Alas, those of us with a heavy-duty thirst for sleazy antitrust drama may be sorely disappointed as the "Cupertino Justice" story unfolds. Rather than living up to its soap-operatic potential, the epic saga of Apple's alleged price fixing activities and the resulting clash with the Japanese government is getting off to a decidedly undramatic start. In fact, the show's only in its second day and already it's shaping up to be less of an epic saga and more of a wholesome hour of family entertainment. It's like some sort of twisted anti-Sweeps nightmare or something.

A few more details came to light today, as official Apple spokeswoman Rhona Hamilton made some on-the-record comments regarding yesterday's reported office raid. According to a CNNfn story, Hamilton admitted that, yes, the Japanese FTC did in fact make an unscheduled appearance in Apple Japan's Tokyo offices yesterday, but rather than try to defend its walls against the marauders, Apple welcomed them with cheery smiles and open arms: "We are offering our full cooperation, and we are confident that Apple's business practices are both within the law and exemplary," says Ms. Hamilton. We imagine she then went on to offer reporters some warm muffins and hot chocolate as she delivered a stern but loving lecture on the dangers of talking to strangers. Either that or she had to bail early for her "Touched By An Angel" audition. I mean, come on-- "exemplary"? Where's the outraged denials? Where's the indignant condemnation of fascistic governmental intrusion? Throw us a bone, here.

In fact, even Wall Street was unfazed by the one piece of good dirt in the otherwise yawn-worthy affair: that Apple is suspected of "threatening to suspend shipments" of Macs to resellers who refuse to keep prices above the Minimum Advertised Price. The Street reacted not with an AAPL price plummeting in a death spiral, but with an increase of nearly two points and a new all-time high. So much for drama and intrigue. Then again, maybe Wall Street's reacting favorably to the possibility that, when it comes to back-room bullying, Apple is more like Microsoft than we all once thought. There's still hope for this Pollyanna story to take a drastically wrong turn, so we're not giving up hope just yet.

Now, for antitrust sleaze done right, the real addicts know they need look no further than "Redmond Justice." For years, now, Microsoft has provided the very best in antitrust entertainment, with the company's own special gourmet blend of shocking anticompetitive behavior, singular incompetence in covering it up, and truly awe-inspiring guts in ever attempting such baldfaced violations in the first place. Heck, we rank Microsoft's monopolistic practices even higher than the legendary deeds of the DeBeers diamond cartel in terms of sheer breadth, scope, and chutzpah.

And that's what keeps us tuning in, even though the government's lawsuit against Bill Gates and his team has slowed down considerably ever since the dizzying roller coaster ride of witness testimony. Ever since the last witness left the stand, the show's been more about lawyers arguing on paper than tech bigwigs duking it out in the courtroom. Still, there have been high points, like when Judge Jackson issued his landmark "findings of fact" which made it clear that Microsoft was in hot water coming to a slow boil. It's the possibility of drama like that which had us excited about the government's "proposed conclusions of law" brief, filed yesterday.

Sadly, there wasn't a whole lot in the government's brief to shock or surprise us. While it was nice to read the summary of the government's points in the San Jose Mercury News, we all pretty much already knew what the arguments would be: that Microsoft violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by trying to kill off potential competitors like Netscape and Sun in just about every way possible. No, what we're really waiting for is Microsoft's legal conclusions, which will somehow attempt to argue that all the nasty things they've been shown to have done are perfectly legal and fair game. That oughta be good for a few hoots and hollers. Microsoft's deadline is January 17th, so circle your calendars and pray there isn't a settlement before then. After all, we sure wouldn't want to miss this.

Wake the kids and phone the neighbors, 'cause we've got another Repeat Rumor sighting! Those of you playing the Repeat Rumors Drinking Game, take a gulp-- O'Grady's PowerPage says that an Apple-branded PDA may surface at next month's Macworld Expo. How many major Apple events has it been, now, at which we've heard we'd finally get to see this elusive and amorphous Apple/Palm/Newton-replacement? Seven? Eight? But this rumor's got more staying power than the Energizer Bunny on crystal meth.

Not that we're doubting the PowerPage or its sources; on the contrary, we find ourselves desperate to believe that this next keynote's The One. We have every hope that Uncle Steve will stroll out on stage nonchalantly sipping his $4 bottled water, go through his whole spiel about how great Apple's doing, start walking off stage, and then casually stop and announce "one more thing..." And we're willing to believe that, finally, Steve will proclaim that Apple's licensed the Palm OS and expects to have fruit-flavored, AirPort-enabled, Palm-powered "MacMates" on store shelves within a few weeks. It could happen, right? Right? (Don't step on our buzz.)

Look, whether you believe it or not, it's noteworthy that the Apple-Palm rumors continue unabated, even though so far we've had almost nothing to show for it. Repeat rumors are the mainstay of the Apple rumor mill, and they should be treated with the reverence and respect they deserve. Now all we need is a resurfacing of that Disney-Apple buyout rumor and the folks playing the drinking game can get well and truly plastered...