Longtime viewers know that we here at the AtAT compound know roughly as much about our stock portfolio as we do about the Krebs cycle: we know it exists, and that it's probably sort of important, but for the most part we just assume that if we leave well enough alone and don't think about it too hard it'll take care of itself. In the case of aerobic cellular respiration, that's a reasonable approach, but we're told it's not exactly a prizewinning investment strategy. Still, what can we say? The notion of learning about terms like "book value" and "P/E ratio" flat-out puts us to sleep, so the sad reality of the situation is that we're going to keep right on buying the stock of companies that offer products and services we use and love.

But while savvy investors always cringe visibly when we say that (we've been told that we invest like car-shoppers whose only directive is "we want a blue one"), maybe there's something to be said for that approach-- at least in the case of Apple. Faithful viewer Larry alerted us to the surprising fact that the company's stock closed up $1.61 on Thursday, and even hit $35.18 sometime in the middle of the day. We're not sure, but we think that was a new four-year high. In any case, the stock is currently trading at well over twice what we paid for it, and we didn't have to learn squat about high finance and big business to double our money. Yes, we're like that kid who cruised through high school with straight A's without ever studying. (Well, except that we own Palm stock, so we're more like the straight-A student who flunked gym and shop.)

According to Reuters, AAPL's sudden spike occurred because investors expect Hewlett-Packard's introduction of its own rebranded iPod on Friday will lengthen Apple's lead in the digital music race, shoring up defenses right before Microsoft enters the market. (Faithful viewer Rick Paul notices that Rob Enderle, the international "Guys in Suits Who Smoke a Lot of Crack and Still Make Six Figures" poster boy, says that "the expectation on the iPod is that HP's version will probably outsell Apple's version relatively quickly." We're not even remotely convinced, but who knows? Maybe he'll finally be right about something for once.) There's also the iMac factor; Apple has said that a G5-based, next-generation model will debut next month, and next month is just around the corner-- so investors are probably anticipating the same sort of media attention and customer interest that the intro of the two previous generations brought forth.

Interestingly, that's apparently all it takes to send Apple's stock price zooming, despite all the bad news that's been dogging the company in recent months-- iPod mini shipping delays, scarce G5s, RealNetworks poaching on the iPod's territory, that PowerBook battery recall, Steve Jobs's bout with cancer and subsequent month off, etc. And that's why Business 2.0 has dubbed AAPL the "Teflon tech stock." The article's author actually goes into a fair amount of detail about why he still considers Apple's stock to be attractive, including $5 billion in cash, the transient nature of component shortages, a healthy P/E ratio (zzzzzzzzzz), increasing consumer demand for Macs, and the way that it flips its hair back over its shoulder when it laughs.

Of course, all we take away from the article is that we should probably be buying more stocks that have a nonstick coating. We may have to pass, though, because we hear they aren't dishwasher-safe. What a hassle.

Speaking of Hewlett-Packard, we have to say, it's probably the only major Wintel manufacturer for which we hold any real respect at the moment. Not that we like their Wintels, mind you-- we really don't know anything about them at all, except that they run Windows, which is all we need to know. But we've always liked the company's printers, from our circa-1994 LocalTalk-networked DeskWriter 520 (to which we can still print in Classic) all the way up to our current LaserJet 1012 (an honest-to-goshness laser printer that we picked up brand new for all of $119) and Color LaserJet 2550L (which, technically, we still only expect to like, since we haven't had time to pull it out of its box yet). And the company had the good taste to partner with Apple to sell rebranded iPods instead of cranking out its own dorky WMA-based ripoff like Dell did. Besides, who are we supposed to like better? Sony? Points for style, but that ATRAC3-only "iPod-killer" is a deal-breaker. Gateway? Please.

And the reasons not to hate HP with a burning passion keep growing all the time. Faithful viewer torn80 alerted us to a development that's both weird and rather endearing: the company is currently holding an "Extreme Makeover" contest (which has evidently been running since early June, but we're just hearing about it now), whereby entrants must cruise through an online demo of the company's new professional-class DesignJet 130 printer, choose one of the images presented therein, and "use the photo-manipulation or illustrative tools and techniques of [their] choice" to "create a work that demonstrates power of color." Once the art is done, it gets shuttled off to HP in JPEG or PDF format alongside a "50-word explanation or concept statement" to be judged equally on creativity and originality by a panel "including renowned photographer (and former designer) Joel Meyerowitz." Not exactly your "anyone with Autofill can enter" sweepstakes-type giveaway.

But if the contest is strictly for designers, so's the prize package. Get this: the grand prize consists of, of all things, a 15-inch PowerBook, a Power Mac G5, a 20-inch iMac, and a slew of software and accessories including no fewer than three HP printers, a digital camera, an LCD projector, a Herman Miller office chair, Adobe Creative Suite Premium, and the all-important iPod mini. And if the notion of HP giving away a bunch of Macs instead of something else (like, oh, let's see... computers that it makes itself) strikes you as a little odd, you're by no means alone.

So why dish the Macs instead of giving away a fleet of Presarios or whatever? Because HP is apparently smart enough to realize that it's never going to get diehard Mac fans in the print and design industry to buy its Wintels, so it only makes sense for the company to focus on winning their business for printers instead. Still, much as we like it, the idea of HP giving away Macs just feels... well, the best technical term is probably "oogy." It'd be like Apple rationally deciding that the enterprise market is never going to shell out the bucks to put Macs on every desktop, and then giving away a flock of cheap Wintel client systems in a contest in order to sell more Xserves; it might make sense in a strictly logical fashion, but it's still a pretty creepy thought.

HP giving away Macs, though, that we suppose we can live with. We could live with it even more if the company gave them away to us. Carly, are you out there? You know, our birthday's coming up...

Hey, look, Apple released an iPod with a color screen that shows album art and has a big, wacky pull-handle on the side! Oh, wait, never mind-- it's just some designer at the New York Times having a bit of Photoshop fun. Faithful viewer Mark Murray forwarded us the link to a surprisingly in-depth study of the iPod's "Shuffle" feature, which, as you all know, lets you put the selection of your tunes into the amorphous yet all-powerful hands of a higher power. Shuffle is evidently a huge hit with the four million or so 'Podders out there, because Apple made a big deal about moving the option up out of the "Settings" section and right onto the latest iPod's main menu. When removing one level of menu selection from access to a feature becomes a major selling point, you're either out of ideas or people really want to get at said feature now now now. And you know that Apple isn't out of ideas.

So what is it about the iPod's Shuffle feature that holds the music-loving populace in such thrall? According to the Times, it's the perception that Apple's Randomizer isn't so random after all. The article tells the sad tale of one Mr. Bob Angus, who was publicly emasculated at his own party when his iPod chose to follow up a rousing Guns 'N' Roses selection by playing an Elton John ballad (probably as karmic realignment for Bob having used Canadian quarters in the washing machines or something). A bicyclist in L.A. insists that his iPod always knows just when to throw 50 Cent's "In Da Club" into the mix to get him pumped back up when his pedals aren't pushing, but invariably plays the one Ruben Studdard track on the drive whenever he's working out in the gym. A web designer claims that while he only has two Fugazi albums loaded, his iPod plays songs from them "to a degree wildly disproportionate" to the space they take up in its library. (Then again, he lives in Salem, Massachusetts, so in this case maybe it's a haunted-by-dead-witches-who-like-indie-rock sort of thing.)

We've heard of-- and experienced-- similarly spooky Shuffle behavior ourselves, so we're not surprised that some people are convinced that the iPod's Shuffle can "learn" over time, or, perhaps more realistically, is actually a conduit to a jealous god with a quick temper who can mete out praise or punishment with one flick of his Mighty Click Wheel. But Stan Ng, Apple's director of iPod product marketing, insists that Shuffle is just your basic vanilla randomizer: "When you turn on Shuffle Songs, it creates a randomized list of all the music on your iPod without repeating a song" and there's "no way that an iPod can be a 'fan' of a particular artist or band." Furthermore, Stan claims that Shuffle's randomization algorithm has remained the same since the original 5 GB model shipped lo those many Octobers ago.

Of course, if you buy all that, you're just not paying attention. AtAT mystics have devoted countless hours to determining the true origin of Shuffle's choices, and have traced them back to a minor deity from the Roman pantheon-- the original Roman pantheon (that of Jeff, god of biscuits), prior to when they just renamed all the Greek gods in an inspired act of religious efficiency. So when your Shuffle play embarrasses you or otherwise causes you pain, it's because you've somehow offended Carl, god of playlists, and you may have to burn him an offering to appease his anger. We hear he likes Hot Pockets-- any flavor but Chicken & Cheddar with Broccoli.