You may think that our recent sporadic broadcast schedule (and, as you well know, we're using the word "schedule" so loosely it's bound to fall off and roll behind the fridge if you look at it cross-eyed) is all sunshine and puppy dogs at this end. After all, if we're producing fewer shows, we must be doing less work, right? In reality, though, production of AtAT at a less-than-daily frequency presents its own challenges that tend to bleed away some of the expected time-savings. The main problem is that stuff happens out there in Apple-Land-- big, dramatic, and even semi-important stuff-- and we don't have time to do a scene about it. So it's never officially appeared on the show before, which means that in subsequent episodes, we can't refer to said big, dramatic, semi-important stuff without someone calling for the heads of our script editor and continuity supervisor on sticks. (Luckily, to the best of our knowledge, neither of those staff members actually exists, and thus no one's feelings get stepped on when the nitpickers get a-pickin' at them nits.)

Fortunately, though, our recent descent to hitherto unplumbed depths of sleep deprivation has spontaneously yielded a fairly simple solution-- namely, that these days we care even less about plot, continuity, intelligibility, etc. than we used to, and boy howdy, that's saying something. We now feel that such things are decadent luxuries meant only for those pampered producers who still remember what it's like to have gotten more than forty consecutive minutes' sleep at a time, and therefore those properties no longer play any official role here. So, at least in some ways, we've pretty much been reduced to being the collective Ed Wood of the online Apple-oriented soap scene. Luckily, we're perfectly comfortable with that, even though we still shun Angora.

There are some things, though, we just can't let pass without at least a little bit of proper exposition. In particular, we're referring to all that dust that got kicked up recently about potential insider trading abuses occurring in Apple's upper echelons of power. Even though it's technically old news by now, vague and unfounded allegations of executive impropriety are our bread and butter, baby, and if ever there was an Associated Press story just begging to become AtAT plot-fodder, it was that one last Friday broadly hinting that Apple bigwigs had intentionally offloaded massive blocks of AAPL just prior to surprise stock-scuttling earnings warnings not once, but twice in the past couple of years. Analysts contacted for the article refer to the trades as "well-timed" (wink, wink) and "a bit suspicious" (say no more). Apple, for its part, had money czar Fred Anderson trot out a brief written statement to the effect that "no executive would have exercised options had they believed we would not meet our original guidance for the quarter." Of course, since Fred was one of the recent sellers as we mentioned a few weeks back, some people are still going to be going "hmmmm."

Now, we're going to skip the whole "We Told You So" dance, because if we had actually been serious last month when we made those references to an imminent Apple stock plunge, our own portfolio wouldn't be gasping on life support right now. What we would like to say, though, is this: it's awfully nice to know that when we're not around to take what is probably a simple coincidence and twist it into a dark and sinister conspiracy whose strings are pulled by shadowy figures in the halls of power, at least the Associated Press will step up to the plate. Seriously, they did a commendable job; not only did they get a couple of analysts to admit vague suspicions with no actual proof of wrongdoing, but they also managed to work in a mention of the SEC (albeit only to say that "the SEC would not comment") and some utterly shameless and alarmist comparisons to corporate baddies Enron and WorldCom. Seriously, we couldn't have done better ourselves, and we feel much better knowing that there are others are out there to take up our slack.

(Oh, and Fred? Make sure you shred all the evidence, okay?)

Want another Log o' Suspicion to toss on your own personal bonfire dedicated to the Great Apple Executive Pre-Earnings Warning Stock Sell-Off Conspiracy Scandal? (And really, what red-blooded Mac-obsessed drama freak doesn't want more fuel to keep the flame of their GAEPEWSSOCS roaring?) Just consider the spate of teensy new distractions issuing forth from Cupertino over the course of the past few days. Sure, few of them are even full-blown announcements, but it's just enough semi-newsworthy stuff to attract the attention of the Mac-centric media while distracting the hordes from looking too closely at that whole stock-sale brouhaha. It's reaching, yes, but if reason and rational thought have your belief in an Apple insider trading scandal starting to sputter, we figure this is a decent way to get the fires burning again.

First, consider Monday's new promotion: Check the savings. It's nothing earth-shattering, mind you; just modest discounts on software ranging from Office v.X to Toast 5 Titanium to GoLive 6.0 to Spider-Man (and even deals on some hardware like speaker systems and cable/DSL routers) for anyone who buys a new Mac or a copy of Mac OS X and the applicable third-party products by October 15th. Pretty tame stuff, but anyone reading about the new promotion at, say, MacCentral isn't reading about how half of Apple's board of directors sold a ton of company stock shortly before that earnings warning nuked the share price.

Not buying it? Well, how about the new "Real People" commercials that debuted this week? Apple added two more to the mix over the weekend-- faithful viewer Casey Kelley caught the David Carey ("I'm a magazine publisher") one on MTV on Sunday, and notes that both it and the new Juan Proaño ("I'm a budget manager") one appeared on Apple's site at some point on Monday night. Obviously Apple rushed these out in hopes of prompting John "My Mother Never Hugged Me Enough" Dvorak to hurl personal insults at the two new switchers, and thus shifting the Mac media's focus away from any alleged financial improprieties that may have been committed by Apple executives, and toward Dvorak's raging and deep-seated inferiority complex.

Still not convinced? Then consider the list of stores on Apple's retail page, which hadn't been updated in months-- until yesterday, that is. Faithful viewer Guacamole pointed out that the long-awaited mondo-huge SoHo store has finally shown up in the "Coming Soon" slot, with a posted grand opening date of July 18th, coinciding with the Macworld Expo. Isn't it interesting that it's just showing up now? While there have been exceptions, Apple doesn't typically list stores as "Coming Soon" until about one week before the opening. And there's also the somewhat suspicious circumstance that faithful viewer John W. spotted the SoHo listing on Friday, when it anomalously surfaced briefly as Apple web elves apparently tinkered behind the scenes in preparation for the "real" posting. Friday, you will recall, was when the Apple stock story started to heat up. Interesting, no?

Okay, so none of this is damning evidence of a massive attempted cover-up, so you're going to have to use your imagination if you want this to bolster your paranoid conspiracy fantasies about widespread illegal insider trading among Apple's top executives. Hey, no one ever said that belief comes easy...