Ho hum, another slow Monday-- made slower still by the fact that today's a holiday here in the states, so anyone who'd normally be making drama in the Apple world is instead quietly reflecting on the massive contributions to humankind made by Martin Luther King, Jr. Apparently most players in the tech field have the tact to realize that petty conflict on MLK Day would be distasteful in light of the bridges the man worked to build, which strikes us as pretty classy behavior. Of course, that also means it's bad for business, at least for ghouls like us for whom petty conflict and the drama inherent therein are essentially our bread and butter. But for Martin, hey, we're fine with it. We'll just recap the last couple of Apple Retail revelations.

First of all, according to the Business Journal (via MacMinute) there's a new store going into St. John's Town Center in Jacksonville, Florida. This one's still a long way off, though; the mall itself isn't slated to open until spring-- of 2005. But reportedly Apple is one of the retailers who "have either committed or are close to committing to leases," so if you're a Mac fan in Jacksonville (or you're planning to move there sometime in the next fourteen or fifteen months), keep your calendar clear for the grand opening. We don't know, set an iCal reminder for all of spring or something. We know it's way out there in the scary future, but if you eventually find out that the opening is on the same day you've scheduled laser tattoo removal to correct a certain drunken "indiscretion," well, you're going to feel pretty dumb, huh? And not just because you've got a tattoo of Baby Huey on your left buttock.

Possibly more significantly, though, the Austin American-Statesman recently confirmed reports that Apple is planning to open a store in Barton Creek Square-- just a stone's throw (well, if you've got a really good arm) from Dell headquarters. Actually, okay, the American-Statesman didn't do much digging; they just popped up Apple's Retail Jobs page like we do occasionally to scan for new city listings. Sure enough, Apple's looking for an Assistant Store Manager, a Full-Time Mac Specialist, an Inventory Control Specialist, and a few other people to staff a Barton Creek boutique. And you just know that Michael Dell's going to be in there every freakin' Saturday, taking notes and drooling all over the hardwood. Note to Apple: make sure you hire a full-time Guy With Mop, too, or else you're going to get sued by someone slipping on Mike's saliva.

We don't know when the Austin store's going to open, but here's hoping that it provokes exactly the kind of petty conflict on which we thrive. MLK Day's great and all, but seriously, nothing would beat a Mike Dell-Steve Jobs bare-knuckle fistfight in the Apple Store Barton Creek. We envision Steve picking Mike up by the collar and belt and throwing him so he goes sliding along the Genius Bar like in those old westerns. In fact, we've got a request: could the Barton Creek Mac Geniuses keep some liquor bottles at the end of the bar for Mike to crash into, just in case? 'Cause that would really make our year.

So just how often does the Apple Store update its Top Sellers list? Because, you know, we would have expected it to be an automatic and live sort of thing, directly linked into the ordering database, but that's clearly not the case-- at least, it isn't unless everybody waited to preorder their miniPods until a few days ago. The iPod's freakishly small sibling was completely absent from the Top 20 list from its debut almost two weeks ago until just this past Saturday, when, as faithful viewer Medium Rare informed us, it vaulted onto the charts at Number 1. And somehow we doubt that everyone was just waiting until National Nothing Day before they preordered.

In fact, the miniPod's abrupt and delayed appearance isn't the only thing screwy about the Top 20 list; wasn't the non-mini iPod reigning supreme in the top spot before the miniPod usurped the throne? So where the heck is it now? It doesn't show up anywhere on the list, and we're having a really tough time believing that everyone who would have bought an iPod is now buying a miniPod instead. (If it's true, of course, Apple's Pod-related revenue and margins will both take a dive, and someone on Apple's marketing team is getting pelted with gum erasers from the folks in the finance department even as we speak.) Seriously, are we supposed to believe that Apple is selling more Jam Jackets to protect iPods than iPods themselves?

And we haven't even mentioned the categorical anomalies. (Well, okay, now we have, but that's not really the point.) Fifth on the list is the PowerBook 15", which wouldn't be weird at all if the listing didn't claim that the 15-inch PowerBook is available "in three sizes (12-, 15-, and 17-inch screens)." Similarly, in the tenth slot is the "Power Mac G5 Dual 2 GHz," which is available at speeds "up to" dual 2 GHz. Who knew you could get a dual 2 GHz Power Mac with a single 1.6 GHz processor? Meanwhile, the iBook and iMac are both on the list sans model designation, but the iMac is listed as being available in "two sizes of flat screen." Those would apparently be, what-- 15 and 17 inches, with the 20-incher being a mirage?

Folks, we hate to say it, because the very possibility chills us to our core and leaves us questioning our significance in what might therefore be an empty, godless universe devoid of reason or purpose, but we think it just might be possible that the Apple Store Top 20 list is... well... not very reliable. In fact, there's even a chance that it's pretty much completely meaningless altogether. At this point we imagine its results might be generated by a slightly modified version of a Magic 8 Ball simulator somebody wrote as an AppleScript exercise. Or possibly Phil Schiller and a dartboard.

We know, we know-- most of you are practitioners of one or more of the thirty or so religions that have been elaborately constructed around the tenet of the Top 20 List's Divine Infallibility, and what we just said constitutes blasphemy. We don't like the truth any more than you do, but you know, we call 'em like we 'em, and it's not like any of those religions lists blasphemy as a sin punishable by death or anything.

Wait-- they do?

All of them?

Well, hey, just kidding, folks! Ha ha, funny joke and not blasphemous at all! How 'bout that Top 20 list, huh? Is that thing infallible, or what?

Hey, do you remember that thing people kept saying to you when you told them that you just got mugged by someone wearing a Donald Duck costume and brandishing a chainsaw? They kept telling you that "truth is stranger than fiction"-- which probably annoyed the living bejeezus out of you, in part because what you really wanted them to say was "I'm calling 911 so you can receive emergency medical attention for your assorted grievous chainsaw wounds," but mainly because it's a trite expression which only reveals that most people read really boring fiction. So instead, how about we just say that reality is at least as twisted as Internet humor? It doesn't have quite the same ring to it, granted, but at least it's not exactly a cliché. Then again, with Microsoft around, it might well be soon.

Geezers like us who were actually eating solid food by 1995 recall the hilarious debacle of Microsoft Bob, the company's first wildly misguided pre-Win95 attempt to make Wintel clones "friendly" to the average consumer-- standing in stark contrast to all those wildly misguided post-Win95 attempts to do the same thing. How was Bob to have accomplished this Herculean task? Well, primarily by supplying a selection of annoying animated figures that incessantly offered unwanted help, asked stupid questions, and refused to get out of the way. Oh, to have been present at that pitch meeting: "We can make PCs just as easy to use as Macs. Three words: talking cartoon dog." (Then again, since the Bob project was managed by none other than eventual Bill Gates snugglebunny Melinda, it's probably best that we weren't there after all. Nerd love: fear it. Believe us, we know.)

Well, unsurprisingly, Bob spawned a heckuvalotta jokes (yes, in addition to the colossal joke that was the software itself), one of the most widely-forwarded being a fake press release about Microsoft claiming all rights to the use of the "Bob" name. Private citizens named "Bob" would either have to change their names or pay a "small monthly licensing fee" which would allow them "to continue using their former names at very low cost." The press release is well worth reading in its entirety because 1) it quotes a pre-CEO Steve Ballmer, 2) it includes a throwaway reference to the now-discarded Apple technology known as OpenDoc, and 3) it was uncannily prescient in predicting what would really happen over nine years later.

No, it's not all guys named Bob under attack: it's one guy named Mike. Faithful viewer Bill Gates is the Devil! (now there's a fella whose name is a lawsuit target if we've ever seen one) pointed us toward an article in The Province which reports that 17-year-old Mike Rowe needed a domain name for his web design services, so he registered MikeRoweSoft.com. Emperor Gates was evidently not amused, because he dispatched his crack legal team posthaste. Said lawyers demanded that Mike surrender the domain name, presumably because "Mikerowesoft" is such a common misspelling of the Redmond Giant's name and people looking to download the sixty-odd critical security patches of the hour keep going to Mike's site and hiring him to do web design instead. (Happens all the time, we're sure.) Mike replied that if he were going to yield the rights to use his own name for his web site, he ought to be compensated. Microsoft offered him the princely sum of-- ready for this?-- ten bucks.

Okay, so it's a whopping $1.51 more than Mike paid to register the domain name in the first place, but the condescension is palpable; "Here ya go, kid, go buy yourself a Sunny-D-- it's on us." Mike was insulted (and rightly so) and wrote back asking for a thousand dollars (or ten thousand, depending on which report you believe), mostly because they'd ticked him off. The next thing Mike knows, he's the recipient of a 25-page letter "accusing him of trying to force Microsoft into giving him a large settlement for his name." Oh, the irony; funny how Microsoft seems oblivious to the fact that its lawyers are trying to force Mike into accepting a settlement that pegs his name-- and his time-- as being worth less than a Steak Quesadilla at Taco Bell. Evidently lawyers on the Redmond payroll think knives only cut one way; we're surprised more of them aren't accidentally lopping off fingers and limbs all the time.

So there you have it: if Microsoft's lawyers get their way, Mike Rowe won't be able to do business on the 'net using his own real name. Sounds a lot like the Bob-licensing joke, doesn't it? Who knew Internet humor could be so spookily predictive? Maybe in another five years, there will be a Microsoft car that crashes twice a day and requires that you press the "Start" button to turn the engine off. And if spam is predictive, too, there are going to be a whole lot of EXILED NIGERIANS needing help getting their fortunes back...