On Macintoshes, Best Denki, Yamada Denki, and DeoDeo

Cryptic title, I know. Best, Yamada, and DeoDeo are three big electronics retailers around here. (There's one more -- 100万ボルト-- but the title was long enough, I think.)

Best Denki in Kagoshima had a Macintosh "store-within-a-store" much like CompUSA does (did? It's been five years), but the one close to where I live doesn't. The next-closest one has a nice Mac corner, but there was no staff in it, and no-one came over even after I was obviously shopping around in there.

Yamada Denki in Kagoshima had absolutely no Mac stuff at all. The one in Yonago has some Mac software. Okay, three or four pieces of Mac software. One of them was a hybrid Disney thing ("Mister Incredible"). One of them was an imported copy of Duke Nukem 3D. Still, better than the one in Kagoshima.

The local 100万ボルト ("1,000,000 Volts") has zilch.

Now, the DeoDeo in Sakaiminato also has zilch, but they don't have much computer stuff at all. I went to the DeoDeo in Yonago for the first time yesterday, and was pleased to find one counter of Macintosh displays. They had a couple of G4 iBooks, a G5 iMac, and two Intel iMacs on display, as well as the usual iPod stuff. This is in fact less than half the display space that the Best in Matsue has, but here's the kicker:

A clerk came over to help me.

A clerk that was semi-knowledgeable about Macintosh!

He saw me looking at the G5 iMac (display model somewhat discounted), and started pointing out why the Intel iMac was better -- speed, iSight camera built in, etc. I asked a question or two, then pointed out that my Japanese ain't all that great. He then quickly and correctly demonstrated how to change the language settings!

I was amazed!

A few more questions, and he realized that I already knew a lot about Macintoshes. We had a good conversation, he apologized for not having one of those new Intel MacBooks to show me, I took some informational literature, and left.

Now, that never happens in CompUSA!

(note: there was one such helpful clerk at BEST in Kagoshima City, as well.)
(note 2: Even stores w/o any Apple products still had compatible peripherals, and when I asked about FireWire drives, for example, were able to either tell me straight out or look up the appropriate information very quickly.)