I appreciate the original “Made in China” stuff that I’ve got though, because you can get some high-quality stuff from there, if you know where to look and if you know who to trust.

Chinese counterfeiters have gotten so good at their craft that it often takes a long time and a good eye to tell the fake product and the original one apart.

For that reason, I advise you to take a long, hard look at the photo above, because that’s actually of a counterfeit Apple Store in Kunming, which is the largest city in Southwestern China. Yes, you read that right, folks: this Apple Store is a sham, copying the design of Apple Stores worldwide and peddling equally fake goods.

If you’re a little skeptical, then the photo above should make a believer out of you. I doubt Steve Jobs’ people who get the spelling for “Store” wrong. The thought of a fake store is pretty crazy, but here it is, right in the flesh (or in the glass and concrete.)

I wonder what Apple’s going to be doing about this, though.

[via Apple Insider]

Ok, not the entire store, but everything inside the store, including a veritable crap-ton of video games, accessories and display units, including “allot (sic) of vintage items that are hard to find.”

The list includes thousands of games for the NES, SNES, N64, Game Boy, GBA, GameCube, Nintendo DS, PlayStation, PS2, PS3, PSP, SEGA Genesis, Atari 2600, Xbox, Xbox 360, and Wii among others.

The guys selling this lot say there’s over $60,000 worth of inventory, and they’ll ship it up to 750 miles from its current Grand Junction, Colorado location to the winning bidder. Get in on the bidding action over on eBay now and make your best offer – or just pony up $30k now, and it’s all yours.

Just head on over to the Apple iPhone Store Credit Form and fill in your serial number and phone number. Then you’ll receive an SMS message with a validation code. Once you have that, you’ll enter that number and you’ll receive a printable certificate immediately for $100 off at the Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. I do find it odd that you can’t use the credit in the iTunes store though. Go figure.

I just did it and it took me less than a minute, start to finish. Now what to buy?

[via iLounge]

The box has a custom version of the NES with twelve cartridge slots, five controller ports, and even the ability to limit play times so kids wouldn’t hog the machine. It can hook up to any monitor using the included RCA A/V jacks, but unfortunately doesn’t come with the cool retro monitor that’s featured in the picture. The current bid on the auction is just over 500 bucks, but it’s likely to go up since it’s not going to end until Friday, 4/13.

If you don’t absolutely have to play on authentic hardware, you can play some online emulated NES games over at Nintendo8 right now (Java required.)