Heads up, hardcore Disney-Apple conspiracy theorists; you may suddenly have a much tougher time crafting your elaborate scenarios of collusion between Steve's gang and the minions of Walt. Rumors that Disney would buy Apple outright have been making the rounds since the "Steamboat Willie" days, though of course, so far that unholy alliance has yet to gel-- "still in the planning stages," as the true believers might put it. However, there have been visible signs of corporate friendliness between Apple and Disney over the past few years, due in no small part to Uncle Steve's tightrope act of heading up two companies. Pixar may pretty much run itself, but Steve's still the figurehead, and since Pixar's in bed with Disney, when Steve's other company needs to, say, debut a certain minute-long black-and-white Richard Dreyfuss-narrated commercial, when better than during the network broadcast premiere of Pixar's Toy Story on the Disney-owned ABC? You get our drift.

However, faithful viewer KillSwitch had to go and throw a monkey wrench into the whole situation by pointing out a rather puzzling CNET article. It seems that when the Mouse was looking to buy a slew of computers, rather than buddy up to good ol' Steve for some kickin' hardware in whimsical Disney-friendly industrial designs, the company instead inked a deal with none other than Compaq. Reportedly the "three-year, $100 million deal" officially dubs Compaq the "preferred technology provider" of the Magic Kingdom's Internet division; Disney's web sites will all be run on Compaq servers. Now, given the fact that the server-friendly Mac OS X isn't actually out yet, if the deal were just for servers, we could almost understand Disney's decision to skip Apple and talk to Compaq-- but the deal also specifies "desktop computers and laptops" to fuel the various Disneyites throughout the rank and file of the corporation. Which means that instead of happily bonding with gorgeous Ruby iMac DVs, Disney personnel are going to have to tool along on some decidedly unmagical-looking Deskpros or something.

As for what Disney gets in return for using Compaq's blah hardware, the Big Q agrees to "buy ads on Disney-owned web sites." It's all about the clicks, baby. So is Steve huddled deep in an underground Cupertino bunker, raging at the treachery of those flubs at Disney and plotting his revenge? Will he somehow attempt to strongarm the conscientious magicians at Pixar into intentionally making Monsters, Inc. a flop purely out of spite? Just how cold do they keep Walt's cryogenically-frozen head, anyway? All will be revealed to the patient and stout of heart...

One classic sign of a Mac industry on a downward slide is the sudden disappearance of one or more print publications. Remember when MacWEEK decided to go online-only? Remember when MacUser was bought by and assimilated into Macworld? Scary times, indeed. But this is the Digital Age, yadda yadda yadda, so when online publications start closing up shop, is that a symptom of these currently rough waters for Apple, or is it just another dotcom shakeout? Or does it even mean anything special at all?

We speak, of course, of the shakeup over at MacAddict.com; perhaps you've already noticed Rich Pizor's farewell posted at the site, in which the intrepid content dude makes it worryingly clear that he's been flat-out laid off. Even more ominous is his assertion that "there's going to be some changes with MacAddict.com." And if you want the big dose of angst, head on over to MacSlash and read how Rich wasn't the only one who got a pink slip for Christmas; reportedly "the entire MacAddict.com staff" got the axe.

Quick sanity check, here-- we're talking expressly about MacAddict.com, not MacAddict magazine. The pleasantly-weird-smelling, CD-ROM-packing, mostly-irreverent print edition escapes unscathed, so don't go fretting over your subscription or anything. However, the future of the web site appears to be a big question mark right about now. Noting AtAT's affiliation with MacAddict.com, faithful viewer Stiv wrote in to ask us for "the 411, the dill'yo, the buzz, the word about what's going on" over there, but unfortunately, there's wasn't much we could tell him, because as of broadcast time, we still hadn't heard anything first-hand from the MacAddict.com folks ourselves. Maybe we're just naturally pessimistic, but that fact in itself strikes us as at least noteworthy, if not downright portentous.

Whether or not you were a fan of the site, a full-on MacAddict.com shutdown probably means bad news. For one thing, it may well be an indication that the Mac market is indeed getting gnarly again-- maybe not 1996-1997 gnarly, but gnarly nonetheless. For another, AtAT relies on MacAddict.com for sending viewers and ad revenue our way, so in a worst-case scenario, the producers of this show may have to resort to eating (choke) generic Tater Tots. It's a tragedy, we know, but like we said before, we still haven't heard anything official about the future of MacAddict.com, so don't go calling Sally Struthers to shoot a tearful commercial at the AtAT studios just yet. If we wind up having to choose between heating oil and cable TV, trust us, you'll hear about it.

Speaking of Apple's return to the doom and gloom of yesteryear, does anyone else think it's interesting that the last time Apple got beat up so hard so consistently in the press, the company lost a billion dollars in a year? For Apple to get tagged as "beleaguered" again when it's still profitable and growing seems just a little disproportionate to the circumstances. Then again, at least it beats more election coverage, so who are we to complain? Anyway, in these troubled times, our day wouldn't be complete without at least one tech-industry article about the ever-deepening sinkhole in Cupertino. On that front, CNET never fails to satisfy; in the wake of Gateway's earnings warning and stock meltdown yesterday, the site published an article about-- curiously enough-- nastiness ahead for Compaq and Apple. Hey, why not? Share the pain!