CD Universe is the way to go for preorders. They’re always considerably cheaper than amazon or other "big" merchants, and they’re still basically an "indie" company — they started in CT as one of the first online cd vendors, and have yet to sell out to amazon (like CDNow) or other monster chains. And they’re very reliable.

I finally got my pre-orders two weeks after the release date. They arrived in a soft padded mailer with the side torn open. Fortunately the discs were in fair shape — I pitch the jewel cases and put all my discs and inserts in vinyl sleeves anyway.

Prior to those discs arriving, however, I’d gone back and forth over email with "buzz" at Plan9 a couple times and they were supposed to re-send another set of the discs 11 days ago. That set still has not arrived. I’ve promised to send back the extra set if the first set ever shows up, but since they sucked so badly at doing their job I’d be more than happy to mail them to you, Spaceshot, should they ever actually show up. My guess is they won’t, and I am more than happy to bad mouth Plan9 to any one who will listen going forward.