Hey man, does anyone have a spare plane ticket to Siberia! Anyway, I braved the blast furnace temperatures to see how the Sears iMac campaign is doing in Chesapeake, VA. First a quick intro--we have a Sears store at Chesapeake Square mall (currently being remodeled on the inside, so I doubt they'll have iMacs until they're finished', Greenbriar Mall, and a new store opening next month at Military Circle. Speaking of which, Military Circle is where CompUSA is located, although by the dark lighting and funeral home-like atmosphere you wouldn't know it.
I set my sights on the Greenbriar location. As many of the other eyewitness accounts have stated, one blueberry iMac is on display with the cd demo running. If you know how to turn the demo off, you can watch the Star Wars trailer in all of its hyped glory--and this was the Quicktime 3 version--4 must surely kick ass (and this one on display was awesome!).
The salesperson showed that he was indeed knowledgeable of 1) my existence 2) the iMac features 3) "We'll match the $1199 price of CompUSA and anyone else" he even showed off the blueberry Epson 740i printer, letting me know that I could order the grape cover to match with my iMac.
Compared to the voyage of the damned at CompUSA--Best Buy is coming to town btw--I think Sears is doing just fine at this store. Just give them time and I think they'll be a great partner with Apple.