"It's like some sort of beautiful dream..." We admit it: a couple of weeks ago, when we'd heard that Sears was planning on advertising the iMac in its own Sears-funded television commercials, we were skeptical. Well, actually, that's not entirely true; it wasn't that we didn't believe the sources reporting the fact, or even that we didn't believe Sears would ever do such a thing. It was more of a deep-down fundamental conviction lingering at the backs of our minds that nobody other than Apple would ever spend real advertising dollars to push Apple products. Heck, until things started to turn around with the whole "Think Different" campaign, we were starting to think even Apple would never advertise Macs again-- so you can understand our nagging doubts about the Sears thing.

But apparently the reports were true: the heavens have fallen, it's raining toads in Peoria, dogs and cats are living together-- and the Sears iMac ad has hit the airwaves. Here's the scoop, courtesy of faithful viewer Scott Hadley: "Saw an iMac/Sears ad tonight. The iMac was being pushed as a Father's Day gift. The iMac was the only product in the whole Sears ad. It started with the iMac flower, and cut to a pan of three dads using iMacs: dad 1 was balancing the check book, dad 2 was surfing the 'net (I think), and dad 3 was playing a game. Oh, 0% financing, too. This ad was on prime time and on a major network. It seems you all watch a lot of TV so I bet you've seen it already."

Saying we "watch a lot of TV" is kind of like saying "Bill Gates has a lot of money," but as a matter of fact, Scott, we took the night off; we'd seen all the reruns on ABC already, and "Tomorrow Never Dies" was on Showtime. (Michelle Yeoh kicks much bad-guy butt-- 'nuff said.) As a result, no, we didn't see the commercial, as incredible as that may seem. But we definitely take your word for it, even though the fact that an Apple reseller is actually footing the bill for an iMac ad sort of hurts our brains like that Escher picture with the square staircase that goes up and down forever. Still, we imagine we'll get over it someday...