Another day, another Macworld Expo prediction-- and another harrowing brush with the supernatural. Regular viewers will recall that a couple of weeks ago, we tried our hand at the ancient art of hieroscopy, which is a more concise and vastly more pleasant way of saying that we attempted to foretell future events by poking around in a mass of rapidly cooling goat entrails. (Don't worry, folks-- no animals were harmed in the making of this TV show. It's amazing what they can make out of soy these days.) What the guts told us, as far as we could make out, was that when Steve does his thang a week from this Wednesday, the Power Mac G4 line would be the recipient of one hellacious speed boost; whereas the product currently tops out at 733 MHz, come July 18th, that formerly blistering speed would actually drop to the low end of the spectrum. Furthermore, those helpful entrails also hinted that the 1 GHz clock speed barrier would finally be shattered when Steve took the wraps off the new high-end machine.

Well, we were skeptical, and possibly rightly so-- because we've since been offered a retraction, of sorts. First, we just have to ask: do you have any idea how disturbing it is to be awoken at 3 AM by a pile of imitation goat intestines sitting on your chest and tapping you on the shoulder? All we can say is, it's a darn good thing that tangle of fake guts knew CPR, because otherwise the resulting infarction might've finished us off. Anyway, after checking our vital signs and fetching us a drink of water, the guts-- whose collective name is apparently "Lemmy"; go figure-- hit us with this interesting ton of bricks: "Hey, remember when I said the high-end G4 would hit 1 GHz? My bad. Sometimes I have trouble reading my own handwriting. As far as I can make out through the swirling mists of obscurity, in nine days, the top-of-the-line Power Mac will actually only be running at 866 MHz. But the low-end one will still be at 733 MHz, just like I said, and there'll be a mid-range system at 800 MHz as well."

Now, while 866 MHz sounded a lot more reasonable to our skeptical ears, the fact that Lemmy had already changed his story once hadn't exactly won our confidence. (Plus, there was the fact that he was a sentient pile of processed soy protein, and our parents had always taught us that such things aren't always to be trusted.) So we asked him if he was sure this time, and he said, "Oh, definitely. I even bet a fiver on it with my bookie. And the new iMacs aren't anything to write home about, either, by the way-- they aren't much different from what's out there now. Trust me, I have the specs straight from the restless ghost of Gil Amelio."

We were about to launch a zillion questions at Lemmy-- among them, "What do you mean the new iMacs aren't much different?", "You are aware that Gil is still alive, aren't you?", and "Are you related to that guy from Motörhead?"-- when he promptly disappeared in a puff of rationality. Was it all just a dream? The lingering soy aftertaste on our lips says no, though that might just be from last night's Meatless Zesty Italian Meatballs. In any case, conflicting rumor reports nine days before an Expo are par for the course, so we're always careful not to put too much stock in anything we hear these days; still, if you had your brain all set for gigahertz Power Macs, maybe you should consider ratcheting your expectations down a couple of notches, just in the interest of mental health.

So whaddaya think-- is Michael Dell currently a) crying like a little girl with a skinned knee, b) trying to settle on an effective and painless suicide method, c) trying to settle on an effective and painful murder weapon, or d) all of the above? We speak, of course, of the news that Dell is no longer the king of education sales, having yielded the crown back to its original and rightful owner: Apple Computer, Inc. Faithful viewer The M@d H@tter took a few minutes off from reading Mac OS Rumors to tip us off to a MacCentral article about Apple's return to education's top spot; yup, Steve and his minions are back on top, at least if the stats from Quality Education Data are correct.

Of course, as with any statistics, that's a big "if." It all comes down to whose numbers you believe. For instance, when Dell did its little victory dance last October, it was citing numbers from Dataquest. But Dataquest's methodology had been shown to be flaky in the past; what many Apple watchers may have forgotten is that Dell claimed to have won the top spot in education sales the prior year by flaunting Dataquest's figures-- and Apple smacked them down, pointing out the fact that Dataquest had totally ignored Apple's direct sales to schools, which, when factored into the equation, left Apple firmly in first place.

Now, it's worth noting that Apple didn't refute Dell's claims last year, so presumably Dataquest fixed that particular gaping hole in its methodology and Dell really won. But now QED has thrown its numbers into the fray, and they clearly indicate that Apple is back on top-- or will be. For the current 2001-2002 school year, QED "estimates" that public schools in the U.S. will buy "311,896 to 447,994 Macs"; in contrast, they'll only buy "203,808 to 270,500" Dell units during the same time frame. Based on those unit sales, we can only assume that Mike Dell is sporting a big ol' frown while planning out an elaborate murder-suicide. Heck, we always knew he'd eventually wind up on the news attached to the phrase "before turning the gun on himself."

But don't go writing Dell's eulogy just yet; the key word here is "estimates." Without knowing upon what facts QED is basing its estimation, it's kind of tough to put a whole lot of faith in those numbers. For example, we here at AtAT "estimate" that we'll be the undisputed masters of the earth's ultimate fate in 16.2 years; sadly, that fact hasn't gotten us a penny of financial backing. See what we mean? Even QED president Jeanne Hayes "admitted that tracking such figures can be a 'tricky subject.'" So is there anything of substance here for Apple fans to celebrate? Well, sort of-- QED's own data did show Dell in the lead last year, so maybe the organization is pretty good at this estimation thing after all. We'll know when the actual sales numbers come out. Of course, then we'll have to decide whose numbers to look at once again...

Breaking news flash-- we've just learned that the water supply of St. Paul, Minnesota has been contaminated with some form of mind-altering chemical that temporarily suppresses the reason and logic centers in the human brain, while simultaneously boosting unfounded optimism to unprecedented and potentially dangerous levels. Well, okay, we haven't actually learned that; it's just the only conclusion we've been able to draw from a new article in today's St. Paul Pioneer Planet. While we're willing to believe that author Julio Ojeda-Zapata is usually a right-thinking and sober individual, we're hard-pressed to come up with any other explanation for his own Expo predictions.

See, the first sign that poor Julio is operating under the influence of some sort of outside influence is his earth-shattering discovery that if you set a completely arbitrary spending limit of $800 for a new computer, an $899 iMac is-- gasp!-- $99 too expensive! It is this startling revelation that leads Julio to hope and pray that what Uncle Steve has up his big, baggy sleeves next week is (drum roll, please) a $700 iMac. In other words, he's hoping for an iMac that not only fits within his arbitrary $800 spending limit, but also leaves him $100 left over for extra software or a down payment on enrollment in a detox program.

That in itself isn't too wacky; remember, the previous iMacs started at $799, so if Apple were to go with a very stripped-down model (no FireWire, cheesy video circuitry, smaller hard disk, slower processor, etc.), the company actually could offer up a $699 iMac and still make a profit. But Julio doesn't want just any $700 iMac; he wants one with a "modern flat-panel display" (a 15-incher-- he's not greedy) and a "peppier G4 processor." Never mind the fact that a 15-inch LCD display alone costs $500, leaving Apple just $200 with which to add a G4 processor, RAM, a hard disk, a video card, ethernet, a modem, speakers, a mouse, a keyboard, and a spiffy enclosure to tie it all up in a nice little package.

Julio states that "this isn't an unreasonable request." (Let's not even get into his $5 bet that Steve will unveil G4 iMacs with 17-inch LCD screens and built-in SuperDrives next week-- hey, it's not nice to take advantage of people wagering under the influence!) All we can say is, if he wants any hope whatsoever of his dream coming true, he'd better ship some of whatever he's been drinking to Steve Jobs, and fast. And if Steve does ship a 15-inch LCD G4-based iMac in nine days' time, we'll admit that we were wrong about St. Paul's water-- as long as someone will send us some.