Are you the type of person who slows down to gaze at car wrecks, in the morbid hope of seeing twisted metal and general mayhem? Hey, who isn't? That's why, despite all the lurid reports of the phenomenal disaster known as the Macworld Expo Tokyo 1999 keynote, we would just love to have gotten to see it ourselves. Between the hard crash of Internet Explorer which required a restart during Ben Waldman's demo and the glorious failure of fifty (yes, count 'em-- fifty!) iMacs trying to stream video from a single G3 server, it sounds like there was plenty of material for Fox's upcoming special, "The World's Most Disastrous Keynotes." Add to that the reports that Steve Jobs was "visibly angry" and left the stage after a hurried "thank you" to the crowd, and it sounds like you could slip a videotape of the keynote in between a couple of Faces of Death movies at the local video store and no one would bat an eye.

Imagine our delight, then, when someone pointed out Yasuyuki Higuchi's QuickTime movies of the keynote, available for downloading. And imagine our further excitement when we saw one clip titled "IE45crash.mov" and another called "QTStrouble.mov." Finally, imagine our profound disappointment to find that, metaphorically speaking, there were no vehicles on fire and sundered limbs scattered across the highway; what we saw was more of a fender-bender than anything else. Judge for yourself, but we really think all of those reports about the Tokyo Nightmare were a little over the top. Sure, IE crashed, but generally, we at AtAT expect nothing less (or, more accurately, nothing more) from Microsoft; we really didn't get the sense that the hardware was at fault. The streaming QuickTime demo didn't fail nearly as spectacularly as we had been led to believe, and Jobs actually seemed pretty good-natured (though jet-lagged) about the whole thing. And far from "storming off the stage," he seemed to wrap things up in a fairly calm and natural manner, bowed to the audience, and departed. Nothing too special there.

There's nothing worse than slowing down for a car wreck only to find that it's just a flat tire. Still, we suppose it's good for Apple's sake that things weren't nearly as nasty as early reports described. Originally we agreed with faithful viewer Anton that Apple was karmically blessed since the keynote wasn't webcast due to satellite troubles, which meant that the damage was constrained to the Tokyo audience instead of watchers world-wide. But now we find ourselves wondering how big a deal people would have made of the keynote glitches if they had seen them happen, instead of reading about how terrible they were. Oh, well; regardless, it's water under the bridge. Here's hoping that the next Expo keynote goes flawlessly-- but, since your AtAT staff will likely be in the audience, we can't help but feel that if we have to witness a road accident firsthand, it might as well be a twenty-car pileup...

Alas, poor Tangerine. We've seen it, Horatio; a color of infinite scorn, of most excellent orangeosity. Yup, there's little question left that Tangerine is by far the least popular iMac color when it comes to sales; people just generally don't buy things that are orange, if they're also available in blue, green, purple, or red. So while supplies of most iMacs are constrained, it seems like everyone's got plenty of Tangerines on hand; when we wandered into the local Microcenter a few days ago, it appeared that they only had Tangerines and Strawberries for sale, and they had a ton of them. Reports are pouring in from all over that the Tangerines are harder to sell than Magic Beans at a Skeptic's Convention.

And that's why we at AtAT feel sorry for Tangerine. It's really not a bad color-- when you see it up close, it's actually pretty happy. It reminds us of when you get to sit down to a great, big glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice in the morning; not one of those teeny little glasses that they often stick you with in family-style restaurants, but a big, heavy 32-ounce glass brimming with nature's sunny goodness. And yet we're sure that most people just won't be able to get past the fact that the machine is orange. Tangerine's tragic flaw is that it's, well, Tangerine. But we entreat you all-- if you're planning to buy an iMac, consider a Tangerine. It's unconventional; think different (except for all of you whose school colors are orange and white-- you folks should think same). It may eventually turn out even to be a good investment, as we hear from anonymous Apple sources that Tangerine iMacs are no longer being produced, which may make them a valuable collector's item in the future. Who knows?

By the way, if you think you know your favorite iMac flavor but you've never seen it in person, you should definitely see all the flavors first-hand before picking one. They look quite different than we expected, based on the TV commercials and photographs we'd seen. For instance, Strawberry isn't really a deep pinkish red-- it's pretty much just pink. Of course, since they're all translucent, a lot depends on the light in which you're viewing them, we suppose. Personally, we like Lime and Grape the best, but they're all gorgeous. Even Tangerine. Really!

Meanwhile, for those of you now fired up about Tangerine, this is just a reminder that you can't buy a Tangerine iMac at Best Buy. In fact, it's becoming increasingly the case that you can't buy an iMac there at all. Reports from all over the country indicate that iMacs are quietly disappearing from Best Buy stores, and in their place is nary an Apple sign to be seen. In addition, MacNN notes that the iMac has also disappeared from Best Buy's web site. Could this be the end of Apple's second ill-fated alliance with the consumer-oriented superstore?

Well, nothing official's been announced, but if the fat lady hasn't yet sung, it sure looks to us like she's warming up with breathing exercises. First, we saw Best Buy's first weekend selling iMacs get sabotaged by CompUSA's excellent bundle deals. Then there were constant reports of terrible salesmanship and product display by Best Buy, who just didn't seem to "get" the Macintosh way of doing things. Since iMacs weren't flying off the shelves as quickly as they wanted, Best Buy then lowered their iMac price to a panicked $999 in December, before being talked down off the ledge and raising it back to the typical $1299 area. And now Best Buy has yet to get any fruit-flavored iMacs in stock, and many stores don't even have Bondi Blue ones any more. This could well be the end.

If you prefer a more optimistic view, it's worth noting that both companies are reportedly trying to work out their differences. Apple was trying to get Best Buy back in the iMac business by requiring mandatory training of all sales personnel who would be selling iMacs. Unfortunately, Best Buy's management didn't take too kindly to that suggestion, so who knows where the relationship will go from here? Personally, we doubt that Best Buy will remain on board much longer, and that's a problem, because the best-selling consumer computer really should be available from the biggest seller of computers to consumers. While we hope that both parties can patch things up, we're definitely not putting any money on it...