Something is wrong. Can you feel it? Something is very, very wrong. Clearly the universe has gone off its tracks. Up is down. Black is white. Weird things are happening: earthquakes. Volcanoes. The dead rising from the grave. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together-- mass hysteria!

And here's why: there's a picture of a computer on Apple's home page.

No foolin'! And it's a big one. The usual iPods and Pepsi bottles are smaller and underneath, and it's almost enough to make one think that Apple is actually a computer company again. Clearly something's up, because we haven't seen an actual Mac take such a prominent position on Apple.com for, oh, must be nigh unto eighty years now. We remember Coolidge was president. So if Apple has decided to stick the Power Mac G5 up there in the sweet spot and not even have it rotate with iLife or the miniPod or whatever (we reloaded the page 126 times just to make sure-- yes, this is what we do all day), the company obviously wants to get a slew of G5s out the door tout de suite.

Now, we're sure the March 27th Brigade will take this as a sure sign that Apple's clearing inventory for the new speed-bumped models due out any day now. But don't forget, folks, while it's true that this can be interpreted as still more evidence that Apple is trying to clear some shelf space in preparation for an imminent product revision, if you're the cautious type you'll temper your enthusiasm with the sobering knowledge that Apple might just be trying to boost its sales in its final weeks before the end of the fiscal quarter. Indeed, several analysts are predicting lackluster G5 sales figures when Apple goes public with the info, so it's only natural for the company to make a last-ditch effort to pump up those numbers.

And then there's yet another possibility: faithful viewer Rob Menke reminds us that it's "Apple Begins Switching To Itanium Day"-- at least, in the twisted mind of Mac-bashing pundit John Dvorak. Well, technically, it's not just a day, but more the start of a six-month period; a year ago Dvorak predicted that Apple would jump ship to x86 "within the next 12 to 18 months," and we've just now entered that time frame. Suppose Apple has the G5 monopolizing Apple.com's home page just to rub the guy's nose in it? We wouldn't put it past them. (Well, okay, we wouldn't put it past us. But we're all kindred spirits, after all.)

Enjoy it while it lasts, folks, because even if it is a big "Ppphhtththhbbtbtbtt!" to John Dvorak, we don't see it sitting there until September...

And thus does another tech prediction come to pass! Remember way back in August of 2001 when we mentioned how Intel was starting to backpedal on the whole "Gigahertz is God" strategy? Don't forget, these are the guys who, for untold millennia now, have always led the buying public with the simple equation of "Faster Clock Speed = Faster Computers," while companies like Apple have tried to fight that misconception. But when Intel's desktop Pentium 4 hit 2.0 GHz while its heavy-hitter high-end server chip the Itanium only ran at 800 MHz, the company suddenly had some 'splainin' to do. Back then the head of Intel's Architecture Group proclaimed that "computer users will soon care less about processor speed and more about overall performance." In other words, "We know the Itanium's 'only' an 800 MHz chip, but it's faster, we swear-- c'mon, somebody buy one. Please? Anybody?"

Back then, not many people did. Maybe Intel should have linked to Apple's "Megahertz Myth" page. Heck, maybe Apple will just give it to Intel, since with the G5 kicking kiester, the company doesn't seem to be using it anymore.

Incidentally, that "overall performance" comment may well have been the reason for Intel's deafening silence when Apple touted the Power Mac G5 as the world's fastest desktop personal computer last June; the new Power Macs combined zippy chips with massive memory bandwidth to create a Total Package o' Speed™ that few could ignore. Indeed, Intel's new "less is more" marketing philosophy has now extended to an almost complete rejection of clock speed as selling point: faithful viewer mrmgraphics notes a CNET article reporting that, as of this May, Intel will "adopt a new system for differentiating its processors that de-emphasizes the widely used gigahertz, or clock speed." Gee, and just in time, what with Apple expecting to hit 3.0 GHz later this summer. Coincidence? Or does Intel just see the handwriting on the wall?

Starting in May, Intel will assign each of its processors "a number designed to help consumers decipher how the features stack up against other processors in the same family"-- a number that ranks chips not just by clock speed, but also by bus speed and cache size. Reportedly the numbers will be "in the ranges of 300, 500, and 700, similar to the model numbers BMW uses on its sedans." Hey! No fair! Doesn't Apple have the copyright on comparing computer tech to BMWs? Maybe that only applies to market share comparisons.

Interestingly, AMD did the exact same thing with its processors a few years back when it got sick of people thinking its chips were slower than Intel's just because of slower clock speeds. Which means that, most likely, pretty soon Apple's going to be the only major computer manufacturer differentiating its systems (well, its pro desktops, anyway) primarily by clock speed. Who saw that coming?

That said, even when the G5 hits 3.0 GHz, it may be quite a while before Apple wins bragging rights on clock speed; Intel's Pentium 4 "Extreme Edition" (ugh, the tech world really needs to stop using that word) already runs at up to 3.4 GHz. But the way things are going, there really may come a day within our lifetimes when Apple ships chips that undeniably beat Intel's both on clock speed and in overall performance. And then those of us who suffered through the Motorola G4 years ("An Extra 50 MHz Every 18 Months, Whether You Need It Or Not!") can all drink the Kool-Aid and shuffle off these mortal coils with smiles on our faces.

Or, um, stick around and have fun with the really fast Macs. Whichever.

Forgive us if we seem even more befuddled than usual today, but we're still recovering from our St. Patrick's Day debauchery. Not that we're hung over, or nursing head wounds, or anything like that; we've never really gone in for the traditional U.S. St. Paddy's Day activities of guzzling green beer, getting into bar brawls, and barring people from parades. No, we like to celebrate our Irish heritage in a slightly more oblique fashion-- namely, we go out for Indian food. Nothing says "Erin Go Bragh" like a big, steaming dish of Kabuli Chana. The thing is, we overdid it a bit with the laugh-at-the-white-guy-hot Baingan Bhartha ("We can see through time!"), and we're still coming down from the Guatemalan Insanity Pepper-style hallucinations. So bear with us, because it took us a really long time to convince ourselves that we really did see that Nike shoe thing on Apple's Retail page.

"What Nike shoe thing," you ask? Well, earlier today, there was a teensy little blurb there about NIKE iD, the build-to-order shoe service through which you can pick a style, choose the materials, specify all the colors, and even get custom lettering printed right on those puppies. What it was doing on Apple's retail page we have no idea, and we're even more puzzled that it instructed people to ask Apple store staff for more information. You can imagine why we thought it might be a curry-induced hallucination, especially since the info is now missing from the page-- but MacMinute confirms it was there, and that's good enough for us. (Well, unless they ate the same stuff we did, we suppose.)

We're not sure which is weirder: that the Nike stuff appeared on Apple's retail page in the first place, or that it quietly vanished just hours later. We're trying to piece together what an Apple-Nike cross-promotion might be like, but we're having a tough time making a connection. Luckily, MacRumors has at least a little more info, in the form of a report that "Apple Store employees will be wearing the NIKE iD shoes in stores along with Nike tie-ins (Nike web site as default in Safari) in a cross-promotion effort lasting until May 18th." One forum member reports that a call to his local Apple store reveals that "the significance/hope of the promotion is that consumers will order their shoes to match their new iPod mini."

Well, um... okay. We still haven't a clue as to what the "cross" in the "cross-promotion" might be. Will every pair of Nike shoes come with an iTunes Music Store gift certificate or something? Will all the employees at Niketown be wearing iPods and directing interested parties to the Apple store? Will Nike's sweatshop workers all get free copies of iLife '04? Only time will tell. Or maybe not, what with the information vanishing from Apple's site so quickly-- but that phone call to the store implies that the promotion is a go, no matter what the web site says. Maybe we'll have to go in, compliment a Mac Specialist on his or her snazzy shoes, and "ask for more details about NIKE iD" as directed. That's sure to be a mind trip at least as freaky as our Bhartha experience.