Our excitement about MacWorld Expo continues to grow, as the blessed event draws ever closer... Yes, the show promises to be smaller again this year, but we still have several reasons to be enthused. First of all, while the move from Boston to New York does completely wreck AtAT's convenience factor (bye-bye 30-minute subway ride, hello four-hour drive), it does eliminate some truly irritating aspects of the Boston show-- in particular, the need to shuttle constantly between two fairly remote conference halls, and the urban traffic apocalypse known as the Big Dig. Plus, your AtAT staff will get to spend some downtime in the Big Apple, which is something we've never had the opportunity to do before. Start spreading the news...

Most of all, though, we're looking forward to the keynote address, starring marketing dude Phil Schiller and the satellite-enabled virtual presence of Steve Jobs. In Apple's web page for the keynote, Jobs describes the show as a "milestone event," though there are no hints as to what exactly will make it so. Regardless, we're curious to see what surprises Steve can trot out and how effectively he can do it, given his time handicap; in order for Steve to appear live via satellite at 9AM EDT, the poor man will have to be awake, scrubbed, and reasonably coherent at six in the morning by his local clock. Will that factor diminish the power of the infamous Reality Distortion Field®?

For those of you who can't make it to the show, Apple plans to simulcast the keynote address at the Apple Market Centers in several major cities; the list is here. Unless something goes terribly, terribly wrong, AtAT will be broadcasting on location throughout the show, in much the same tradition as when the Brady Bunch went to Hawaii. (Don't worry; if we come across any little Tiki god carvings, we'll ditch them immediately. Or maybe we'll hide them in Intergraph's booth, or something.)

Much has been made, by the way, of the fact that Jobs doesn't plan to attend the New York Expo in person. A few people say it's a sign that Steve isn't as committed to Apple as he should be. For the record, AtAT finds this interpretation ridiculous; the man has sacrificed a ton of sleep and family time to make the changes that made Apple profitable again. Still others expect that his planned "keynote from California" is due to a big surprise-- there have been a slew of rumors circulating about a big Apple-Disney deal, so the idea was that Steve might be planning to deliver his keynote from within the Magic Kingdom or something. We certainly would consider that a more plausible explanation.

But the most likely explanation of all, which has come up before but appears to get ignored because of its apparent banality, can be found in an Arizona Central article on Jobs, which we found over at Webintosh: Steve's wife is expecting their fourth child in July. Considering that the man has spent the past year running not one, but two huge companies (and bringing Apple back to profitability probably required ten times the effort of running a less screwed-up corporation), he hasn't been home much. This is the one time he absolutely shouldn't be away from his family, and we're glad he made what we consider to be the right decision.

Besides, given Steve's uncanny knack for grabbing media attention, we wouldn't be a bit surprised if he has to break off in the middle of his Expo keynote as an offscreen assistant informs him that his wife has just gone into labor. Doesn't it just sound like the kind of thing that would happen? ;-) Good luck and best wishes to Steve and family.

Just how serious was AT&T about buying their way into the Internet business? Well, you tell us-- after AOL refused their buyout offer of $20 billion, they turned right around and bought out Tele-Communications Incorporated instead, only a week later. TCI is a huge cable company who also provides high-speed internet access via cable modems. The price tag? A mere $48 billion. (Insert sound of eyes popping out of head and jaw hitting floor here.) CNET has more on the monster merger.

AT&T plans to absorb TCI into a new subsidiary, "AT&T Consumer Services," which will finally be able to offer customers long-distance phone service, Internet access (both dialup and high-speed), wireless communications, and cable television all in one fell swoop. That's all fine and dandy, but was it worth $48 billion? Most of us can't even imagine how much money that is. How's this for perspective? The deal was for almost Bill Gates' entire fortune (though he'd still have roughly $3 billion left over after the deal was done, which, we expect, most of you would consider "comfortable").

For those of you who find the similarities between "AT&T" and the abbreviation "AtAT" confusing, here's an easy way to help you keep the two entities straight: AT&T can shell out $48 billion to buy a large cable company. AtAT still checks the change return slot after making a call at a pay phone. Any questions?