Redmond Justice, Day 2: the season continues not to disappoint, as Microsoft and the Justice Department carry on with their epic antitrust battle. But today we got to see that the struggle is not all melodrama, as the show's writers are skilful enough to counterpoint deepest tragedy with the occasional touch of comedy. While the central theme of the show is certainly the tearjerking story of a how a poor, beleaguered software company from Redmond, Washington is being bullied by the government into crippling its own products, there are plenty of moments of mirth deftly interspersed for contrast.

For instance, take Microsoft's primary defense tactic on the second day of the trial. According to an article in Computer Reseller News, in a brilliant execution of the "we're not the only ones, so it can't be illegal" tactic, Microsoft attorney John Warden defended his company's moves to eliminate Netscape from the browser market by pointing out that at one time, Netscape actually had 70% of the market, and therefore it was "ironic" that Netscape was lobbying the government to go after Microsoft. Of course, Netscape didn't earn its market share by giving its browser away for free, tying it to an operating system that already had over 90% of the desktop computer market, threatening to cancel operating system licenses if computer vendors didn't pre-install the browser on every system they shipped, etc. The key phrase in Microsoft's hilariously flawed argument is "at one time;" after all, if Netscape still had 70%, Microsoft wouldn't be sitting in court today. At least not for antitrust actions, most likely.

But that's not all! Showing that they're not above throwing in a sight gag or two, the writers opted for a little comic relief when Microsoft made their opening statement. According to a Reuters article, Warden used a low-tech overhead projector as his visual aid when presenting his argument. You just gotta love it when the lawyer representing the world's largest software company makes a presentation with an overhead projector-- especially when the Justice Department's opening statement included a "computer-driven, multivideo screen presentation." Apparently PowerPoint wasn't up to the task for Warden? Or maybe he just didn't trust Microsoft's own software not to crash during the presentation. "There are a few of us who still use fountain pens and legal pads," says Warden. Well, yeah... everyone at AtAT sure did, but that's when Word 6 was out...