I ordered mine on 12/23 and got a shipping email on 12/29. I have not gotten mine yet and I live in NY state. I used the free shipping.
Edit: Mine just arrived (1/6). Now for the 9 hour charge. I did find something interesting. I pushed the button to see what the charge was and no lights came on. LiION batteries are best kept at 40% charge for best life, so I expected it to show 1 light. I wonder if Li polymer are different. I am used to getting a new LiION battery charged to about 40%. Li ION at 0% is not good for the battery.
Second edit: For those interested in the technical aspect of these batteries, here is the Sony technical information. They recommended extended storage fully discharged.
I was surprised to find my sparq had no lights when I received it. After charging it up for the recommended nine hours it seems to have used 50% power to charge up My Droid that was reading 20% power. It promises 4 full charges of an iphone. Maybe it will get better.