Okay, we're going to have to start getting sick on purpose a few times a year, because it just never fails: when we're fighting to keep our heads above a rising tide of mucus (or we're otherwise unable to broadcast, because we're dealing with, say, a wedding or a newborn or an out-of-control hyperdimensional snake infestation), that's when all the drama comes seeping out of the woodwork. Take, for example, the long-dormant Teen Switcher Intrigue plot: the last significant event took place months ago, when Ellen Feiss and Hamilton Morris declared Jeremiah Cohick to be their nemesis, and we posited that Jeremiah might need to join forces with newcomer Alex Schoknecht in order to ward off a joint Feiss-Morris attack.

Well, evidently said Marvel Team-up never happened, because the MacObserver reports that Cohick wrapped up Macworld Expo last week with what should have been a relaxing aerial tour of San Francisco-- except that the helicopter in which he was flying sort of, um, crashed. And not in the "kernel panic" sense of the word, but rather in the "flames, screaming, lives cut tragically short as searing chunks of twisted metal turn flesh into hamburger" sense of the word. Well, okay, no, not quite that sense of the word either, since, according to Cohick's own weblog, thanks to a water landing and the competent attention of the U.S. Coast Guard, the crash didn't actually involve grievous mayhem so much as a mild scare and a complete and total lack of injury.

Now, while some of you may suspect otherwise, despite our reliance on a steady stream of melodrama to keep the Apple turning over here, we swear that we were relieved-- rather than disappointed-- to learn that Jeremiah escaped said incident with nary a scratch. That's because we here at the AtAT compound are all enlightened and peace-loving individuals who wish harm upon no living creature (except perhaps a couple of individuals in Redmond, and even then we're only talking about small potatoes stuff like dandruff and maybe chronic jock itch). Of course, there's also the teensy little fact that Cohick's survival guarantees ensuing drama far more satisfying than if he had simply gone foom.

Think about it: Jeremiah clearly never took the threat of the Feiss-Morris alliance seriously, or else Alex Schoknecht would have been on hand to guard the copter against what was obviously an act of Feissian sabotage. Now, though, you can bet that a quick howdy-do by his own mortality will have Cohick sitting up and taking notice. Indeed, unless TV and Hollywood action films have lied to us all these years (perish the thought!), Cohick is even now plotting his cold, exacting revenge. So the question now is, will an Uzi-toting Schoknecht be the instrument of Cohickian retribution?

Hey, do us a favor, willya? We're gearing up for the Online Soap Opera Union Local 654th's annual talent show, and the competition's looking pretty fierce this year-- we hear that the team from "Days of Our Lemurs" is going to be juggling live stoats while yodeling. That means we need to really wow the judges if we're going to have even the slightest chance of winning; we need as much preparation as we can get, so we'd like your opinion of the Microsoft impression we've been working on. Ready? Ahem...

"Hey, look at us, we're a massive software monopoly that actually had the gall to try to settle about $12.5 billion worth of private antitrust lawsuits by offering to give free software away to public schools. In other words, we figured a judge would find it perfectly fair that we could atone for our wanton abuses of monopoly power by extending our monopoly into one of the few markets we hadn't yet completely assimilated, at little to no out-of-pocket cost to us. Unfortunately, said judge wasn't buying it, but it's been a little over a year since we gave that a shot, so we're trying to pull the exact same stunt again-- because we think everybody on the planet that isn't actually us is dumber than a juggled stoat. In fact, we're sure of it; 95% of the population uses Windows, right?

"Oh, and our CEO looks and acts like a shaved ape with a glandular condition and our richest-guy-in-the-world chairman of the board evidently gets his hair cut for free at the local beauty school for the blind."

Whaddaya think? Pretty convincing, right? We mean the impression, of course, and not the whole "let's extend our monopoly to atone for our sins" argument, since that spiel is clearly about as convincing as Keanu Reeves in the role of a physicist who manages to outpace a nuclear blast on his motorcycle. For those of you who don't remember that whole proposed "soak the schools with Windows" settlement, the most important bits to keep in mind are that 1) Microsoft is shameless, shameless, shameless; and 2) Apple was so aghast at the possibility that Redmond might actually get away with something like that, Steve Jobs actually spoke out publicly against it. In the end, it turned out that Judge Motz had more than the requisite six brain cells necessary to see through Microsoft's scam, and he duly killed the deal.

But like we said, after waiting a year (because surely no one can remember anything for that long!), Microsoft is trying the same tack again-- and Apple is once against fighting it. According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft's latest spin on the game is to pay $1.1 billion in vouchers (valued at $5 to $29 apiece) to consumers who were affected by Microsoft price-fixing. These vouchers could then be used "to buy computer hardware or software that aren't necessarily made by Microsoft." So far, so good, right? Well, yeah-- except that the value of any unused vouchers gets split: one-third goes right back to Microsoft, and two-thirds go "to California public schools serving low-income students," and fully half of those donated funds must be used to purchase Microsoft products. In other words, another third goes right back to Microsoft indirectly, plus the company gets to boost its market share in the public school system.

So, in what's becoming a tradition of sorts, Apple once again issued a public statement noting that this settlement proposal is tantamount to punishing a convicted arsonist by buying him a sundae and requiring that, from now on, he only set fire to schools. Well, okay, maybe Apple didn't say it in exactly those words; it was more along the lines of how the judge "should not allow [Microsoft] to unfairly compete in education, one of the few remaining markets where they don't have monopoly power." Same diff, though. Here's hoping the judge once again has at least six functioning neurons upstairs. Now pardon us, we have a lot of rehearsal to get through if we're going to have a chance at that First Place cup and the gift certificate for Bennigan's...

Say, remember all that pre-Expo rumbling about how Apple was planning to start charging for iDVD 3, iPhoto 2, and iMovie 3? Well, as you know, those three products were unveiled during last week's Stevenote, and the only one that'll actually cost anything is iDVD 3; both iPhoto 2 and iMovie 3 will be available as free downloads once the software is released in a couple of weeks, and the main reason why iDVD 3 won't be downloadable right alongside them is because it's just so frickin' huge. iDVD 3-- along with the other two products and the previously-released iTunes 3-- will be available for $49 as the boxed "iLife" suite later this month.

You may recall that the hint that Apple might start charging for its iApps the same way it started charging for its previously-free iTools service sent some Mac fans into fits of apoplexy. So was it a whole lot of teeth-gnashing over nothing? Well, yeah, but only barely; according to Think Secret, Apple really was planning to charge for the latest and greatest versions of its digital hub applications, and there's some pretty compelling evidence that Steve only changed his mind at the last minute. Author Jim Heid was granted prerelease access to the software in order to work on his forthcoming book, The Macintosh iLife; a preview of the book (one that was distributed by Apple itself on the show floor) notes clearly that "iTunes 3 is included with iLife, and remains freely downloadable from Apple's web site... iPhoto 2, iMovie 3, and iDVD 3 will not be downloadable." Verrrry interesting.

Indeed, if Think Secret's sources can be believed, it was that very moaning and wailing about the rumored charge for iMovie and iPhoto upgrades that prevented it from becoming reality. Reportedly El Steve-o was "surprised" by the "overwhelmingly negative" response to reports that users would have to fork over yet more cash to stay current; from this we can only deduce that Jobs has a certain blind spot when it comes to pattern-matching skills, unless Apple somehow received "overwhelmingly positive" feedback when it decided to charge for .Mac, when it made existing Mac OS X users buy the whole product again at full price just to upgrade to 10.2, etc. Whatever. The point is that Steve reportedly decided just four days before the keynote that he would make iPhoto 2 and iMovie 3 freely downloadable, and that his decision came due to a whole lot of complaining among the faithful. Who says whining never gets you anywhere?