Well, Christmas may be just a few days away, but we have to admit that of all the Charlie Browns in the world, we're the Charlie Browniest-- at the top of the half-hour, way before Linus gives his little speech onstage and the gang waves their arms around that dried-out twig and it magically turns lush and full-bodied as if they'd just doused it in Prell. Yes, we're like some bizarre genetic splicing between Scrooge and the Grinch ("Grooge" or "Scrinch"?), or maybe even a Scrooge, Grinch, and banana smoothie, only without the overt malice. Or the banana. In short, kiddies, we're just not feeling particularly Christmassy right now.

Why not, you ask? Who can say? Maybe it's the fact that, as faithful viewer wazdog points out, Forbes just totally copped our "Apple saga as soap opera" premise without even bothering to ask, let alone licensing it for the oodles of cash we so obviously deserve. Or maybe it's more to do with the way Microsoft is apparently doing its best to crib our (thankfully inimitable) style, again, sans credit and sans payment, as reported by faithful viewer Rusty Smith. Most likely it's a combination of factors, not the least of which is a galling lack of time, energy, and resources to do the season up right.

As you well know, it takes a supreme amount of effort to obtain and decorate a tree, bake cookies, hang lights, and set the traditional Christmas Eve bear trap for Santa in the fireplace in hopes of scoring a whole bag full of loot. Due to situational constraints on our resources, so far the only holiday act we've been able to accomplish beyond sending out cards and the whole obligatory shopping/wrapping/shipping of gifts thing consists of obtaining and displaying a USB Christmas tree light, which is plugged into a sleeping Blueberry iBook. Festive, yes, but even the Mighty Geek Power of the USB Christmas tree light isn't enough to make the season feel here yet, you know?

Add to that the appalling fact that someone actually stole the light-up baby Jesus from Jack's grandparents' outdoor manger scene and, well, the world just doesn't seem all that imbued with the magic of the Christmas spirit.

Heck, things are even poopy in the Apple realm: the San Jose Business Journal reports that a 34-year-old Sunnyvale woman was indicted just last week for allegedly defrauding Apple-- her employer at the time, mind you-- by ordering "approximately $120,000 of digital photography equipment from vendors on Apple's account without authorization" and then reselling the gear on eBay. It's one thing to drag our beloved eBay into the muck (people are always pulling that sort of crap; comes with the territory), but to be blessed with the divine honor of working for Apple Itself™ and then to turn around and swipe an eighth of a million dollars, well, someone's getting a lump of coal in her stocking this year. And, with any luck, a stretch in the jar.

In light of all this, we actually considered canceling Christmas outright-- yes, of course we have the authority to do that; what, you didn't know?-- but we think we've hit upon a solution that'll make everyone happy. (Well, all Mac users, anyway, and really, who else counts?) We plan to go through the Christmas motions this Thursday, but postpone the real celebration until a couple of weeks later: Tuesday, January 6th. Yes, that's Keynote Day, for those keeping score at home... and if anything is sure to slather us in a thick layer of peace on earth and good will toward men (and women and antelopes and Kakapos and yes, even telemarketers to a limited extent), it's a solid dose of Reality Distortion Field energy wrapped around a chewy center of New Stuff from Apple. Steve is doing the keynote, and it's going to be big enough to webcast; that's good enough to give us visions of tablet Macs dancing in our heads. Ahhhh... Christmas spirit at last!

"So AtAT," you ask, "does this mean that you'll be broadcasting a new episode this Thursday instead of taking the day off?" Ha! Dream on, pally-- you can postpone the spirit of Christmas, but the business closings are carved in stone. We've got four cartons of Nog in the fridge with our names on 'em (well, not literally, but we can run in there with a Sharpie if you insist), and we're going to down 'em all and then sleep for, like, six hours or some crazy amount like that. We suggest you do the same. You'll need to rest up for Santa Steve on the 6th. Have you all been good little boys and girls?

You do realize that "tablet Macs" comment we just made was supposed to be a throwaway line, right? We, personally, are not getting our hopes up that any such thing will surface come the Stevenote on the 6th; we're not saying it won't happen, either, but we just can't see investing more than maybe a dime's worth of emotional commitment on a rumor that's so fringe you'd think it was a really attractive vest from the '60s. The bottom line for us: tablet Macs in two weeks? Pleasant surprise and plot fodder for days. No such luck? No harm, no foul.

On the other hand, we're having a little more trouble staying aloof about the prospect of cheap iPods showing up to the party; somehow that just seems a whole lot more likely to happen. For one thing, there's been some definite downward pricing pressure in recent weeks (especially with the Dell Digital Jukebox now on the scene). For another, by the time Steve takes the stage, Christmas will be but a distant memory, and shoppers will no longer have looming holidays blackmailing them into paying top dollar for the juiciest player on the market. And between the AOL deal just kicking in and the Pepsi 100 million-song giveaway set to launch in roughly five weeks' time, we get the distinct sense that Apple is really on the verge of a take-no-prisoners push to snap up as much of the portable music market as it can sink its teeth into-- so what better time to lower iPod Heaven's price of entry from $299 to something that'll let a whole new wave of eager consumers hop on the bandwagon?

Of course, Apple couldn't just lower prices on its current 'Pod lineup without nuking those profit margins that are the envy of the industry, which is why AppleInsider's latest buzz about "a pair of low-cost iPod music players" set to debut "in January of next year" strikes us as utterly plausible. Reportedly "sources with proven track records" insist that the new units will come in relatively eensy 2 GB and 4 GB capacities, somewhat corroborating a MacRumors Page 2 blurb of admittedly "uncertain authenticity" reporting an expected January intro of a 2 GB "mini iPod" that comes "in a variety of colors." There's no word about colors from AppleInsider, but it does note that the new 'Pods will have a "more restrictive set of capabilities" (what, no Solitaire?!) and will-- ready for the good part?-- "fall below the $200 threshold."

A $199 mini-iPod? Sounds like a winner for a whole new market segment, if you ask us. If you're disappointed by the storage capacities, hey, c'mon-- a couple of years ago "500 songs in your pocket" would have sounded huge. The 4 GB one, in particular, isn't that claustrophobic; heck, we're still making do with our original 5 GB models, which aren't much bigger. And we paid twice as much as the miniPod sticker price currently bouncing around in Rumorville.

So will this alleged miniPod be able to compete with the Dell player that's only $25 more, but can hold almost four times as many songs? We figure that depends on whether or not the miniPod has at least a tenth of the style and ease of use its big brother has... and how well Apple gets the word out. Considering the sheer volume of iPod ads plastering the planet, we figure the latter is no concern. And the former? Well, this is Apple we're talking about.

Of course, we have to keep reminding ourselves that, as of yet, this is all still just rumor. (One thing that makes it easier to remember is the fact that one of the sources AppleInsider cites for the miniPod reports is, well, us.) Nothing's certain until the 6th, and thanks to Steve's patented Reality Distortion Field, at least two-thirds of everything still won't be certain after that. But at this point, cheap 'n' teeny iPods at Expo are the one thing we'd actually put money on if we absolutely had to. Well, that and Steve's wardrobe, of course.

Hey, everybody! Faithful viewer Mike Scherer informed us that Apple just made its annual 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and as usual, it's just chock full to the gills with fascinating financial information that you need to hear about right now! It's going to be full of excitement and adventure and really wild stuff! But first, the intro: ready? "The preparation of financial statements and related disclosures in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles and the Company's discussion and analysis of its financial condition and results of operations requires the Company's management to make judgments, assumptions and estimates that affect the amounts reported in its consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes."

...Hello? Hey, wake up!

Okay, so the intro's pretty dry. Let's dive right into the good stuff, shall we? "In January 2003, the FASB issued Interpretation No. 46 (FIN 46), Consolidation of Variable Interest Entities. FIN 46 clarifies the application of Accounting Research Bulletin No. 51 and applied immediately to any variable interest entities created after January 31, 2003 and to variable interest entities in which an interest is obtained after that date. For variable interest entities created or acquired prior to February 1, 2003, the provisions of FIN 46 must be applied for the first interim or annual period beginning afterzzzzzzzzzzzzz..."

[Viewing audience pokes the AtAT staff with, well, an AtAT staff]

...zzzzzzzzzzzzDON'T WAKE THE TADPOLES! Who? What? Whuh?

Oh. Right. You know what? Maybe we'd better skip the analysis of the 10-K, because it's clearly a little too much excitement to bear. Even if you're the hardy type, we recommend checking out MacMinute's summary of the good bits, which is buffered against all that FinancioSpeak that gets the heart pounding so. That way you can just duck in and see that Apple's net sales were up by 8% since last year (and you didn't even know they made nets!) while Mac sales were down 3% in the same time period. PowerBook sales are up, desktop sales were down, iPods went through the roof, retail is booming, and Colonel Mustard did it in the Library with the candlestick. There. We're done.

Now, on to far more important matters: as faithful viewer Mikey pointed out in this MacSlash thread, what's all this about Dell selling eMacs to the New York City Department of Education? If you load up that organization's catalog page and search for "emac," you wind up with a list of eMacs with a vendor code of "DEL043." Click on DEL043 and you find that the vendor is "APPLE C/O DELL MARKETING." A scarier thing has never darkened this plane of existence.

Word has it that "Dell is the only vendor allowed to sell computers to NYC schools" (presumably they won the bid on an exclusive contract), so even Macs have to be purchased through Dell, which effectively makes Dell an Apple reseller. This brings up two important points. First of all, after finding this out, we need about six showers to scrub the dirty off our skin. Secondly, here's a vital question, especially if New York isn't the only place with a setup like this: if a New York school buys an eMac and the sale goes through Dell, who gets credited with the sale as far as the market share numbers go? Because if it's Dell (and we assume it would be), then Dell would be gaining market share on paper for computers that are actually Macs going into the schools. Sneaky. Maybe Apple should start selling cheap-ass Wintels to schools just for the bragging rights.

Okay, so as far as excitement goes, it was no 10-K form, but it still creeps us out. Pardon us while we go exfoliate...