As my dear, sweet grandmother would say, holy yikes! Have you seen Apple's stock price lately? Everyone knows it's been climbing overall since January of last year after it bottomed out at around 12 the month before. Since then it's been on a rampage, hitting new plateaus with each new big product announcement or analyst upgrade. Recently, after a two-month stint hovering around the 45 area, it leaped up to 54 and held there for a month and a half-- which is fabulous news, but even that didn't prepare us for what happened on Wednesday.

AAPL closed at nearly 60, up over four points-- a 7.78% gain-- to hit a new year high. In fact, according to the Mac Observer, Apple's new stock price represents the highest it's been in over seven years. The interesting thing is, there wasn't any particular event or announcement in the Mac world that spurred the gains; Apple appears to have benefited from the overall boost the tech sector got from Red Hat's IPO. Red Hat is the biggest and most well-known distributor of the free Linux operating system, which continues to gain popularity as an alternative OS-- especially among owners of Intel-based systems who really don't want to use Windows. Anyway, Red Hat's IPO made their stock quadruple in a day, which led all the tech stocks higher.

What we don't get, though, is why Apple's stock gained more-- both percentage-wise and in raw dollar value-- than most other tech stocks. Even Intel and IBM, both of which we believe have hefty investments in Red Hat, didn't see their stock rise as much as AAPL did. One possibility that crosses our minds is this: investors saw that Red Hat, a company distributing an alternative operating system, was rising like crazy; so here's Apple, a company that's well-established, has a great brand name, is on solid financial footing and has sizeable cash reserves, and who's making not just an alternative operating system, but a complete alternative computer, which just happens to be selling incredibly well. That's got to be worth something, right? Anyway, profit-taking's probably going to cause AAPL to fall a bit on Thursday, but it was still exciting to see the upward surge.

Uh-oh. If you thought Apple was out of the woods just because they've got seven consecutive profitable quarters racked up, the best-selling consumer computer in the country, and a stock price that's more than quadruple its levels a year and a half ago, you're fooling yourself. Do you read the newspaper? If so, you may already be privy to one of the most worrisome and visible defections from the Macintosh platform to "the Dark Side" to happen in recent memory. We're speaking, of course, of Jason Fox.

That's right-- faithful viewers Bongo and Tony Lucarelli both noted that Foxtrot's boy genius, the kid who's proud to be a geek, was last seen computer-shopping with his journalist mother. And longtime fans of the comic strip should already be aware that Jason has always been a Mac guy; we recall several Christmases ago he was dreaming of receiving a fully-loaded Quadra 900. So what was he drooling over in Wednesday's strip? None other than a tower system with dual processors, a "state-of-the-art" 3D accelerator card, and "slots galore." That sure doesn't sound like any computer Apple makes; dual-processor systems won't surface again for the Mac until the G4 ships, a game geek like Jason would never call an ATI Rage 128 "state-of-the-art" these days, and no one, geek or otherwise, would call four slots-- one of which is gobbled up by a video card-- "slots galore." Yup, Jason's lusting after a high-end Wintel PC. Need more proof? His mother describes it as "awfully plain." Case closed.

But it looks like Jason's probably going to stay with the platform whether he likes it or not, since his mother is the one with the cash-- and she's looking at the "cute ones in all different colors." And in Thursday's strip, we see that the "darling" computer that's caught Mrs. Fox's eye is none other than the "iFruit." Needless to say, Jason's not too happy about getting a general-purpose computer that can't be tricked out as the Ultimate Game Machine, but of course the iFruit (er, iMac) isn't targeted at the hardcore gamer. Mrs. Fox, may we make a suggestion? Perhaps a Power Fruit Gee-3 would be a nice compromise...

Regular viewers of AtAT are aware that we're moving the show into spacious new studios-- and anyone who's ever moved knows just how much time and energy the whole process can suck up. That's why we're so happy to have faithful viewers like Charles Martin, who decided to pitch in by lightening our AtAT load. He sent us some unsolicited coverage of the "Redmond Justice" findings of fact to make sure that you, our viewing audience, don't miss a thing while we're scurrying around putting stuff in boxes and trying to get major appliances delivered. So without further ado, here's Charles:

According to a Reuters news story by David Lawsky, the case by the government against Microsoft is as good as over. How do we know this? According to Lawsky, "The U.S. government Tuesday argued in an 800-page document that Microsoft Corp.'s antitrust trial proves the software giant illegally abused monopoly power to thwart competitors. A short time later, Microsoft filed a 450-page submission, repeating its arguments that the government failed to prove its case and saying the firm should be exonerated."

So we won! It's as obvious as Bytemarks that the government's document is up to twice as heavy (hmmmm-- that seems so familiar a phrase somehow) as Microsoft's rebuttal. (This may be MS's first-ever loss in the bloat wars; who else but the US government could possibly compete with the Redmond Giant when it comes to sheer bulk?) Therefore, when Judge Jackson weighs the evidence, he's likely to find the government's case far more substantial than Microsoft's, and so it's off to jail with criminal mastermind Bill "Doug" Gates and Steve "Dinsdale" Ballmer. Maybe if they're lucky they'll get the "Cray" twins for cellmates.