Hey, pardon the lateness, but you know, we're just getting in from those fabulous after-hours Oscars parties where we've been whooping it up with Hollywood's A-list for about twenty hours straight, so we're pretty exhausted. Well, maybe not "parties," technically speaking; more like "gatherings." Of, well, us. Likewise, we weren't hanging with the A-list, exactly, but close enough. Okay, fine, it was the A-Team, are you happy? Our after-hours Oscar celebration consisted of a twenty-hour A-Team marathon, six bags of Ruffles, and two quarts of Silk Nog we found in the back of the fridge left over from last holiday season. (At least, we hope it was from last holiday season.) We weren't at the Oscar parties because we weren't invited. But are we bitter? Heck, no. We'd much rather spend an evening with Howlin' Mad Murdock than Charlize Theron.

Who are we wearing? We're wearing freakin' bathrobes, you ninnies. And no, we won't tie them shut.

That said, at least Apple and its half-sibling-by-CEO Pixar had a good night. Apple even issued a press release to celebrate the "seventh consecutive year Apple's Shake compositing software has played a crucial role in the film winning the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects." (Of course, "Apple's Oscar Winning Streak" technically isn't as long as Apple suggests; the company has only owned Shake for two years, but who's counting?) Yes, The Return of the King whupped some serious Oscar butt, for visual effects and otherwise, further proving that Apple's purchase of Shake's creator was a solid investment, while also vindicating the long-overlooked director of such classic cinema as Braindead and Meet the Feebles. It was a great day for porn-making puppets and killer intestines the world over.

We have to admit, though, we're a little surprised that Apple's press release limited the company's contribution to the Best Visual Effects award; the 11-Oscar King sweep honors tons more Apple technology than just Shake. Some of you probably recall that the Hollywood Reporter noted a month ago that when director Peter Jackson was in the UK overseeing the scoring of the film, his New Zealand tech crew uploaded digital footage to a secure London server each day, where it was then transferred to Jackson's 30 GB iPod and dropped off at his house. Jackson then reviewed the dailies right off the iPod, connected via FireWire to his PowerBook G4, which was in turn connected to an Apple Cinema Display. The crew's only regret? That iChat AV and the iSight came out too late; they'd relied on a $15,000 videoconferencing system to compare notes on the dailies in real time. But hey, it's not like they didn't have a budget.

As for Pixar, well, snagging Best Animated Feature Film for Finding Nemo was obviously the big news of the night-- and one more "in your face!" to Michael Eisner, since Nemo beat out Disney's own Brother Bear. (Note to Eisner: when both Billy Crystal and Robin Williams use you as gag fodder, it's quite possibly time to call it a day.) Meanwhile, the Disney-Pixar drama continues apace; faithful viewer Randal O'Toole noted a passing mention in the Star Tribune that anti-Eisner firebrand and heir to the throne Roy Disney makes no secret of his alliance with the Jobsian animation firm: "Disney and Coppola were joined in jolly conversation by several people from Pixar." How's that for a conspiracy hiding in plain sight?

If only Roy Disney's Destino had won Best Animated Short Film; just imagine what Roy would have to say about Eisner during his acceptance speech. Maybe ABC could have used that five-second delay...

Meanwhile, how about them thar miniPods? Looks like all the teeth-gnashing and hair-pulling about the $249 sticker price was much ado about squat, because reportedly Apple can't keep up with the demand; the New York Daily News has a great article on mini madness and the resulting "Sold Out" signs going up across the country, with a near-suicidal investment manager who missed his chance ("I had it in my hands, and then I lost it") and an Apple spokesperson describing the public's hunger for the new player as "phenomenal." Tekserve owner Dick Demenus says, "We're turning away a hundred people a day"; we assume that's because his store's sold out, and not because he just doesn't like people. So much for the miniPod pulling a Cube. See? If the Cube had only come in five different colors, things just may have turned out differently.

Indeed, the rampant success of the miniPod appears to have inspired Apple's retail division, as well; faithful viewer Frozen Tundra informed us of a Think Secret article which claims that "Apple will expand its retail presence by rolling out a host of smaller 'mini' retail stores." And in one way, this is nothing new: Apple's first stores were huge, sprawling things; after a while, newer locations were a bit more sedate with the square footage; and most recently, Apple has opened stores (apart from the hulking "flagship" locations) so small they don't even have a theater. (What self-respecting retail store doesn't have a theater? Sheesh.) And CFO Fred Anderson recently admitted that, if Apple had to do it all over again, it would have started with smaller stores in the first place.

But these new ministores are rumored to be even smaller still, and although "specific details are scarce," we've been poking at some of our own sources in the field, and the ones who didn't threaten to "hurt us if we didn't stop doing that" confirmed that, yes, the ministores are coming, and yes, they're going to be tiny. How tiny? Think "Sunglass Hut" crossed with "Orange Julius." And while that may sound too small to be useful, here's the brilliant bit: each mall will have five ministores, and each store will be a different metallic color. Actual sales data prove that this approach can't possibly fail!

And what if the miniPod's recipe for success loses something in the translation to the ministores? Fear not, for Apple has other plans to ensure a steady stream of business. Since it wants to make the stores as small as possible while also keeping costs way down, the company is considering building them in-- and you're going to faint with the utter brilliance of this scheme-- bathroom stalls. Just think: a quick coat of metallic paint, a single employee with sales and janitorial experience, and each store is guaranteed an unending supply of captive customers. The ones who show up without reading material will boost Apple's sales of AirPort-equipped iBooks at least tenfold alone.

Yikes, just yikes. Remember those reports that Microsoft is switching from the x86 to the PowerPC as it prepares its sequel to the Xbox game console? The Xbox 2 must be at least a year from shipping, given that its hardware design hasn't even been finalized yet-- but one thing that we do know is that it'll pack some form of IBM-designed PowerPC. And given the claims that "Microsoft has begun developing game prototypes, and it is using [Apple] G5 systems to do so," there's no particular reason to think that whatever gets soldered onto Xbox's motherboard won't be the exact same future G5 (or, by then, G6) chip that'll be pumping away inside Apple's next Macs. And since the Xbox is the only actual computer that Microsoft makes, that says something pretty strong about the company's evaluation of x86 versus PowerPC technology.

So settling on the same chip technology is disquieting enough. But now faithful viewer Jim Banks informs us that The Inquirer has gone a step further, reporting that Microsoft has just seeded an "XBOX 2 SDK" (Software Development Kit) to certain big-name games developers so they can get a head start on cobbling together some titles for the as-yet-nonexistent console. And here's the kicker: the SDK consists of software preinstalled on-- you see this coming a mile away, right?-- dual-processor Power Mac G5s. Yes, kiddies, Microsoft is shipping G5s to its third-party developers. Granted, The Inquirer isn't exactly an unimpeachable source, but if you want at least nominal corroboration, GamesIndustry (whoever that is) claims that the Microsoft-shipped G5 "has been confirmed by development sources."

Still not weird enough for you? Then consider this: the G5s in question are reportedly not running Mac OS X, but rather "a modified version of the Windows operating system core." Now, first of all, eeeyeeeewwwww! Secondly, are we interpreting this correctly? Microsoft has allegedly ported Windows-- albeit a massively stripped down version-- to Mac hardware? Because if so, it doesn't sound all that tough for Microsoft to keep right on building and eventually ship a boxed copy of full-on Windows for Macintosh. Granted, said version of Windows itself would run at native G5 speeds, but it wouldn't run existing Windows applications at all, since they're all x86 binaries. Gee, too bad Microsoft doesn't have some sort of x86 emulator-- say, one it might have bought last year-- it could build in to run x86 Windows apps in Windows for Macintosh.

Um...

Huh.

Well, only time will tell if Microsoft wants to go that way, but if it's technically possible, we can't see any reason why it wouldn't; after all, it's more copies of Windows sold. But even if the company doesn't go so far as to ship Windows for Macintosh, there's little question that this Xbox 2 thingy already shares a fair amount of ancestral DNA with our own beloved platform. Seriously, what are we supposed to make of this? "The SDK apparently also features an Apple logo on a side bar within the application." Come on, now they're just messing with us, right? Right?