There are many images from the Amelio Dynasty that stand out: 90,000 Performas sold, no two of which had the same model number; those creepy infomercials that reeked of stale desperation; the torrents of red ink that made the elevator scene in The Shining look like someone got a paper cut. But perhaps the most persistent image, the archetype that remains burned indelibly upon the collective consciousness of the Mac community, is that of the Flaming PowerBook. Never mind that the problem was the battery manufacturer's fault and not Apple's. Never mind that none of those PowerBook 5300s ever caught fire in the field. The fact remains that no image better captured the essence of Apple in 1996 like a CD-ROMless, notoriously unstable, overpriced and underpowered 5300 going up in flames. (To those of you with perfectly happy 5300s: no offense.)

But we all know what happened in 1997, right? Steve Jobs, who managed to RDF Amelio into buying NeXT, then engineered a boardroom coup in which poor ol' Gil was told not to let the door smack him in the butt on the way out. Now Steve runs the show, and Gil's been reduced to making occasional noises to the press about how everything Steve has done was actually Gil's idea. At this point in the game, whether that's actually true or not is largely irrelevant; we only mention it because it may help to explain a recent horrifying phenomenon that's afflicting the Mac platform, as reported by MacInTouch: Macs are catching on fire. And we're not talking figuratively, as in "Mac sales are burning up the charts." We're talking about good old-fashioned spontaneous combustion, here.

The site quotes three readers who have had relatively recent brushes with smoldering Macs. The first contributor notes that one of his 350 MHz iMacs "literally caught on fire during the night," though thankfully the blaze had burned out before spreading beyond the confines of the iMac's case. The second notes that his Lombard PowerBook simply burst into flame while he was typing on it-- now that's some fast typing. Apple reportedly confiscated the "Lombard Flambé," issued a replacement, and refused to explain what had happened, classifying the event as "proprietary" and "confidential." The third reported incident, while less dramatic, is still rather troubling: a Pismo PowerBook user claims that when he disconnected a FireWire cable from his powered-down unit, he got "a crackling sound and SMOKE out of the FireWire port." Apparently there was no actual damage (!), though now we finally know why Apple called it "FireWire."

There's only one answer we can think of that explains these seemingly random instances of Mac cremation: Apple's production facilities are clearly being haunted by the angry and vengeance-driven ghost of Gil Amelio-- an act made all the more impressive by the fact that Gil's still alive. (Just because the man wore a suit doesn't mean his ectoplasmic essence can't wreak some havoc.) We have a feeling that these disturbing incidents will continue until Steve issues some sort of apology and makes his peace with Gil's troubled soul. Perhaps a generous Sharper Image gift certificate?