I found these two easter eggs that let you bypass 'applying' for a cr-48 and let you just give google your address.
Google sent me 2 cr-48s ;-)
Happy Holidays! Thanks for the cr-48s Google!
I tried upgrading to the Chrome beta (which I have been meaning to do anyway) but there was no new tab to sign up for a notebook.
And I doubt the QR code page still works but might be worth the try.