Hey! Where's our frickin' Mac OS 9? Apple assured us all that any new computers shipping after October 23rd would include the sparkly new operating system pre-installed on the hard drive, but what do we see when we start up our brand new iBook? You guessed it: "Welcome to Mac OS 8.6." Imagine the sad little frowns on our previously exuberant faces.

Not that we've got anything against Mac OS 8.6, mind you-- we think it's a fine operating system. And in fact, we don't find Mac OS 9's feature set all that compelling, for the most part; we aren't in any particular rush to upgrade most of our Macs. The iBook, however, is different. Since it's going to be a shared system, that new "multiple users" support will come in handy. But now, even though we bought the iBook weeks after Mac OS 9 first shipped, Apple wants us to shell out an additional $20 to get a copy of the operating system via the Mac OS Up-To-Date program. Da noive o' sum people! It's like buying a car and having to pay extra for air in the tires.

Suppose it was a fluke? Evidently not. According to MacInTouch, the only new Macs currently shipping with Mac OS 9 are PowerBooks. All other Macs-- iMacs, iBooks, and even Power Mac G4s-- are rolling off the assembly lines with Mac OS 8.6 instead. We haven't a clue as to why the PowerBooks are deemed worthy of Mac OS 9 while none of the other systems are; maybe Apple feels bad that it's the oldest product still in the line-up and wanted to compensate for the lack of AirPort compatibility by throwing in a newer operating system instead. But anyway, now the question is this: is the $19.95 Apple gets per Up-To-Date shipment really swallowed up entirely by the alleged "shipping and handling" fees, or is this some diabolical plan to put the squeeze on rabid Mac customers for an extra couple of sawbucks? Oh well, guess it's time to send in a check...

You can bet that Steve Jobs is doing a little Superior Dance right now. Sure, he may never have won Time's "Man of the Year" award, but at least now he can rightfully claim the honor of having beaten Bill Gates in someone's yearly list of movers and shakers. Faithful viewer Scott Nichols noted that Steve is Numero Uno in Upside Magazine's list of "Elite 100." They haven't posted the full list on their web site yet-- numbers 1 through 20 will be posted on Friday-- but if you have the dead tree edition of the December issue, you can read about Steve's coup right now.

As a MacCentral article notes, Steve's first-place finish is particularly cool because Gates finished second. Ooooh, that's gotta hurt. Poor Bill. Poor, poor Bill. Hey, Billy, are you gonna cry? Is widdle Billy-baby gonna start blubbering 'cause Big Bad Stevie stole the top spot? Awww, poor baby-- and all he's got to console himself is more money than most countries have and monopoly power over the biggest growth industry on earth... er, never mind. If Bill's at all upset over his second-place finish, he'll be right as rain after skeet-shooting a few Rembrandts and paying random people on the street twenty million dollars apiece to set their own pants on fire. (When you're that rich, it's easy to make your own entertainment.)

As for Steve, well, his stock's at an all-time high. We figure now's the time for him to throw his hat in the ring and jump right into the 2000 Presidential race. C'mon, he's got all the right qualities to win: he's a rich, white male; he's shown that he can take a once-solid but mismanaged company and make it insanely great again; his sins of the past are already common knowledge, thanks to TNT; and his Reality Distortion Field could secure him a victory by the widest margin in election history. Perhaps we should just start a write-in campaign, no?

Sorry, drama fans-- Bill Gates' latest keynote address at Comdex wasn't nearly as much fun as the one in April of last year when Windows 98 crashed hard during a demo of its "improved ease of use." (For those of you who'd like to take a side-trip down memory lane and relive that fine moment, the InfoWorld Electric article describing the event is still available.) This time around, pretty much all we got for our trouble was "Redmond Justice"-related. Let's count off the salient points, shall we? A handful of lame lawyer jokes. Lots of whining about how the government won't let Microsoft innovate. (Is it just us, or is the phrase "freedom to innovate" now officially more played out than even that whole "bridge to the twenty-first century" thing?) And in response to the scads of email and snail mail that Bill claims to have received in support of his company's glorious struggle for liberty, Bill squeezed out a "Thank you for your support," but with less stage presence than that old Frank Bartles guy in the wine cooler commercials from which he stole the line.

Well, okay, that's really not all that Bill had to say. He announced that "the PC has gone to new heights" and "will continue to do so." He showed off Windows 2000 by buying a car online from Ford's web site. (He should have bought it from Cyberian Outpost instead-- they have free overnight shipping.) He showed off some current and future Windows CE devices. And he starred in a video presentation spoofing such "hip" pop-cultural icons as Austin Powers and Judge Judy in a feeble attempt to relate. Now isn't it odd that the director cast Gates as Austin instead of Dr. Evil? Talking about casting against type...

But perhaps the most noteworthy bit of the keynote was brought to our attention by faithful viewer Lisa Boucher, who noted that in a Sm@rt Reseller article, Bill Gates is quoted as saying that Microsoft's underlying message is "choice." How's that for a fine bit of Newspeak? "'Code can run on a PC, Internet device or on a PC server as a service. You need one architecture' that lets developers write applications once that can run anywhere, he said." Uh, Bill? Remember that Java thingy you told your minions to crush underfoot? Uh-huh. So much for "write once, run anywhere." To paraphrase Henry Ford, "you can have any OS you want, as long as it sucks."