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Warne turned up at the San Francisco Apple store braving eight degree Celsius (46 degrees Fahrenheit) cold, noting his surprise both at how short the queue of iPad-hunters was on arrival, and then how swiftly it grew to over 200 hopefuls.
Yet, when it came to Warne's turn to hand over his hard-earned for one of Steve Jobs' latest must-have gadgets, he was let down - not by Apple, not by his own bank balance, not even by the complex infrastructure of global inter-banking connections.
His transaction was repeatedly declined. Being 3am on Sunday Australia time Warne battled to find someone at the National Australia Bank (NAB) who would take his call. Eventually he made it through to the 24-hour lost-cards line.
The operator explained there was no problem with Dan Warne's card. While such a problem would be frustrating and embarrassing, a reasonable explanation would have to be accepted and acknowledged.
The truth was worse in my opinion; the entire NAB systems - card transactions, Internet and telephone banking - were down. The reason the operator gave was that they were down deliberately 'for daylight savings.'
