Today's the release of the iPad 2 in Europe, and our friends across the pond at Tap! magazine are currently waiting in line at the Bath, England Apple Store for their very own second-generation tablet. They've graciously provided us with a couple of videos from the line to give us "Yankee blokes" (see what I did there?) a look at what iPad 2 launches are like overseas (hint: they're totally the same as ours).

East coast Mac mavens, rejoice. You can get your hands on an iPad 2 a full three hours before people out west. Life is good. Even better, Apple has decided to release the iPad 2 at 5PM your-local-time today. You can wake up early (east coast) or stay up late (west coast) and order it online at 1:00 AM PST/4:00 AM EST, but you won't have the device in your hot little hands right away. The more excitable instant gratification addicts among us will be starting their weekends off by lining up outside the nearest Apple store or one of the many fine retail establishments -- AT&T, Best Buy, Target, Verizon Wireless, Wal-mart and "select Apple Authorized Resellers" -- offering the iPad 2. What strikes us as peculiar, though, is today’s 5 PM retail launch hour. Why did the marketing whiz kids and sales strategists choose 5 PM as optimum time for the iPad 2's retail debut?