Here's a puzzler for you: What do you do if you're the CEO of a financially-troubled multibillion-dollar computer company who hired you to turn them around, but then you get booted out for not turning things around fast enough? Give up? Why, you write a tell-all book, of course. That's right; it seems as though former cast member Gil Amelio is just a tad bitter about getting kicked off the show, and the sordid tales of scandal and intrigue in his upcoming book, On the Firing Line, are his happy little version of payback. USA Today has the details.

Amelio's shocker is due out next month, at which time we at AtAT will be cackling with glee as we devour page after page describing the Machiavellian conspiracy between Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison, who willfully sabotaged Amelio's stature with the Apple board of directors, leading to the eventual firing. We find it particularly ironic, since it was a full two months after Amelio's ousting that it finally dawned on him that Jobs may have had something to do with the whole thing-- a fact that everyone else on the planet had already figured out, commented on, and forgotten. (We've pasted a photo of Gil in our dictionary next to the phrase "slow on the uptake.")

We're placing our order now. How could we possibly resist a book which describes the Jobs-Ellison conspiracy duo as weaving "a web of plotting as intricate as the War of the Roses?" Especially when it also predicts Steve's rise to conquer Hollywood by dethroning Eisner from the Disney top spot. (Hmmm... Buyout, anyone?) Incidentally, whether you check out the USA Today article or not, you may be interested in their Quick Poll, which asks, "Who should run Apple?" Last we checked, Steve Jobs was leading Bill Gates 53%-22.8%.

Wacky rumor of the day: O'Grady's PowerPage says that a source close to Microsoft claims that soon you'll be able to buy Windows 98 for your G3-based Powermac. Native. Not some emulation package like VirtualPC or SoftWindows, but Windows 98 ported to the Mac hardware platform itself, making what we would assume to be standard Mac Toolbox calls to run the Windows operating system.

The mind reels. We honestly don't know what to make of this possibility. Microsoft would have to spend a considerable chunk of development time (okay, sure, they can afford it) to bring a native version of the Windows OS to Mac users. Seems like a strange amount of effort to expend just to capture a portion of the 4% of the computer-using world who uses Macs. Plus, it's not like a native Mac version of Windows 98 would be able to run standard Windows applications; developers would have to recompile their products for the G3 architecture. Without access to all of the existing software, where's the incentive for Mac users to switch to Windows 98? The excellent user interface? Puh-lease.

Basically, it's a rumor so completely unbelievable, we're unable to dismiss it. We're fascinated by the unfathomable reasons anyone would have to develop such a thing-- and we can't help but wonder who the intended audience would be. Still, a little confusion every once in a while's a good thing, hmmm?

And speaking of confusion, nothing in the Mac world's kicked up more dust than the mysterious Columbus project, which Apple reportedly confirms to be real, though they won't say anything at all about what it actually is. The only info anyone's heard officially from Apple came from Steve Jobs, who claimed that Columbus is "anti-gravity technology." Sure, you scoff now, but you haven't yet heard the story of longtime faithful viewer Michael Williams, who describes a dream he had last summer:

Okay, for some strange reason in this dream I was some sort of government agent (probably an X-Files dream reference) and had just moved into a new house and was being shown around the house by my maid - at least I thought of her as a maid. After having seen the house throughout I began asking where my computer(s) were and she took me to a cabinet which I had thought was a wet bar; she opened the doors to reveal a mirror on the inside of the cabinet and said here it is... I was all like, "What the hell???" and she said, "Tell it to turn on," so I said, "On, please," and the mirror chimed and a keyboard flipped over from what looked like just the cabinet surface-- I was truly freaked out but she said that I hadn't seen anything yet... ;)

So I became used to the computer and played around for a while and got up and walked off only to find that the keyboard was following me a constant two feet in front of me and a holographic display was constantly visible when I thought about it.

Totally amazed, I asked, "What is this thing?" She replied, "The latest offering from Apple..."