"It's like some sort of beautiful dream..." We admit it: a couple of weeks ago, when we'd heard that Sears was planning on advertising the iMac in its own Sears-funded television commercials, we were skeptical. Well, actually, that's not entirely true; it wasn't that we didn't believe the sources reporting the fact, or even that we didn't believe Sears would ever do such a thing. It was more of a deep-down fundamental conviction lingering at the backs of our minds that nobody other than Apple would ever spend real advertising dollars to push Apple products. Heck, until things started to turn around with the whole "Think Different" campaign, we were starting to think even Apple would never advertise Macs again-- so you can understand our nagging doubts about the Sears thing.

But apparently the reports were true: the heavens have fallen, it's raining toads in Peoria, dogs and cats are living together-- and the Sears iMac ad has hit the airwaves. Here's the scoop, courtesy of faithful viewer Scott Hadley: "Saw an iMac/Sears ad tonight. The iMac was being pushed as a Father's Day gift. The iMac was the only product in the whole Sears ad. It started with the iMac flower, and cut to a pan of three dads using iMacs: dad 1 was balancing the check book, dad 2 was surfing the 'net (I think), and dad 3 was playing a game. Oh, 0% financing, too. This ad was on prime time and on a major network. It seems you all watch a lot of TV so I bet you've seen it already."

Saying we "watch a lot of TV" is kind of like saying "Bill Gates has a lot of money," but as a matter of fact, Scott, we took the night off; we'd seen all the reruns on ABC already, and "Tomorrow Never Dies" was on Showtime. (Michelle Yeoh kicks much bad-guy butt-- 'nuff said.) As a result, no, we didn't see the commercial, as incredible as that may seem. But we definitely take your word for it, even though the fact that an Apple reseller is actually footing the bill for an iMac ad sort of hurts our brains like that Escher picture with the square staircase that goes up and down forever. Still, we imagine we'll get over it someday...

Hey, we're all very well-versed in the fine art of predicting the forthcoming P1's feature set, right? It's been the party game enjoyed by Mac fans from eight to eighty ever since Steve Jobs first cryptically announced Apple's intention to release a "consumer portable" so long ago; since then, the only official data from Cupertino has been that big question mark in the product line grid and the assurance that they're "working on it." So it's not surprising that Apple watchers, flush with the success of the iMac, have spent so much time guessing what the P1 will be like as we wait so impatiently for the official introduction. What colors? What curves? How much?

But there's another P1 guessing game that's perhaps not quite as popular, for whatever reason, but that we at AtAT feel is equally entertaining-- and equally important. This game is known as "What The Heck Will They Call It?" and the rules are pretty self-explanatory. Lots of names have been bandied about for the past year or so... There are the variations on "eMate," since the P1 is expected to share several features with that pioneering translucent, handle-sporting, long-lasting-battery-using, low-cost, school-friendly totable: eMac, eBook, iMate, etc. Then there are the mysterious monikers that Apple has registered as trademarks: MacMate and WebMate. And logicians in the field who feel that Apple's recent actions point to consistency guess that the P1 is destined to be called the iBook, in order to complete the "Power Mac, PowerBook, iMac, ..." progression. A PowerBook Zone article examines the whole issue in commendable detail.

If iBook is the most likely contender, then Apple may have a little bit of stickiness to deal with; while they've applied for trademark status for iBook, so has Family Systems, Ltd., who also currently owns the ibook.com domain name. Will we soon have yet another fun legal saga to follow? While everyone else anxiously awaits Macworld Expo to see what the P1 will look like, we're equally impatient to see what Steve calls it. In the meantime, we really wish Apple had picked a more interesting code name than "P1." Yawn.

We're not big Court TV viewers, so maybe someone can fill us in: is it at all common for the judge presiding over a big important case to laugh at the defendants and regularly display open contempt for their legal tactics? Do you often see a judge show outright impatience, and broadcast an "I can't believe I'm wasting months of my life hearing such a cut-and-dried case" kind of vibe? If the answer's no, then that might explain why "Redmond Justice" commands such high ratings, because Judge Jackson is alternately amused by Microsoft's mistakes and irritated by the courtroom behavior of the Redmond legal team.

When we tuned in last time, the judge laughed when government golden boy David Boies introduced some Microsoft email into evidence, showing that, despite having been caught with their epistolary pants down via numerous electronic missives in the past, they continued to send "sensitive" email with reckless abandon as late as this past January. Continuing in that general vein, today Jackson "lost his cool" and snapped at Microsoft lawyer Rick Pepperman, essentially for being boring and annoying. Pepperman had asked IBM exec Garry Norris whether he had ever seen an IBM-produced white paper entitled "OS/2 Warp vs. Windows 95: A Decision Maker's Guide to 32-Bit Operating System Technology." When Norris asked to see the paper, Pepperman "insisted" that Norris first state whether or not he had ever seen the paper before. According to an Info World Electric article, that's when Jackson turned red, took off his glasses, and said to Pepperman, "Show him the document if you've got it."

But wait, there's more! The day before, Jackson implied that Pepperman was being somewhat less than persuasive in his line of questioning, because when Pepperman said that he expected to continue questioning Norris all day on Wednesday, Jackson responded, "Well, I'm not going to tell you that you can't have it. I'm not sure how much progress you've made so far, but we will leave that aside. But be economical with your examination." Sounds like Pepperman continued to bore, leading to the judge's red-faced outburst. Jackson just doesn't seem like a happy man, what with this trial taking so long and the apparent unwillingness of both sides to reach a settlement and give him a way out. But them's the breaks for a high-falutin' judge, we suppose. If you ask us, Judge Jackson's pretty much the most sympathetic character on the show. Poor guy.