We know these things are scheduled months in advance, and we know they're always clearly labeled as "tentative and subject to change," but when one gets rescheduled even by a single day, we just have to wonder if there's a big reason why. (Seems like we're reaching, doesn't it? Cut us some slack-- it's a slow news day.) We're talking about Apple's quarterly earnings results; according to AAPL Investors, the Q3 numbers were originally slotted for a July 19th unveiling, but as of Thursday, the event had been knocked back a day to the 18th instead. Was this move made to resolve a simple scheduling conflict, or is there a darker motive at work?

Turns out it's just a simple scheduling conflict-- plus some savvy marketing strategy. If you check your Apple-watcher's calendar, you'll notice that July 19th is circled in red. It also has giant arrows pointing to it from all directions, is sparkly with multicolored glitter, and includes a bright red button that activates a sound chip which plays a brass fanfare and the digitized voice of television's Burt Ward saying, "Holy public address system, Mac fans! It's the Steve Jobs Macworld Expo keynote!" Now, Steve's keynote always generates a ton of media attention and free publicity. Why waste another opportunity for free press coverage-- the quarterly results-- by scheduling them both on the same day? Plus, if Apple announces good results the day before Steve takes the stage, it gives him just one more thing to crow about as he struts his reality-distorting stuff. (And if, by some miracle, the results aren't so good, then Steve can work his spin-magic and get the crowd smiling again.) It's all just good sense.

Then again, we can't discount the fact that Steve might be pulling a bit of a prima donna act, too. After all, Keynote Day is his day; he doesn't need Fred "I Gots Da Money" Anderson stealing his thunder after the market closes. And if Steve shuffled the lineup a bit to ensure that he gets the spotlight, hey, who can blame him? We say, let him have his day. "Mr. Showbiz" must know what he's doing.

We know you're all down in the mouth following yesterday's disappointing revelation that AtAT is incompatible with The Dialectizer, meaning that you won't be able to watch this show in "Redneck" or "Jive." It gets worse, though; we've since discovered that AtAT (or, more accurately, WebSTAR) is also impervious to the search-and-replace magic of some other metafilter sites we'd like to use. Those fine folks over at The Dialectizer posted a whole page of them for us all to try, and we're très bummed to find that, in particular, "Zippy Meets Meta-HTML" refuses to pepper AtAT's already-disjointed prose with random quotes from everyone's favorite pinhead. (Although it sure does make Apple's page more interesting, in a wonderfully subtle way. Check out the copyright notice...)

But turn that frown upside down, Pouty-- there are some metafilter web sites that work with AtAT just fine. Seeing that we could use a little "churchin' up" around here, faithful viewers Damon Schreiber and Nordy both noted that AtAT filters swimmingly through Ask Jesus. Oh, sure, the churchifyin' process leaves our content disturbingly brightly-colored and jumbled up with all sorts of incongruous religious icons, but when last we tried it, it scores all kinds of points for having transformed the pedestrian phrase "the Army's home page" into the almost Zippyesque "The Whore's home donkey." Thumbs up!

But for real metafilter action, look no further than faithful viewer David Brender's suggestion: The T'inator. Yes, TV fans, you can now watch AtAT not as a tear-jerker soap opera, but as a rip-roaring action show starring none other than The A-Team's Mr. T. Not only is AtAT's carefully-worded prose transformed into "Barracaspeak," but it's also laced liberally with links to actual Mr. T. sound samples throughout. And, of course, the man's smiling visage plastered across the screen several dozen times is enough to warm any viewer's heart. I pity da fool who don't use a Mac!

Okay, kiddies, it's time to clear your summer schedule for the "Redmond Justice" vacation series. Those gleamy-toothed "Saved By The Bell" kids got hitched in Vegas, the Bradys were cursed in Hawaii, and now Microsoft and the Justice Department are off to the Supreme Court. Set your VCRs, because once those crazy litigants get outside of Judge Jackson's courtroom, who knows what wacky hijinx will ensue?

Of course, any wackiness that occurs will be happening at a rather glacial pace. The Register has the schedule: Microsoft is set to fire the opening shot, by filing a brief with the Supreme Court on July 26th. (Good timing-- Macworld Expo will be over, so we won't miss anything!) Then the government will have until August 15th to craft its reply, and Microsoft then has the option to reply to the reply-- by August 22nd. These filings will determine whether or not the Supreme Court will agree to hear the case. Only four justices have to say yes, so we fully expect this to proceed in the most dramatic way possible. After all, now that Jackson's agreed to suspend Microsoft's conduct remedies until the appeal is resolved, the highest court in the land has far less reason to kick the case back to the Court of Appeals, though anything can happen.

Reportedly, once all these briefs have been filed, it's likely to be "at least a month" before the Supreme Court announces yea or nay. That means we're looking at the end of September before the appeal actually goes before either the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court-- but that's only to be expected, because the show obviously wants to start its fall season with the start of the actual appeal itself. The whole summer season will be spent in suspense, as the fans await the resolution of this cliffhanger: Supremes or Appeals? Which court handles the appeal could well set the tone for the entire next season. Commence nail-biting now...