Sale of the Century

Since the first iMac debuted two years ago, Apple has sold 3.7 million of them. As some number cruncher in Cupertino likes to put it, that translates to 5,000 iMacs sold each day, 200 each hour, and 3.5 every minute. Telling numbers, to be sure, but we think we've found even more eye-popping sales statistics.

0.5 iMacs were sold for every person born in the United States last year.

58.7 iMacs were sold for every bug rumored to be in the shipping version of Windows 2000.

70 iMacs were sold for every person in Cupertino.

169.2 iMacs were sold for each inning played during a 162-game Major League Baseball season.

8,314 iMacs were sold for every page of the Starr report.

8,462 iMacs were sold for every mile of a round-trip drive between Cupertino and Redmond, Washington.

37,755 iMacs were sold for every year that Senator Strom Thurmond has been alive.

1.2 million iMacs were sold for each announced delay of the OS X launch.

3.7 million iMacs were sold for every dollar of Steve Jobs's annual base salary at Apple.

" You can now get a Mercedes or a BMW for the price of a Ford Taurus."
--Apple CEO Steve Jobs on the $799 iMac

Ruby, sage, indigo, and snow? Though it sounds like a lounge lizard butchering Simon and Garfunkel lyrics, it's actually the list of names that Apple has given the new iMac colors. If these were the names that made the final cut, you have to wonder what else might have been in the running.

Ruby (red)
       Aorta
       Bing cherry
       Crimson
       Bloody Mary
       Clown nose
Sage (green)
       Asparagus
       Algae
       Poison oak
       Ragweed
       Wormwood
       Shamrock Shake
Indigo (blue)
       Tap water
       Blue Meanie
       Smog
       Windex
       Denim
       Kool-Aid
Snow (white)
       Coconut
       White zinfandel
       Meringue
       Cataract
       Nondairy creamer
       Spackle