glitch occurs. (Note I didn’t use the word “crash.”)

Okay. I’ve got that off my chest.