Don't forget, Windy City Mac fans: tonight marks the long-awaited grand opening of the Apple Store North Michigan Avenue, the first such retail paradise in Chicago-- or, as a non-English-speaking tourist once described the city to us, "Chicago! Bang-bang! Bang-bang!" Personally, we've never attended an evening opening before, so we're not at all sure of the lining-up protocol, but we're guessing there's probably at least a few Mac-heads who have been in line since early this morning, and if we had to guess, we'd surmise that tonight's shindig may indeed turn into a real hootenanny. Hey, who spiked the punch?

This is one of Apple's mondo huge "special" stores à la SoHo and The Grove, and besides being the first Apple store within the Chicago city limits (as opposed to being way out in the 'burbs like Woodfield and Oakbrook), the Magnificent Mile store boasts a couple of other notable features. We've mentioned this before, but the Chicago store contains Apple's first Internet Café; there's no word yet on what libations it'll offer (if any), but in our book, they'd better not go calling it a "café" if you can't get at least a decent double-shot. Plus, MacMinute points out that Chicago's store also has a class studio, a 40-foot Genius Bar (that's a whooooole lotta Genius!), and an "eco-friendly greenroof garden." Gol-ly. No wonder construction took over two years to complete. Just take a gander at these here photos.

Sadly, while the AtAT staff lists Chicago as one of its spiritual home towns, seeing as we're currently sweltering in a 99° heat index about a thousand miles away, we can't make it to the Michigan Avenue opening like we went to the Woodfield and Wauwatosa ones-- at least, we can't be there in person. But word has it that every Mac in the Internet Café is equipped with iChat AV and one of those spiffy new iSight cameras (actually, Apple's going to be giving away a bunch of 'em-- good luck!), so if you're going to be at the big event, consider trying to videoconference with us. We're hoping to be online and all videoed up as "AtAT" during at least part of the grand opening festivities, and with a little luck maybe we can join you there in a virtual fashion. Too bad you won't be able to IM us some decent pizza.

Next up, retail-wise: the grand opening of the Apple Store Boca Raton in Florida on July 3rd, as noted by faithful viewer hutchinator. Erm... Alligators! Theme parks! Really wild stuff! Or something.

Good news, Europe: you've been granted a reprieve! You've probably already heard that the iTunes Music Store won't be coming to your continent until later than Apple originally projected; The Independent recently reported that the rollout may even be delayed until sometime next year, due to "disputes between record companies and their artists over licensing." (Wow, so Windows users may get the iTMS before European Mac fans? Oh, the humanity...)

Well! Who'd have ever thought that any sort of legal issue would be quicker to resolve in the United States? Heck, even when disputes and negotiation never make it into actual litigation, slothlike progress in any type of legal process is practically as American as baseball, apple pie, and a firmly held conviction that anyone with the sheer unmitigated gall not to be born in the U.S. in the first place should at least have the decency to learn to speak English. (Including those funny-talking English guys, goldurnit!)

Anyway, as it turns out, musical artists in Europe typically have "different arrangements in each country over how much they are paid for a digital download," which kind of knocks Apple's whole "every song is 99 cents" system right on its hinder. Trying to administer a system in which individual songs cost different amounts of money in each European country sounds like a headache and a half (and we're getting all sorts of crazy mental images of, for instance, Londoners streaming into Paris with their PowerBooks to save sixty pence on the download of the latest Annie Lennox album). It's not an insurmountable problem, of course, but even Apple Europe bigwig Pascal Cagni now insists that "Euro iTMS" will not be online by September.

Which is why you've got what amounts to a stay of execution. Trust us, folks, the iTMS is evil in its simplicity and it's more addictive than crack. Heed our advice and take these extra iTMSless months to get your affairs in order and straighten out any potential financial snags, because it's only a matter of time before you, too, are still up at 4:30 AM, clicking "Buy Now" buttons at a feverish pace and muttering things like "I don't even like ABBA, but a 23-minute medley for [insert minuscule amount of European money here] is too good a bargain to pass up" and "I didn't even know that Sonic Youth had recorded a cover of Heart's 'Barracuda'!" You've been warned.

It's an age-old AtAT tradition to send you all off on your respective weekends with something to fume about, and what better to raise one's hackles than yet another instance of Microsoft getting away with something shifty? (The best part is, it happens at least once a week, so it's always a handy option. Thanks, Redmond!)

The latest in the saga of Microsoft's seventy-zillion antitrust suits comes courtesy of faithful viewer Peter Sachs, who gave us an update on that tussle with Sun over Java. You remember this one, right? Sun alleges that Microsoft included Java in Windows, but tainted it by failing to support all of Java's required features and by including its own Windows-only features, which essentially capsized Java's central strategy of "write once, run anywhere" software; developers who wrote Java code in Windows may well have wound up with software that would only run on Windows, while developers who wrote pure Java code might find that it ran on everything but Windows.

It wasn't exactly Microsoft's most subtle attempt to sink a competitor, but then, Microsoft has never been known for subtlety. (Just look at its user interfaces, for pity's sake.) Anyway, Sun sued, and Microsoft's reaction was to announce it was eliminating Java support from Windows altogether-- which, again, isn't exactly subtle either. Well, last year Judge Motz sided heavily with Sun and issued a preliminary injunction requiring that Microsoft include Java in Windows and comply with Java standards. Unfortunately, Microsoft appealed, and according to the Associated Press, a federal appeals court just voted 3-0 to overturn that ruling.

Note that this is only overturning a preliminary injunction, and it's not a final ruling in the case itself, but it still represents a serious setback for Sun in its attempt to prevent Java from being poisoned (or killed) on the vast majority of desktop computers. But that's how Microsoft plays the game; it's got all the time and money in the world, and it knows that for every Judge Jackson that'll kick its ass, there's a Judge Kollar-Kotelly to kiss it and make it all better; for every Judge Motz, there are three appellate nimrods who somehow can't see what Microsoft is trying to do. Whom do you want to crush today?

A Microsoft spokesman was appropriately smug about the ruling: "This is another step in a long legal process and we consider it to be a positive step. Our focus really has been to move beyond these conflicts and to work collaboratively with the rest of the industry." Well, gee, fella, wouldn't that best be accomplished by, oh, let's see, here... shipping a version of Java that actually works with the rest of the industry? Uh-huh. Right. Next week: Microsoft shoots the Pope and is sentenced to eat a Snickers bar, take in a movie, and kiss a supermodel right on the mouth-- but no tongue!