If you're dying of thirst in this Mac news drought, fear not-- as you well know, news isn't the only wavelength in the Mac-presence spectrum. Don't forget the wild world of entertainment! After all, when you're flipping channels through your vast cable TV selection, do you really linger over CNN when there's a showing of back-to-back Mama's Family episodes on the TBS Superstation? We thought not. So don't fret; just start channel-surfing and you're sure to run into a Mac sighting sooner or later.

See, the odds are in your favor these days, because Apple's newfound obsession with brightly-colored translucent products has made the company even more popular with Hollywood producers looking to stick a computer on the set of their show or movie. Really, if you're in charge of set design for, say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and if anyone can get me that job, I'm on the next plane out there!), which are you going to throw on a dormroom desk: a beige, bulgy-looking Compaq Presario, or the simple lines, classic curves, and eye-catching colors of an iMac? Ooooh, tough choice. And that's why Macs are appearing on at least 56 shows this television season, according to an Entertainment Weekly article-- it's the Macs themselves, not any kind of bribe. At least, so says J.J. Abrams, cocreator of Felicity, one of the most Mac-friendly shows on the tube: "There's something human and friendly and optimistic about Macintosh." In fact, the only drawback we can think of to using Macs on the set is the way that the stars might get upstaged by a computer that's prettier than they are.

56 shows. Compare that to IBM's slice of the Onscreen Pie: a piddly 24 shows feature IBM computers instead. Too bad these numbers don't translate into market share percentages, right? As for how IBM feels about their products being basically shunned by Hollywood, spokesperson Trink Guarino (?!) says, "We don't feel sad or left out." Oh, sure, IBM's keeping a brave face, but we all know they're really crying inside... It always hurts to be the last one picked for the stickball team.