Windows Vista: Midnight Special?

Ah, a new version of Windows and its accompanying traditions: A launch event with Bill Gates. A massive ad campaign. And geeks so eager to get their hands on the new OS that they line up at computer stores at midnight to be among the first folks on the planet to buy it.

I've never been sure who those geeks were, exactly. The rite of midnight Windows releases seems to have started with Windows 95--or was it Windows 3.0? And it's apparently continued ever since, although it's hard to imagine that there are many people who are so jazzed up about an OS upgrade that they genuinely can't wait another ten hours to try it out.

I'm sure that the sheer publicity attached to the midnight sales attracts shoppers...and that the publicity value drives the events at leat as much as a Great Demand on the Part of the American People to Buy a New Version of Windows as Soon as Humanly Possible. (Me, I'd opt for my beauty sleep. And if I'd waited in line at midnight to buy Windows Me, I woulda ended up feeling like I'd been conned.)

Anyhow, the midnight madness will be back when Windows Vista goes on sale on January 30th, but in fairly low-key, rational form. According to CNET News.com, CompUSA will be keeping its 230 stores open for Vista sales at the stroke of midnight, but Best Buy and Circuit City will only be doing so in a few of their outlets. Enough to partake in the hoopla, apparently, without spending a gazillion dollars to keep hundreds of stores open.

Which is a li'l disappointing to me for one specific reason: In November, a Best Buy opened up a half-block from my home. I can go from sitting in my living room to shopping there in four minutes flat, should the need arise. (Three minutes, if the department store in the same building is open and I can take a shortcut through it.) I'm guessing that my Best Buy isn't one of the 15 that'll stay open for Vista festivities. But if it is, I might saunter over and check them out, if only so I can report back here.

Meanwhile, the other Windows Vista news of the day is that Amazon is offering a limited-edition version of the Windows Vista Ultimate Edition upgrade signed by Bill Gates himself. It seems to cost only ten bucks more than the plain old Ultimate upgrade, and might be worth the dough simply on the basis of the likely value of a Bill Gates autograph in years to come. If, in fact, each copy does have a genuine Gates autograph.

(If so, one does wonder when and where Bill signed these copies--I have these visions of him sitting around his house watching Entourage or something, surrounded by software boxes...)

Here comes my point--which is to ask you what your Vista plans are. In the form of this little poll (courtesy of PollDaddy.com):

If your feelings about Vista are so deep and complex they can't be summed up in a poll answer, feel free to leave a comment...