It's been roughly ten months since the height-- or should we say depths?-- of last year's holiday shopping frenzy, and chances are, if you were one of the thousands of poor shmoes who had an iPod on his or her list back then, you're only just now starting to recover. We've heard the war stories: tales of shoppers lined up at dawn in hopes of snagging one of the elusive lil' critters, dark circles ringing dead eyes devoid of hope; shoving one another like animals, teeth bared and lips flecked with foam in the mad scramble for the last battered unit on the shelves; limbs strewn across the aisle, victors wearing necklaces of human ears, maimed shoppers resorting to buying lame iPodalike wannabes in despair. The horror... The horror...

While we're loath to trigger flashbacks to the mayhem you no doubt barely escaped with your life, the holidays are back, folks, and given the meteoric rise in iPod popularity over the past year, there's a better chance than ever that someone on your list is dreaming of a white-and-silver Christmas and you're going to have to dive back into the fray. At least you're not expecting as much carnage, though, right? Because Apple has obviously learned its lesson from the piles of bodies last year; back then it took its highest forecast for demand, tripled it, cranked out the goods, and then watched in dread as the body count rose because demand still outstripped supply. So given that Apple sold 733,000 iPods that quarter and two million of them last quarter, obviously the company has the situation all figured out and is squeezing out gajillions of iPods to keep supplies healthy and civilization from collapsing from unfulfilled iPod lust.

But wait-- is it physically possible for Apple to make as many iPods as shoppers will want to buy? Because as the company mentioned during its recent quarterly earnings conference call, it came out of last quarter with iPods on backorder-- minis and classics. So it was already in the hole, and demand during this quarter will obviously be at least twice as strong as it was last quarter-- and that's a conservative estimate, what with holiday shopping and the U2 commercial in heavy rotation and next week's expected announcement of a U2 special edition model. That's a bare minimum of four million 'Pods in various flavors needed to feed the beast, and we can't help wondering if Apple can really build them fast enough.

And just for the sake of angsting it up a little around here, allow us to make that knot in your stomach a bit tighter: an article over at Metroactive quotes Steve Jobs on the topic of the holiday iPod supply as saying that Apple's made its "best guess" and is "building a lot, but the demand may be even larger." In other words, "if you want to be sure to get an iPod this holiday season, I'd get one soon." And maybe you should consider wearing some body armor when you go.

Hey, let us throw a hypothetical at you: say you're running a multibillion-dollar international technology company. And say this company consistently earns millions of dollars in profits, and just posted its best fourth-quarter results in nine years. Let's also assume, for the sake of argument, that said company's stock price is currently up 122% for the year and has performed better over the past half-decade than Intel, Microsoft, and even Dell. Now let's say that all you get in return for producing all these spiffy financial accomplishments (aside from a boatload of stock and options and the occasional free jet) is a salary of one dollar each year. Yes, one measly buck. So where's your real compensation come from? Answer: cheesy awards!

Now, the super-astute among you may have clued in to the fact that we weren't really dealing in hypotheticals at all, but were in fact describing Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple. (Oooh, tricky.) Well, it seems the universe is due to make its quarterly payment in cheap kudos, because the Billboard Digital Entertainment Conference & Awards has announced its nominees, and while there are the typical nominations for Apple and its products (iTunes is up for "Best Downloadable or Subscription Music Service," while Apple's up for "Innovator of the Year" for creating iTunes and "Brand of the Year" for just being Apple), Steve himself is on the short list for walking away with a title seemingly tailor-made for his turtlenecked frame: assuming there's any justice in the world, come November 5th Steve Jobs will officially be "Visionary of the Year."

Of course, we're not actually convinced that there is any justice in the world, so it's probably worth mentioning the competition. First up is Mark Cuban, the chairman of HDNet, whose "vision" is apparently a cable service with all high-def programming-- you know, like the federal government has mandated all broadcasters do by the end of 2006 anyway. Sure, the odds of the feds actually enforcing that deadline are looking slimmer than a stick insect after liposuction, but still, we're not sensing much "vision" in moving to an existing standard before the government makes you do it anyway. Next.

Well, how about Will Wright? This is the guy behind the smash hit game-type thingy called The Sims, which we have a copy of here at the AtAT studios that Apple sent to us for free when we renewed our .Mac subscription last year. We've never even taken the shrinkwrap off of it, mostly because we're told it's like crack for people with God complexes, and we sleep little enough as it is. But we're perfectly willing to accept that modernizing the "ant farm" concept by switching to virtual people and then including a magnifying glass and a can of lighter fluid takes vision. The Sims is the best selling game-type thingy of all time, after all, so Will may well be worthy competition for Jobs on the "visionary" front.

Last and so darn least he needs to take off his shoes to brush his teeth, we've got-- can you believe this?-- Rob Glaser of RealNetworks. Yes, the same Rob Glaser whose "vision" was to pitch repeated hissy fits to the press because Apple refused to license the iPod's DRM to him, when Apple had zero earthly incentive or obligation to do so. The same Rob Glaser whose shining moment of inspiration was to liken Apple's policies to those of "communist Russia." The very same Rob Glaser who then decided to reverse-engineer the iPod's DRM without Apple's permission and tried to claim public support for the move by launching a "Freedom of Music Choice" web site so ill-conceived that the only people who cared enough to post did so to inform Glaser that he was a nimrod. Oh, and let's not forget his brilliant idea to sell songs at half-price for three weeks to double Real's share of the music download market-- while losing two million dollars in the process. Now that's vision, baby!

The winner will be announced on November 5th, and while we hope Steve wins, we'll be perfectly gracious should he not take the title. Unless, of course, he loses to Glaser, in which case we're flying to L.A. with a nail-spiked Louisville Slugger we've lovingly named "Cluebringer."

Just a quickie, here, folks, because our wrists are about to burst into flame or turn back into pumpkins or do whatever it is they do when the warranty on carpal tunnels expires. If, like us, you don't happen to live anywhere near one of Apple's new retail mini-stores and you're trying to soak up as much vicarious experience as you can, there's a charming little article on the boutiques over at AppleInsider penned by Gary Allen of the all-knowing, all-seeing ifo Apple Store. The specific bit that intrigued us is the revelation that each location apparently boasts "two self-service check-out stations about half-way back into the store, mounted in either wall."

You know the concept because you've probably encountered the exact same thing at your local major-franchise grocery store: grab your gear, slap it under a bar code scanner, swipe your choice of plastic money, and go. It's kinda like ordering online in that it's still commerce with zero human interaction, but unfortunately you don't get to remain sedentary. Still, one out of two ain't bad, and at least you get instant gratification without having to talk to anybody, so misanthropes the world over applaud the whole paradigm. At least, we think they would, if we could get any of them to talk to us about it.

The main reason this whole "self check-out" thing strikes us as so interesting is because it connects the dots nicely between Apple's original retail store concept and the forthcoming third tier of the company's overall retail strategy, which AtAT sources briefed us about a few weeks back: Apple vending machines. That's right, kiddies; just as the mini-stores let Apple establish a presence in smaller malls and airports where the full-size format stores could never fit, Apple's forthcoming vending machines will allow Apple to reach shoppers in venues formerly off-limits to computer retailers, like hospital waiting rooms, subway platforms, and truck-stop restrooms.

Word has it that they'll stock a full complement of iPods and minis, 12-inch iBooks and PowerBooks, selected accessories, specially-packaged software titles, and-- inexplicably-- eMacs with cinder blocks chained to their cases. The machines will also sell bottled Evian water (at Steve Jobs's insistence) and will bring Apple a tidy profit on third-party offerings like USB flash drives, digital cameras, and unbreakable plastic combs. No word on when we'll see these things start to appear, but reportedly there are still a few bugs to work out; so far they don't take credit cards, the dollar bill slot's always broken, and these days not many people are walking around with 996 quarters just in case they get the urge to buy an iPod mini. But maybe these machines will change all that. Mental note: buy pants with deeper pockets.