Hypothetical question: if, on those rare occasions when we finally drop in our tracks and go comatose for an hour or two, we were to find ourselves dreaming about running with no feet in slow motion down endless corridors while millions of angry airborne flash-based iPods attempt to enter our skulls through our ear-holes and eat our brains, would that mean we were obsessing? Not that we do, or anything; like we said it's purely a hypothetical situation. We're just... um... trying out a great new icebreaker for parties.

But really, could we be blamed for having recurring flashPod-swarm night terrors given just how many of those lil' bleeders Apple is likely to ship? Get this: according to Macworld UK, Richard Gardner over at Smith Barney figures that if Apple does have a flashPod slated to ship next month, the company ought to sell a whopping 22 million of them over the course of the next two years. That's a figure that ought to sound huge even to the most jaded of Apple-watchers. Oh, sure, if you think about it a bit, it's really not all that radical a guess; the current iPods cost at least $249 and Apple sold two million of those last quarter and expects to double that to four million in the quarter ending on New Year's Eve. Assuming zero growth (ha!) and multiplying by eight quarters in two years, that's 32 million hard drive-based 'Pods in the same time period.

We know, we know-- this current quarter includes that holiday buying frenzy thingy, so realistically we can't just multiply the projections by eight. But you get our drift: if you take the current iPods' sales levels, factor in the flashPod's (assumed) lower price, and consider the vast untapped market in Asia (where, in some countries, the iPod only has-- at most-- 3 percent market share), assuming that Apple doesn't totally screw up the design or implementation, 22 million flashPods sold in two years starts to sound downright conservative. Personally, we don't think an average of a million flashPods sold per month sounds all that unlikely. Or, if Asia really jumps on board, maybe even two.

Of course, as we mentioned, this is all assuming that there's a flashPod slated for release in the first place. But if we had doubts before, we have to admit that they're all melting away; between analyst sources leaking the deal with SigmaTel, plenty of chunks of believable "evidence" floating around in the rumor soup, and fevered whisperings from hypothetical individuals who should know better than to be hypothetically blabbing about stuff under hypothetically ironclad NDA, we're pretty darn sure that there is a flash-based iPod and it does lack a screen, though we've heard that the mockup posted by The MacMind last week doesn't look anything like it. (Then again, that was clearly labeled as an artist's conception, so no one ever actually claimed it did.)

Yes, in terms of general form-factor, we're hearing less "Milano cookie" and more "pack of Black Black gum," only, regrettably, minus the "Hi-Technical Taste" and the legend "Yes, Chewing!" on the goods. Only time will tell, of course, but we're hearing more and more that, barring some catastrophic production nightmare, the truth shall out by Macworld Expo-- and maybe we'll finally stop dreaming about gum-shaped electronic devices trying to infiltrate our craniums. (Hypothetically.) Except, of course, it'll take two whole years to put this little "22 million" theory to the test... Anyone got any Hypnocil?

So do you remember that article we linked to last week that claimed that Pepsi would be advertising an iTunes tie-in during the Super Bowl again this February? Well, apparently the resurrection of the 100 million-song giveaway isn't actually a secret, since faithful viewer Todd McCurdy was at the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions trade show last month, and Pepsi was running commercials on the screens in its booth showing the Pepsi and Apple logos side-by-side between the phrases "It's Back" and "It's Bigger." So apparently this time around they're going to have, say, 200 million winning yellow bottle caps, which might lead to a mammoth 10 million song downloads if Pepsi lames out on the bottle deliveries again.

But who cares, really, when soon you'll be able to score free tunes not only by chugging fizzy brown sugar water, but also by eating a healthy and delicious selection of peaches, plums, and nectarines? Faithful viewer Nina Tovish tipped us off to a Sacramento Bee article about Apple's "first foray into produce": the California Tree Fruit Agreement (that's a group?) is signing up with Apple to offer a "novel cross-marketing promotion" whereby produce shoppers loading up on California fruits-- tree fruits, natch, as per the "Agreement"-- might then download free songs as a happy little bonus. Groove while you munch, that sort of thing.

The hope, apparently, is that such a promotion will turn tune-seeking "adolescents begging parents to buy fruit" into an all-too-common sight in supermarket produce aisles. While we're a little skeptical of that ever happening, we have to admit that we're about a zillion times more likely to buy a nice bag of plums than a 20-ounce bottle of Pepsi, so we're curious to hear just how this promotion's going to work. As of yet, the CTFA hasn't decided how many songs it'll give away, or just how much fruit people will need to buy before they get some free iTMS action. In fact, hardly anything about this promo seems to have been nailed down yet, but there's plenty of time, since the whole campaign obviously won't kick off until peach/plum/nectarine season starts early next summer.

But they're probably going to need that much time to figure out the logistics of this whole spiel. Think about it; nectarines don't have bottle caps. So what are they going to do, put download codes right on the fruit on peel-off stickers? Because you just know that entire crops would be picked clean of stickers by non-fruit-buying spoilsports within seconds of the fruit getting onto store shelves-- "no purchase necessary," indeed. And what's this "size of purchase to qualify" thing? If we buy five peaches, we get one song? What, are all these stores supposed to dole out the download codes at checkout time? Not likely, fella. Sounds like someone's got some thinking to do.

At the end of the day, though, these are just details; someone'll get everything straightened out over the next six months, we're sure. We're just happy we can look forward to some free downloads come peach season, whatever the mechanism for doling out the goodies turns out to be. And if they find a way to get the download codes inside the fruit and onto the pits themselves, we'll be really impressed.

Welcome to this week's Moment of Injustice™, brought to you by NO FAIR brand apparel and accessories-- yes, it's NO FAIR for the sporty losers in all of us! This week's crime against all that's right and just comes courtesy of faithful viewer frozen tundra, who spotted an item over at MacMinute about CBS MarketWatch not having chosen Steve Jobs as its CEO of the Year. See, Steve was a finalist, but in the end, the honor went instead to Raymond "Chip" Mason, the CEO of Legg Mason-- which, in our well-schooled opinion, sounds less like a "brokerage and mutual fund firm" and more like a character in a '30s gangster flick. Or maybe a Vegas showgirl. We're not sure.

What we do know is that, despite being CEO of two companies that had wildly successful years in 2004, Steve lost to this Mason fella, who was apparently named CEO of the Year largely for "standing above Wall Street's nefarious dealings." So let's get this straight, here-- Mason won in part by "steering clear of major scandals"? Don't get us wrong, we think it's terrific that Mason stays away from shady dealings, but not raiding the pension fund or turning your employees into exorbitantly-priced candles and soap hardly seems behavior so uniquely virtuous as to warrant being named CEO of the Year. Besides, let's not forget that Steve has the power to raise an unquestioningly faithful army of millions of Mac and iPod users at the drop of a hat. Shouldn't he win on the ethics front simply for not having struck with his legions of followers and enslaved the rest of the planet?

So it must have been the money thing, right? Because Mason also won the title for "rewarding shareholders with a gain triple that of its peer group." Oooooh, triple. But lookee here, folks: AAPL's shareholders have realized a 200 percent gain since a year ago, whereas the NASDAQ and S&P are both up only about 10 percent. In other words, forget that piddly "triple that of its peer group" nonsense; Apple's got its peers' stock performance beat by a factor of twenty. In other words, Steve should have won on that front, too.

What's more, he got beat out by a guy named Chip. That's just wrong.

Oh, sure, CBS MarketWatch tries to make up for the whole debacle by posting a very complimentary two-page profile on Steve and Apple (chock full of juicy analyst comments about 2004 being a "breakout year" for Apple and how the "conventional wisdom" about the company has been "completely blown away," etc.), but it hardly compensates for having given the man's rightful title away to some... some... honest stockbroker with a Disneyesque nickname. For shame, guys. We're sure Steve's ego will survive just this once, but don't let it happen again, all right?