Alas, those of us with a heavy-duty thirst for sleazy antitrust drama may be sorely disappointed as the "Cupertino Justice" story unfolds. Rather than living up to its soap-operatic potential, the epic saga of Apple's alleged price fixing activities and the resulting clash with the Japanese government is getting off to a decidedly undramatic start. In fact, the show's only in its second day and already it's shaping up to be less of an epic saga and more of a wholesome hour of family entertainment. It's like some sort of twisted anti-Sweeps nightmare or something.

A few more details came to light today, as official Apple spokeswoman Rhona Hamilton made some on-the-record comments regarding yesterday's reported office raid. According to a CNNfn story, Hamilton admitted that, yes, the Japanese FTC did in fact make an unscheduled appearance in Apple Japan's Tokyo offices yesterday, but rather than try to defend its walls against the marauders, Apple welcomed them with cheery smiles and open arms: "We are offering our full cooperation, and we are confident that Apple's business practices are both within the law and exemplary," says Ms. Hamilton. We imagine she then went on to offer reporters some warm muffins and hot chocolate as she delivered a stern but loving lecture on the dangers of talking to strangers. Either that or she had to bail early for her "Touched By An Angel" audition. I mean, come on-- "exemplary"? Where's the outraged denials? Where's the indignant condemnation of fascistic governmental intrusion? Throw us a bone, here.

In fact, even Wall Street was unfazed by the one piece of good dirt in the otherwise yawn-worthy affair: that Apple is suspected of "threatening to suspend shipments" of Macs to resellers who refuse to keep prices above the Minimum Advertised Price. The Street reacted not with an AAPL price plummeting in a death spiral, but with an increase of nearly two points and a new all-time high. So much for drama and intrigue. Then again, maybe Wall Street's reacting favorably to the possibility that, when it comes to back-room bullying, Apple is more like Microsoft than we all once thought. There's still hope for this Pollyanna story to take a drastically wrong turn, so we're not giving up hope just yet.