Not all traditions are warm and fuzzy, but at least the painful ones hold the potential for high drama. In recent months it's become customary (sad as that may be) for Steve Jobs to assemble his minions and "talk things out" following an earnings warning or a disappointing quarter. These so-called "communications meetings" provide an open forum in which concerned employees can ask questions, and Steve can answer them while bombarding the entire Apple workforce with Reality Distortion Field energy tuned to minimize resignations at a time when employee stock options are about as appealing as a coupon for a free stabbing and compound limb fracture at any area Walmart.

Now, since the circumstances necessitating the third and most recent communications meeting are particularly frightful-- it's tough to laugh off an expected $250 million quarterly loss-- we were rather hoping that some real fireworks might have erupted during Uncle Steve's Pacification Ceremony. At the very least, we figured that scads of questions from frightened employees might lead Steve to reveal a little something secret about Apple's upcoming plans, which might then in turn be leaked by any aspiring Worker Bees still in Apple's employ. So it was with a hopeful eye that we cast our glance towards The Register's mole-leaked coverage of the inner-sanctum event... only to be woefully disappointed.

What we found was a quote from Steve regarding Apple's mishandling of the education market: "We screwed up in education... Dell didn't earn the crown-- we gave it to them." We also noted Steve's insistence that Apple is "working really hard to clear the channel for several new products over the next several months." He also alluded to two upcoming "iMovie-like" applications (though he declined to elaborate), and talked about the company "missing the boat" on CD-RW. Tossed together lightly and served hot, those nuggets might have made a tasty meal; unfortunately, it's really all just warmed-over leftovers from Steve's conference call a couple of days ago. Why on earth would Apple moles leak information we can all hear for ourselves via the magic of QuickTime?

Sadly, it seems that Go2Mac's coverage of the meeting is almost as bare, but starving for scraps as we were, we pounced upon the one potentially new bit of information in the lot: reportedly Steve "alluded to a totally new product category being announced soon." While that's probably just the portable analog of the Cube, which everyone and his grandmother has been expecting ever since Steve expanded Apple's product grid to six squares last summer, the news that it'll be announced "soon" at least gives us hope that we'll see something very new come next month's Stevenote. Hey, it's something, right?

Apple's massive push to reduce channel inventory continues, as the clock runs down and the end of the calendar year approaches like a runaway freight train. When last we heard, the company had about eleven weeks' worth of gear out there, and clearing the channel for 2001 is a Herculean task; whether or not you buy Steve's "global economic slowdown" theory, there's no denying that consumers just aren't up for buying personal computers this holiday season. To get those Macs off the shelves and into people's homes, Apple has evidently been channeling Lucy Ricardo in a desperate bid to try scheme after scheme, hoping that something will stick.

Perhaps the most conservative (and widely-reaching) strategy so far has been "Rebate Madness." Anyone who keeps up with Apple's promotions page is well aware that the company has been introducing mail-in rebate programs roughly at the rate of two an hour. Currently customers can get checks back for buying a PowerBook, or for purchasing a Power Mac G4, or for taking home one of those poor, maligned Cubes together with an Apple display. Add more RAM at the Apple Store and get even more cash mailed to you. And if you're the Microsoft Office type, there's a rebate for you, too.

But a plethora of rebates simply isn't cutting the mustard, if Apple's other sales incentives are any indication. According to MacCentral, Apple's latest scheme was to email $150 electronic coupons to several of the Apple Store's best customers. (AtAT didn't qualify, having purchased only the Mac OS X public beta in the past year. "Bad consumer! No coupon!") The offer purports to be celebrating the Apple Store's third anniversary by awarding big-ticket buyers with a "thank you gift," but anyone who believes that thinly-veiled excuse instead of regarding the program as a last-ditch end-of-quarter push to move product (even when faced with the coupon's oh-so-convenient December 19th expiration date) should probably reduce the dosage on those gullibility supplements.

And if the "let's mail coupons to big spenders who bought Macs at the Apple Store in the past" strategy doesn't reek of desperation, how about free polar fleece with every order? Well, okay, not every order, but as faithful viewer Michael informed us, the Apple Store for Education Individuals is offering a "free Apple logo polar fleece sweatshirt" with any build-to-order Mac system. And-- surprise, surprise-- the offer is only valid until December 31st. Personally, we're holding out for the inevitable "Buy a Mac by the end of the year and Steve Jobs will clean your garage" promotion, ourselves.

There's been a lot of speculation and analysis about just what went wrong to derail Apple's success story. Some people primarily blame the Cube for being overpriced and lacking a clear target market. Others focus on Apple's stubborn refusal to ship Macs with CD-RW drives. Still others think the company's decline is due mostly to the ever-widening "megahertz gap." Well, we're here to settle the issue once and for all, because recently we've come across some additional evidence which clearly reveals the real cause of Apple's decline: a lack of good sushi.

See, faithful viewer Ryan Ritchey was poking around Apple's job listings looking for a position in the company's PR department, but much to his surprise, when searching on the string "public relations," he turned up a listing for a Sushi Chef. Yes indeedy, Apple's searching for the perfect chef who can "deliver a high quality dining experience to all Apple employees." There's no indication of how long the position's been open, but we'd bet our universal remote control that the job's been vacant since shortly before Apple's September earnings warning. See? It all falls into place: Apple's woes are a direct result of the Great Sushi Famine of 2000 and the resulting nosedive in employee morale.

So if you're an insanely great sushi chef willing to exercise your art in the Santa Clara Valley for the good of Apple Computer and the Macintosh platform as a whole, then get out there and feed those employees. You should have at least "three years prior experience as a sushi chef in [an] upscale restaurant." You'll need "patience" and "tact" (presumably to offset Steve's own lack of same), as well as a healthy dose of "self-motivation and confidence." And you'll have to be able to lift 50 pounds. Do you have what it takes to rescue the Mac?