Ooooo boy, did Michael Eisner just take a beating. So you know that Disney shareholders' meeting was today, right? And you know all about how departed directors Stan Gold and Roy Disney (yes relation) have been calling for investors to withhold their votes for Eisner's reelection to the board in order to send a message that he should step down? And you're no doubt aware that analysts were saying a 20% withholding would be a serious vote of no confidence in Eisner, while Stan 'n' Roy were hoping for 30%? Well, someone toss Eisner a parachute and a fire extinguisher, because he appears to be going down in flames; faithful viewer Jonathan was first to point out that anti-Eisner votes (well, really, the absence of pro-Eisner votes, but you get the point) hit a staggering 43%, which, according to the New York Times, Stan Gold called "an unprecedented vote of no confidence."

We're guessing that somebody needs a hug right about now.

So what does this mean in the context of the Disney-Pixar Conspiracy Theory™, the gist of which is that Steve Jobs (known to be buddy-buddy with Roy Disney) ended contract negotiations with Eisner and deprived Disney of billions of dollars in future revenues solely in order to help Roy foment anti-Eisner sentiment among the stockholders? Well, adherents to this theory are generally split into three distinct camps: those who believe Steve did it to clear the CEO position and take Eisner's place; those who think he did it in exchange for a promise of better terms in a post-Eisnerian Disney-Pixar contract; and those who figure he did it solely to screw with Eisner because he thinks the guy's a big ol' jerk. And now that Disney's board-- filled with Eisner lackeys though it may be-- can't possibly refuse to ask for Eisner's resignation without inciting mass shareholder riots, well, we figure the guy has to step down soon. Then we can see if the "Jobs as CEO of Disney" contingent were right.

Meanwhile, the evidence of Jobs's role in an anti-Eisner conspiracy continues to mount. Faithful viewer wavdancr noted that, on the eve of the big vote, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Roy Disney had stated that if Eisner steps down, "Pixar Animation Studios could have a new deal with Disney 'in a matter of weeks.'" (Ladies and gentlemen: in tonight's performance, the role of "Carrot on a Stick" will be played by Pixar. Thank you.) And folks in the "Jobs as CEO" camp are no doubt smiling knowingly at the comments of "veteran entertainment industry headhunter" Brad Marks: "Steve Jobs has already proven that it doesn't seem to matter what industry he's running a company in: He's been very effective in every regard. He could fit in very well."

We'll see-- maybe. At broadcast time, faithful viewer Elliott noted that Reuters was reporting that the board's only move so far has been to split the roles of CEO and chairman into two separate posts and replace Eisner with George Mitchell as chairman; unbelievably, Eisner's still CEO, and the party line is that the board is "confident in the company's senior management and strategic direction." Mmmm-hmm. Too bad so many of the shareholders don't agree. And seeing as new chairman Mitchell himself received a 20% "no confidence" vote today for being little more than an Eisnerian puppet, maybe it's time to steer clear of this whole thing until the riot gas clears and the rubber bullets stop flying. How do you suppose Mickey looks in riot gear?

Hands up, who's sick of waiting for iTunes Music Store to make its way overseas? Because to us it just seems like the international versions have been "just around the corner" for, oh, about a thousand years now, and meanwhile all those poor Mac-using Englandites, Japanians, Franciscans, etc. are stuck with no way to buy legal downloadable music at all. At least the Wintellians in some overseas markets have some options-- like, say, Coca-Cola's downloadable music store in the UK-- but that's sort of like saying "Until your pancakes arrive you can chow down on this napkin." And like we said, for Mac users (and let's face it, who else counts?) it's no option at all.

Beyond saying that it's "hard at work" on wrangling licensing terms to sell music in distant lands, Apple isn't committing to anything even vaguely resembling a launch date, but here's hoping it's sooner rather than later-- not only because we're really tired of waiting, but also because, as faithful viewer David Poves points out, The Register reports that Number Two Service (and believe us, we mean "number two" in every possible sense of the phrase) Napster now has solid plans to launch its service in the UK by "the end of summer." And if Napster gets in there first, there's a chance that it'll bury its claws so deeply into the eardrums and wallets of the UK market that Apple will forever be playing catch-up.

"But AtAT," you ask, "how could Napster UK possibly launch first? Apple's been working on licensing for ages, now; how is it that Napster could negotiate acceptable terms faster, and without a Reality Distortion Field?" Well, it's like this, folks: Apple is pushing for uniform licensing and pricing all over Europe, which is apparently tricky. Napster, on the other hand, plans to launch its service on a per-country basis, which sounds like a technical and logistical nightmare, but at least it makes the licensing go smoothly. So its UK version launching by the end of the summer will be restricted entirely to UK purchases.

The worst case scenario as we see it is that Napster gets the UK population hooked on WMA before Apple comes charging in with its superior buying and listening experience, and UK buyers then all toss their iPods out the window and go buy a variety of crappy WMA-compatible knockoffs instead; then, giant fissures open in the earth's crust, the oceans rise and flood the planet's surface, and finally all civilization is vaporized when a massive meteor knocks the earth from its orbit and straight into the sun. There's no need to panic just yet, since we're pretty sure we've heard people mentioning that Apple expects to get the iTMS Europe online before mid-year, which would give Apple the head start, both in the UK and in the rest of the countries on the continent. Still, just think of those poor abandoned iPods. (And, um, the sun thing.) It'd be such a shame, you know? Everything we've been hearing indicates that UK denizens are completely fanatical about their 'Pods.

Then again, it cuts both ways; the iPod's enormous popularity in the UK could well scupper any chance Napster has at gaining a foothold in that market, even if it beats the iTMS to market. After all, who's going to buy music that they can't even play on their beloved iPods? Especially given how much those freakin' things cost over there. Still, we'd feel a lot better about things if Apple would just launch the store already. We're mildly allergic to earthquakes, floods, and plummeting into the sun.

You know the drill by now: Apple leads, darn near everyone else follows. So it comes as no particular surprise that a year after Apple shipped the world's first laptop with a 17-inch display, Wintel manufacturers are following suit. Normally we aren't all that interested in the whole follow-the-leader spiel (well, unless there's a copycat situation just screaming for a lawsuit, in which case we're all over that action like fur on a Wookiee), but when faithful viewer James informed us that CNET had reviewed a new 17-inch portable from Acer, we just had to check it out; after all, Acer's the company that blessed the world with the red Ferrari notebook complete with digitized engine-rev sounds that so perfectly complements analyst Rob Enderle's race car bed and Jeff Gordon pajamas.

Well, friends, we find that we can't really discuss the product's specs in much detail, because one factor is so overwhelmingly obnoxious that we find ourselves utterly horrified, and yet we cannot look away: the new Acer 17-inch laptop may not look like a car, but it darn near weighs as much as one. According to CNET, it weighs in at a flabbergastingly flabby "nearly 16 pounds"; Acer's web site clarifies that to be 15.7 pounds "with combo drive and battery." Note that Apple's 17-inch PowerBook weighs a mere 6.9 pounds by comparison, which makes the two products look like some forgotten set of Jared Fogle before-and-after photos that Subway forgot to use in an ad.

In the "Glass Half Full" statement of the year, CNET notes that the Aspire 1710 is "still easier to carry or stow away than a desktop." Well, yeah, guys, but so's a dead trout, and that doesn't mean we want to drag one along on a business trip slung over one shoulder. And it's only a marginally true statement in the first place, since the original Macintosh 128K was a full-fledged desktop system, and at 16.5 pounds, it was less than a pound heavier than the new Aspire-- and it had a handle.

So why all the extra weight? Well, we did a little digging-- the most we could without actually having performed "investigative journalism"-- and we noticed that while the PowerBook has a 1440x900 widescreen display, the Aspire has a standard 1280x1024 resolution. Do the math and you'll find that the Aspire packs a whopping 14,720 more pixels than Apple's offering; that's over 1.1% more screen real estate! So as far as we can make out, each pixel above the first 1,296,000 adds a little under a hundredth of an ounce to a portable system's overall weight. That doesn't sound like much, but as the weight of the Aspire proves, they can really add up-- so much so, that PC Mall describes the new Aspire as a "Notebook" in its title, but lists it in its "DESKTOP COMPUTERS" category, presumably because of its weight class.

We did notice one other little thing: whereas the PowerBook carries a sticker price of $2,999, the Aspire (at least in the configuration we looked at) costs only a smidge over half that: $1,599. More than half the price, more than twice the weight; that almost makes sense, you know? Think of it this way: all the money you'd save by getting the Aspire instead of the PowerBook would go straight to your chiropractor. Then again, Wintel purchasers are infamously blind to "total cost of ownership," so if Apple really wants to compete with the Aspire, we recommend that the PowerBook immediately be revised to have trains engraved all over its cover and make "choo-choo" noises upon startup. Now how could that possibly fail?