Hey, remember when we were all looking forward to adding arteriosclerosis to our incipient Pepsi-induced diabetes for the sake of still more free songs from the iTunes Music Store? Way back when, there was a rumor floating around that Apple was about to ink a deal with McDonald's, who allegedly planned to give away a billion free song downloads to people layin' the smackdown on their Big Mac Attacks. Unfortunately (well, depending on your perspective, we suppose), Sony came waltzing in at the last second and managed to persuade the clown with the big red shoes to ditch the iTMS in favor of the newly-launched-- and Mac-incompatible-- Sony Connect service. Or so the rumor went.

Well, we've now got confirmation, of sorts: the Financial Times reports that McDonald's and Sony have indeed formed a "marketing alliance" that hopes to "attract more teenagers" to Mickey D's while helping to "build a following" for Sony's fledgling music service. Details are somewhat lacking; apparently Big Macs will start coming with "vouchers for free music downloads," but we don't know when, how many, or for how long. Then again, the point's pretty moot for us Mac users anyway, short of being able to moan about precisely what we'll be missing. Which is always nice, sure, but we doubt it's strictly necessary.

That doesn't mean, of course, that you can't still gorge yourself on Quarter Pounders for a month à la Super Size Me; if that's your chosen cause of death, go get greasy and more power to you. It just means that you won't actually get any free iTMS downloads for your trouble, so we probably won't see a sudden massive increase in congestive heart failure in the Mac community once this promotion gets off the ground. Then again, we didn't see anyone actually carbonate himself to death during the Pepsi promo, either (although not for lack of trying), and if performance of the McDonald's-Sony promotion is as anemic as the iTunes-Pepsi one's was, even Wintel users probably won't be keeling over dead nearly as often as you might expect.

Notice that we said "expect" and not "hope." It's called restraint. Aren't you proud of us?

Whatever. With the Pepsi thing now just a dim and bitter memory and the McDonald's promo having been successfully subverted to the Dark Side, we here at the AtAT compound were casting about for some new scam by which we might score a bunch more free songs, and thanks to MacMinute, we think we've found our angle. The USA Network (best known for casting Bill Gates to play Christopher Walken) is running a sweepstakes to promote its upcoming show The 4400, which looks like someone took an unused X-Files script and turned it into a whole freakin' series. Not that we won't watch it, mind you; it is on TV, after all. Or it will be. Whatever.

Anyway, the relevant bit is what you can win in the sweepstakes-- namely, a whopping 4,400 (get it? It's a theme) free songs from the iTMS and a 40 GB iPod on which to stick 'em. If you're not lucky enough to win the grand prize, you've still got a shot at winning one of ten 15 GB or 20 GB iPods, although none of those comes with any free songs, so who cares? The grand prize, though-- geez, just picturing a 4,400-song credit showing up in iTunes is making us all dewy-eyed and wistful. Then again, now that we think about it, just clicking 4,400 "BUY SONG" buttons is likely to make someone's mousing hand fall off at the wrist; here's hoping USA doesn't make the winner enter 4,400 individual claim codes to rack up the credits in the first place, or else said wrists will explode with enough force to extinguish all life within a twelve-mile radius. Still, it's a small price to pay, isn't it?

Geez, what is it with the UK's apparent fascination with Apple-related crime? A few months back we noted that an article about muggers targeting iPod owners had appeared in the Evening Standard of London, and it painted a dire picture of a grim urban landscape in which the very act of wearing white earbuds in public condemned oneself to an uncertain fate in a dark alley at the tip of some 'Pod-hungry thug's shiv. Frightening stuff, right? You're probably still having nightmares and jumping at shadows. But will they let you find any peace? Nooooooo. Because now the British are playing up the dangers of Mac ownership as well; Macworld UK is jumping in with an article about how much more likely Macs are to be stolen than their Wintel counterparts. Great. Like we weren't living in enough fear already.

The story itself is actually pretty positive, truth be told; its title is "Hero Mac dealer foils theft bid," so you know it has a happy ending. It seems that four nogoodniks broke into Gordon Harwood Computers after hours and started loading up their car with all the Macs they could get their hands on; unfortunately, these geniuses didn't bother to make sure that all the staff had left yet; the store had closed at 5:30, and for whatever reason (be it chemical, biological, or just plain stupid), none of these four fellows thought there might conceivably still be a staff member or two rattling around just forty-five minutes after closing. So a couple of store personnel noticed that these guys were kindasorta relocating all the Macs into their car, and then "approached the intruders."

Now, this is the point at which it becomes clear that the story is set in England; in the U.S., the next step would obviously be an exchange of gunfire and possibly a few grenades and light artillery rounds. The British are a bit more civilized, though, apparently, because all that resulted from the confrontation is that the four thieves "attempted to drive off"; however, one of the store staff managed to "get into the car and remove the key from the ignition" (!), at which point there's still no gunfire, and the thwarted crooks "then left the premises on foot." Pretty mellow, all told. Police are now "pursuing enquiries."

So yeah, theft interrupted, nobody hurt, happy ending all 'round. The scary bit, though, is the store director's belief that "the increased popularity of Apple and better brand awareness has lead to a greater demand for Macs on the black market." And on what does he base this conclusion? How about the fact that his same exact store was burglarized less than a year ago by two guys who made off with a couple of Macs? And then there's the "recent theft at London-based PR agency Bite Communications," which "runs both Macs and PCs, yet only Macs were stolen." In other words, just by owning a Mac instead of a Wintel, you're increasing your chances of a home invasion. Time to panic?

Probably not, since this scenario isn't exactly new. As we've mentioned before, we here at the AtAT compound have fallen victim to this syndrome ourselves; Jack's beloved PowerBook Duo 230 was swiped from a hospital laboratory in Los Angeles, while a Wintel notebook sitting right next to it had been left behind. These were laptops, remember; there's no reason the thief couldn't have strolled out with both of them stuffed down his pants or whatever. (The Duo, weighing almost half a pound less than a current PowerBook G4, was positively svelte for its day.) We still have no idea who the jerk was who stole our first ever portable, but at the very least we know that he had taste-- or just knew he could fence the Mac for a bigger wad of cash.

This all happened about eight years ago, so we're a little doubtful that Mac owners (or dealers) are suddenly a lot more at risk-- at least here in the U.S. Maybe in the UK Macs are just starting to gain a bunch more popular acceptance, and that's leading to an uptick in crime; still, there's no need to panic. That is, until some UK publication informs us that people who use Final Cut Pro are 80% more likely to become victims of human black market kidney harvesting.

Okay, we know this is the sort of thing better suited for Wildly Off-Topic Microsoft-Bashing Day, but it showed up on Saturday, see, and we really don't think it'll keep for a week, so you're getting it now. Frankly, you should be thankful; Friday on Tuesday? It's like pennies from heaven. Better, actually-- the whole pennies thing never made much sense to us, since if they're falling from heaven, by the time they reach the planet's surface they're probably moving fast enough to punch straight through someone's skull. And even if you do manage to catch one without suffering a fatal or crippling injury, it's still only worth, like, a penny. Seriously, think about it. Pennies from heaven should be one of the biblical plagues or something.

Wait. Were we talking about something?

Oh, the Microsoft thing! Right. Okay, well, it's like this: you know how Microsoft is famous for being a really good company to work for if you have no life (and arguably no soul, but that's apparently still up for debate)? In other words, you get a great salary and a stellar benefits package in return for more or less never going home, which for some people is just fine and dandy-- live in the office, save on rent. Anyway, according to Reuters, Microsoft just cut employee benefits-- not in any terribly drastic way, like replacing health care coverage with a poorly-dubbed VHS tape of Animal Planet's Emergency Vets or anything like that, but enough stuff got changed that the natives are getting restless.

While employees still get free health care, free gym memberships, and all the frosty beverages their kidneys can handle, they'll also have to pay only 10% below market value when buying company stock, as opposed to the previous 15%. Worse yet, while they used to have up to a year after the birth or adoption of a lil' sprout to take their four weeks of paid parental leave, now they have to do it within six months. And get this: their health plan now requires that they buy generic prescription drugs, just like common peasants. The nerve. It's no surprise, then, that an informal intranet poll of the staff showed that nearly 75% of the employees were "very dissatisfied" with the changes.

Okay, yeah, that could have been sarcasm-- but in light of the pile of cash Microsoft is sitting on, we're actually kind of serious. See, here's the part we don't get: trimming operating costs is all well and good if there's actual waste and inefficiency that can be corrected, but why the fuzzy heckykins is Microsoft making three-quarters of its workforce "very dissatisfied" by cutting their benefits just to save $80 million this year, when the company has $56 billion in the bank? Since Microsoft makes (wait for it) software, one would think that a happy team of code jockeys is its only essential asset; crank out the code, dupe it a zillion times, make insane profit margins on volume sales. We dunno, it just seems unwise to disgruntlefy the folks in the trenches.

Honestly, $56 billion. And only 55,000 employees. Sheesh, forget saving the $80 million, guys; be smart and give the workers what they want. And spend a piddling 1/1000th of your cash on hand to buy 'em each a goofy electric scooter or something. You have to invest in the workforce, because when all you make is software (more or less), the workforce is everything.

Oh, wait-- we don't like Microsoft, do we? And we want it to fail?

Right. Um...

So, yeah-- trimming unnecessary employee benefits to cut operating expenses! That's the winning strategy that'll get Longhorn done on time and bug-free, you betcha. Why, we can hardly wait to see it!