Oh, goody! It's been a while since the customers took matters into their own hands and protested an Apple decision/policy/boneheaded move-- we mean actually protested, in the grand old flower-power sense of the word, with signs and marches and catchy slogans and all that fun stuff. Why, the last Apple protest we can recall would be when the Newton user community assembled outside Apple HQ to condemn the deep-sixing of its PDA of choice, back in March of 1998. Those viewers at home who were hoping to satiate their bloodlust by watching Apple security guards in riot gear spray the crowd with rubber bullets as foaming Newton fanatics hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at One Infinite Loop were sorely disappointed; long-time viewers will recall that the Newton protest was an almost disturbingly laid-back affair, with Apple actually providing space in the parking lot for the seventy Newton vets, and supplying them with refreshments. Suppose the Democratic or Republican Parties gave their protesters donuts and coffee? Yeah, right.

Anyway, now there's a new Apple protest brewing, but this one has more potential for fireworks. Faithful viewer Jens Baumeister pointed us squarely in the direction of a Mac Observer article which outlines a scheme by some activist group calling itself "The Expo Protest Team." (Okay, so it doesn't have the same pizzazz as "The Black Panthers" or "Silhouette." Take it up with them; we just work here.) Apparently the plan is to interrupt Steve's keynote with another speech-- one that aims to make Apple aware of its "growing arrogance and its failure to recognise the loyalty of its most loyal users who stuck by the company through the dark years."

Disrupting the Stevenote? Hey, we're all for freedom of expression and civil disobedience and all that, but you have to draw the line somewhere. As far as methods of protest go, we rank "depriving thousands of Mac fans of the uninterrupted Glory of Steve" just slightly less drastic than setting oneself on fire in the street. What horrible crimes has Apple committed that could justify such terrifying tactics? According to The Expo Protest Team, the main issues are these: "legal strong arm tactics against various web sites and individuals"; "Apple's treatment of its European customers and in specific its UK customers"; and Apple's aforementioned "growing arrogance" and "failure to recognise the loyalty" yadda yadda yadda.

Now, maybe it's just us, but personally, with only a very few exceptions, we find Apple's legal actions generally okay-- the lawyers themselves could perhaps stand a few weeks in charm school, but most of their demands and actions seem appropriate nonetheless. (Then again, we haven't received a cease-and-desist letter yet.) And on the last point, that stuff about Apple not appreciating the users who stuck by the company through the "dark years," well, shucks-- we're some of those users (we started this soap opera, didn't we?), and we feel that, for the most part, Apple's treated us just fine. What was the middle thing? Oh yeah, Apple's treatment of the UK Mac community. Well, that we can't defend, because the UK users have really taken it on the chin in recent years. But still, disrupting a Stevenote? Say it ain't so. Perhaps the effort will fizzle like Power Computing's attempted "We Demand Choice" protest at the Stevenote in Boston in 1997. RDF on stun!

Oh, to recapture the heady optimism of youth! There once was a time (back at the beginning of the sixteenth century) when your friendly neighborhood AtAT staff was young enough to believe that Santa might leave a pony under the tree come Christmas morn, and that the Tooth Fairy was some goofy winged chick who really had a thing for cast-off dental appendages. Try as we might, though, without some serious psychotropic drugs, these days we find it well-nigh impossible to believe in leprechauns, the Easter Bunny, and PowerBook G4s due by next week.

But apparently some people still hold out hope that an Apple PowerBook with a fire-breathing G4 at its core might still make a public appearance as early as next week's Apple Expo keynote. Mac OS Rumors, for instance, claims that Apple's still playing "to show, or not to show" when it comes to taking the wraps off the thing. The deciding factor is said to be whether or not Apple likes what it sees when Motorola issues its progress report on how far it's come with cranking out lower-power silicon-on-insulator G4 and G4e chips-- ones that can be run in a laptop without melting its case or yielding a battery life of about twenty seconds.

Personally, we figure the chance of catching a glimpse of a PowerBook G4 at next week's Expo is roughly on par with that of Steve dropping his pants and mooning the European crowd on a dare from Larry Ellison. Actually, scratch that-- Steve's still got that "a surprise every ninety days" initiative, and maybe he's got a nifty new tattoo he'd like to share with us. Regardless, when it comes to new stuff next week, we see it this way: Mac OS X Public Beta? Of course. New iBook? Almost definitely. New PowerBooks? Pretty likely. PowerBooks with G4s in them? Not a chance. (Note to Apple: Please prove our skeptical selves wrong, wrong, wrong.)

Consider this a public service announcement; there are only four days left until the next of Apple's famed "Demo Days" events, and apparently the effort is seriously understaffed. According to MacCentral, an "unidentified source" reports that MarketSource, the company that Apple hired to throw together these shindigs, is embroiled in a "desperate search" to rustle up staffers willing to demonstrate Macs at Circuit City stores this coming Sunday. If you're a "people person," you know your way around the Mac, and you're willing to sacrifice a Sunday to the almighty and benevolent gods in Cupertino, take a gander at MacCentral's looong list of as-yet-unmanned stores to see if you're needed at a Circuit City near you.

Sad to say, while the Burlington, MA location is a mere fifteen-minute drive from the AtAT Studios, unfortunately we're... uh... washing our hair that day. And anyway, we're not quite right for the job. Oh, sure, we know Macs, and we know how to sell them-- we've persuaded dozens of people to buy them over the course of the past several years. But the last time we considered volunteering for Demo Days, we were stopped cold by the dress code, which actually required that all participants wear dress shoes to the store. No offense to MarketSource, but personally, we'd never take computer advice from a guy in dress shoes. Real geeks wear sneakers. Or sandals. Or they just go barefoot. This absurd "dress shoes only" requirement may have changed since then, but if it hasn't, does "Barefoot Steve" know about it?

Then there's the issue of compensation-- meaning, cash. Apparently volunteers for this Sunday's gig will be paid $75 for eight hours of work. Granted, that's more than minimum wage, but frankly, most of the Mac-savvy, customer-friendly people who would actually be worth putting out there on the sales floor could earn more money working at their Macs for an hour or two than by standing around under fluorescent lights all day. In dress shoes, to boot. If MarketSource is really so "desperate" to fill those 168 vacant Demo Days slots, one would think they'd pony up more dough.

So let's recap: if you're a Mac-savvy "people person" who's willing to spend eight hours of your Sunday standing around in uncomfortable shoes and chatting to passers-by about Apple's current product line, all in exchange for $75 (and hopefully a free shirt), by all means, volunteer your services and do Apple a favor. Unfortunately, we've got way too much on our plate to sacrifice that large a chunk of time and sanity right now; maybe next time around. Provided we can wear comfy shoes, of course...