So we were poking around in a local Best Buy and surveying the post-holiday consumer carnage, when we decided to take a peek and see if Myth II had made it onto the shelves yet. Myth II, of course, is the hugely-anticipated and long-awaited sequel to last year's smash hit Myth-- in our opinion, the best real-time tactical combat game available, if for no reason other than the fact that blood-trailing severed heads, limbs, and torsos go flying through the air in decidedly poetic trajectories. Anyway, we knew that Myth II had hit "golden master" status a few weeks ago and so we figured it'd start showing up in stores any day now. And while we weren't all too surprised not to find Myth II available, we were surprised to find out why: it's not just shipping slowdowns due to the holiday season or minor delays at the manufacturing plant; instead, Bungie has issued a recall of all Myth II units that had shipped to retailers but that had not yet had time to make it onto the shelves.

That's right, a recall. Turns out that there's a problem with the "uninstaller" used in the Windows version of Myth II, and that in rare circumstances bad things can happen when running it. Bungie.net has more information on this unfortunate cirumstance. Now, normally none of us would care at all about a problem with the Windows version of the game, but our understanding is that Myth II is on a hybrid CD-ROM-- both Windows and Mac versions on the same disc. So apparently this recall affects us Mac gamers, too, even though the Mac version of the software is just fine. Bummer-- even though we use Macs, bugs in Windows software is screwing with our fun. Oooo, frustrating.

On the bright side, even though the game never actually made it into retail stores, most people who pre-ordered the game from Bungie apparently received their copies about a week ago-- several faithful AtAT viewers wrote in to inform us of that fact, or rather, to taunt us mercilessly with tales of gameplay while we're forced to wait the extra three weeks before the "fixed" software makes it into the retail channel. So at least a few Mac users out there are blowing up hordes of Thrall without being affected by a bug in the Windows uninstaller. It's enough to make us want to use Myth II's included editing tools to turn all the forces of evil into little floating Windows logos...

There doesn't seem to be a whole lot going on in the Mac world these days, in this quiet period at the end of the year. There's little doubt, though, that we're in the proverbial calm before the storm; Apple's pretty much shut down as they revamp their ordering system, everyone's slowed things down for the holidays, and Macworld Expo's just around the corner. That makes this the perfect time for everyone to speculate wildly about what Uncle Steve's got up his sleeve for next week's big keynote address. Seems like everyone and his grandmother's got an idea about potential surprises that Apple might be planning to spring on all of us. After all, what's an Expo without at least one big shocker?

Of course, the uncontested champions of off-the-wall Expo predictions would have to be the kind gents over at Mac OS Rumors. The interesting thing right now, though, is that they aren't so much predicting what will happen, but rather that something will happen. They recently posted a report of almost ridiculously stringent security measures being set up at the print shop where Apple was having their Expo materials made. If these reports are true, Apple actually hired armed guards to stand watch over the shop while the materials were being printed. These guards were hired to keep everyone out of the shop-- including the store's employees-- so as to prevent any possibility of a leak about what was in those mysterious "Expo materials." Intriguing.

So what's the big surprise? Could it be anything as mundane as the new Yosemite Macs? Not that those machines are mundane, but it's no secret that Apple is doing everything it can to ensure that when they are finally unveiled to the public next week, the funky blue design is a surprise to all. Would they go so far as to hire armed guards to protect that secret? Personally, we've got to think that there's something else brewing that's calculated to knock our socks off, but we're at a loss as to just what that could be. There's less than a week to wait before finding out, though...

While Mac OS Rumors is publishing tantalizing Expo-related tidbits from their unnamed and mysterious sources, we know that some of the more cautious among you would rather base your Expo predictions on information from more "official" sites. That's all well and good, as long as you keep in mind that "legitimate" news outlets are often not any more accurate than the rumors sites. That said, we can offer what might be a case in point revealed by O'Grady's PowerPage: they became aware of a page posted over at ZDNet which claims that Apple's new consumer laptop, the one we've all come to know by the codename "P1," will in fact be making its public debut at the Expo.

Now, ZDNet may not be the New York Times, but neither is it the Weekly World News. By that, we mean that ZDNet is presented more as a legitimate news source than as "just" a rumors site, so when they claim that the P1 will be a topic during Steve Jobs' keynote address, we assume that they're basing that assumption on something more concrete than, say, something they overheard at the corner deli. The interesting thing, though, is that this information directly contradicts what Steve Jobs himself said at the last keynote he delivered, at CAUSE98 a little while ago. In that presentation, he plainly stated that the P1 wouldn't surface until after the Expo. So was Steve just trying to prime us for a big surprise? Or has the P1 come along a lot faster than anyone expected? Or is ZDNet just plain wrong about the P1's role at next week's show?

Basically, it just goes to show how the line between "news" and "rumor" just keeps getting blurrier-- especially when you're dealing with a company like Apple, who's always just so full of surprises. Between Apple's secrecy and security, and the alleged "misinformation campaigns" they use to feed false info to the media and to track down leaks, AtAT's personal philosophy is that anything you hear about Apple-- from any source-- is rumor, until it actually happens. And maybe for a little while afterwards. And possibly into perpetuity. Basically, skepticism is healthy; but that's not going to keep us from seeing visions of Expo-bound P1s dancing in our heads. Dreaming is healthy, too, ya know.