Without question, the biggest buzz of the evening is Apple's new "Think Different" TV commercial, which is appropriately titled "Bunnies." If you weren't tuned in to ABC tonight, you missed a 30-second product ad that, amazingly, appears to be even more popular than the snail ad (at least if early feedback from AtAT viewers is any indication). Apple finally aimed their sights squarely at the dancing Intel Bunnymen, and we at AtAT are still basking in the afterglow. (We hate the Bunnymen. Period.) Mac OS Rumors has a Quicktime version for download, and we strongly suspect that Apple will post one very shortly as well.

It's nice to see Apple continuing to stress the performance advantage of the PowerPC, but we do wish they'd start trumpeting some of the Mac's other benefits as well. One step at a time, though... Getting the public at large to realize that the G3 is a seriously powerful chip is probably still the best strategy for the moment. If any of you are feeling particularly bored and childish, why not while away your hours of idleness by calling build-to-order Wintel manufacturers like Dell or Gateway and asking them to configure a system with one of those G3 processors in it, "you know, those ones that are twice as fast as a Pentium II? Oh, you don't sell those? Only Apple does? Okay, I'll call them instead. Thanx." Click.;-)

On a completely unrelated note, we take the arrival of this ad as rock-solid proof of our advanced psychic abilities, repeated failed attempts to partner with the Psychic Friends Network notwithstanding. Last night, Yours Truly dreamed of walking between towering buildings, when suddenly I spotted an unremarkable brown rabbit crouching in the grass. I stooped to gesture for it to approach, and it walked forward a few tentative steps, then leapt four feet in the air, hung there briefly in a deliciously cartoony fashion, kicked its little hind legs in my general direction, and then landed back on the ground. I can only describe the action as a wholly ineffectual yet incredibly cute defensive maneuver. What does it all mean? We have no idea, but a scant twelve hours later we received word of tonight's premiere of the "Bunnies" commercial. Coincidence? We think not.

The other big news of the day seems to be Apple's announcement that they will partner with Microsoft to create a new, unified Java virtual machine for the Mac. That news itself isn't surprising, since "collaboration on Java" was one of the key points of the Apple-Microsoft agreement that surfaced last August; today's announcement, however, marks the first concrete action in carrying out that plan. Apple will include some Microsoft Java technologies in its next release of the Mac OS Runtime for Java (MRJ), at which point Internet Explorer for the Mac will use the MRJ as its Java Virtual Machine.

If you're wondering what Mac users get from all this, you've obviously never run a Java applet in Netscape next to the same applet in Internet Explorer. Whether or not Microsoft is trying to sink Java, their virtual machine has traditionally been one of the fastest available on the Mac. This partnership may well go a long way towards making the Mac a viable Java platform-- or even towards reaching Apple's stated goal of making the Mac the best Java platform available. (That's a long stretch, given how lackluster Mac Java has been in the past, but this just might be the turning point.)

Of course, we all have to wonder what Sun thinks about all this. At a time when they face Microsoft's continued attempts to "taint" Java with Windows-only extensions, they're probably none too pleased about Apple apparently siding with Microsoft on this issue-- the Microsoft influence on Apple's JVM will include some Microsoft-only extensions. Suppose Sun's wishing they bought out Apple when they had the chance?

Rumors from multiple sources have proven true; today, CompUSA announced that this weekend will mark the official grand opening of the Apple "store within a store" in each of its 149 nationwide locations. That's pretty darn good, considering that the alliance was only announced four short months ago. And yet, the news comes not a moment too soon, as Apple has all but vanished from the visible retail space. With luck, this CompUSA grand opening will help remedy that situation.

Hopefully this event will also mark a turning point in CompUSA's advertising tactics. Faithful viewers will recall the shameful lack of Apple systems in CompUSA's color circulars-- a fact made all the more painful since Apple's decision to drop all other national retail outlets. Several sources have assured us that CompUSA will begin pushing Macs in a big way starting this weekend. We can but hope.

If you're in the market for any new equipment, or you just happen to have a big fat tax refund burning a hole in your pocket, you may want to make it down to your local CompUSA this weekend to take advantage of these unspecified "special promotions." We know we'll be there, just in case any of the deals are too good to pass up. We're also curious to see the demos scheduled to be given by Apple reps on Sunday afternoon.