Following up on yesterday's Teenage Mutant Ninja iMacs revelation, whether the hitch is indeed a "radiation problem" (as Merrill Lynch contends) or some far less interesting issue, it's pretty clear that, for whatever reason, iMacs just aren't flying off the production lines like they should. Anecdotal evidence from out in the field suggests that LCD iMacs are harder to find than a dachshund packin' heat-- and what with dachshunds being noted for their non-violent natures and their lack of opposable thumbs, well, those iMacs are pretty scarce indeed.

Not that this hasn't happened several times in the past (heck, it was practically mandatory as far as new PowerBooks were concerned), but it's starting to look like Steve was being just a mite too optimistic when he announced those ship dates last month. Yes, Apple did indeed manage to ship the high-end SuperDrive model (well, one or two, anyway) by the end of January, as Steve had promised. But as for his expectation that the $1499 combo drive model would ship in February, the latest evidence (i.e. the fact that Steve is now mere hours away from flipping his Dawson's Creek calendar over to March) suggests that he may have been ever so slightly off.

Worse yet, MacUser has the latest skinny on the missing iMac syndrome, and because of unspecified "serious problems on the production line" (use your imagination; "Good lord, that wiener dog's running around loose-- and he's got a semiautomatic!"), apparently Apple has been quietly "warning dealers to expect virtually no mid-range and low-end models until April." Given that Apple's revenue estimates were based on shipping substantial numbers of all three models this quarter, if two of the three barely even make a token appearance until April, that Q2 balance sheet might turn out very ugly indeed. Because of this, according to MacMinute, Credit Suisse First Boston has followed Merrill Lynch's lead and warned its investors that Apple's iMac shipments this quarter may fall short by as many as 100,000 units-- so Apple might be in for a bit of a black eye when the analysts hear some sad quarterly revenue figures come April.

Of course, it's entirely possible that none of this Wall Street malarkey means squat to you, and all you want is to buy one of the elusive little critters. (iMacs, that is-- not analysts, or gun-toting wiener dogs.) Well, we did a quick poke around, and it's true that very few places seem to have them in stock; even our local Apple retail store is cleaned out and the waiting list is reportedly "wicked long." But we found that at least one Apple store claims to have them in stock and ready to take home tonight, so if you're persistent, success is within your grasp. Because, you know, opposable thumbs.

In an effort to justify blowing $399 on a portable digital music device (surely the nicest portable digital music device available, but a portable digital music device all the same), iPod owners are often prone to rationalizing their purchases by noting ways they can use them above and beyond the relatively frivolous "it lets me listen to lots of music." The most obvious secondary usage is as a portable FireWire hard drive, for instance. Plus, the back's all shiny, so you can use it as a mirror, and it's just the right size to serve as one classy paperweight.

But here's a justification we hadn't seen before: spend $399 on an iPod, and you can use it to steal thousands of dollars in software. Faithful viewer Looking For Work (maybe it's just us, Looking, but if we were you, we'd probably go by our initials or a nickname or something) pointed us towards a Wired article which details how one enterprising young thief sauntered casually into a CompUSA, plugged his iPod into a display Mac, dragged a copy of Office v.X to his shiny musical companion, unplugged, and then sauntered back out again with $500 bucks worth of pirated productivity software in his pocket. Provided you don't mind not having physical media, the accompanying documentation, a valid license, or any sense of shame, why, an iPod can pay for itself in mere minutes!

Indeed, the fact that the iPod is a tiny, bus-powered FireWire hard drive with a 4.6 GB capacity (minus whatever space one has chewed up with tunes) does in fact make it just about the perfect tool for this sort of theft. FireWire is fast enough that copying 200 MB of Office takes under a minute, so the thief is in and out before the staff notices anything amiss. Then again, given that we've seen in Viewer Mail that CompUSA employees can be so clueless that shoplifters occasionally walk off with entire Power Mac G4s completely undetected, one could probably pull off this sort of data heist with USB as well. Heck, if the hardware supported it, maybe even via RS-232 serial, or infrared.

Now, before any of you go making any rash accusations that you'll later regret, we here at the AtAT compound would like to point out that our own iPods are so crammed full of music-- legally obtained music, we might add-- that we've barely got enough space left to squeeze on a copy of SimpleText, let alone any of Microsoft's bloatware. Incidentally, what do you suppose that kid had been listening to on his iPod when he walked into that store? Our money's on "Been Caught Stealing" by Jane's Addiction, but it's been said we've got an overdeveloped sense of irony.

Say, remember last month when we praised Dell for its clever antiterrorism tactic of casually asking each customer ordering from its UK web site whether or not the PC in question would be used in connection with "weapons of mass destruction," "nuclear applications," "missile technology," or "chemical or biological weapons purposes"? Well, it appears that the company wasn't content to stop there, and has now gone above and beyond the call of duty by making sure that no Dell computers fall into the hands of prospective terrorists in the hostile foreign nation of Pennsylvania. (We know that we'll be sleeping more soundly tonight...)

You see, faithful viewer Kenneth Reed tipped us off to the bizarre story of Jack Weigand, a gun enthusiast and the president of the American Pistolsmiths Guild who was in the market for a new portable computer. As described in a Wired article, Weigand ordered himself a new laptop via Dell's web site, but when the reported delivery date arrived, the Inspiron was nowhere to be seen. So Weigand gave Dell a call-- who eventually informed him that his order had been summarily cancelled sans notification.

It turns out that Weigand runs a business crafting custom revolvers, and that business is named "Weigan Combat Handguns." Apparently someone in Dell's export compliance department spotted the name, decided that Weigand's company "sounded a bit too terroristic for comfort's sake," and nixed the order as one that was "prohibited under U.S. law." It seems that the U.S. now has strict regulations about exporting crappy laptops to Pennsylvania, which evidently seceded from the union at some point and we just never noticed. Go figure.

Now, Weigand is casting this whole cock-up as an example of the systematic oppression of gun enthusiasts in the U.S., and regardless of where you might stand on the issue, we personally don't feel like getting drawn into a spirited debate about whether or not the intent of the Second Amendment still applies in modern American society. (Homer Diplomacy: "Maybe Lisa's right about America being the land of opportunity, and maybe Adil has a point about the machinery of capitalism being oiled with the blood of the workers.")

Personally, we're choosing to interpret this solely as a bizarre but strictly apolitical story about a Dell employee who thinks that U.S. export law somehow applies to an order shipping to Pennsylvania. Still, we applaud Dell's efforts to keep its gear out of the hands of hostile foreign powers; why, if Missouri ever got its mitts on enough innovative Dell technology, we'd probably have a full-scale invasion on our hands.