For those unfamiliar with the bizarre rituals of the United States, the reason you're probably mourning the dearth of news in the Apple world today is because we yanks are all taking the day off to celebrate a holiday called Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the day on which we, surprisingly enough, give thanks-- you know, for all the great stuff we have and take for granted the other 364.25 days of the year, like the fact that we aren't the targets of genocide, no one's giving us horrible diseases, stealing our land, and eradicating our culture, stuff like that. As a nation, we traditionally do this in a perfectly obvious way: by gutting, roasting, and devouring a large bird, and then fighting off the resulting turkey coma by watching lots of football and screaming at our relatives for ruining our lives.

However, since the AtAT staff eats no turkey, dislikes football, and sagely lives far enough from the relatives who ruined our lives that the screaming has to be limited due to excessive long-distance charges, we generally just like to celebrate the day by reflecting on all the wonderful stuff that makes our lives better. You know, stuff like Buffy, Ghostwriter reruns on Noggin, fast-food Chana Masala at the mall, Tater Tots in the new resealable bag, having the golden touch when it comes to making pie crust, and a viewing audience who loves us unconditionally. Oh, and our Macs.

Yes, we give thanks for our Macs. We love the ease of use that's letting us produce and broadcast this show from our very own home. We love AirPort, which allows us to work and play with high-speed Internet access from our rightful places on the couch. We love the Mac's "keeps on tickin'" quality, which enables us to broadcast AtAT from a five-year-old Power Mac 7500 with a G3 upgrade at its heart. We love that, even if we have to spend several hours in Windows Hell each and every workday, at least the Macs are waiting for us every night, with friendly faces and trouble-free operation.

If you haven't taken the time to appreciate just how much better your life is because of your Mac, this is a perfect time to do so. Rejoice! Since you chose a Mac instead of some Wintel thing, you don't have to deal with Registry corruption. Your onscreen fonts aren't so ugly that every time you look at them, a little part of you dies. Your primary troubleshooting action isn't a complete reinstallation of what you jokingly refer to as your "operating system" at the first hint of danger. You don't have to experience infuriating DLL weirdness like your mouse suddenly not working because you installed a new game. You can plug and play instead of plug and pray. And the future of your platform rests in the hands of a guy who wears jeans and black turtlenecks instead of a dorky blue sweater. Sure, Macs aren't perfect, but they're loads better than the alternative... so be thankful, and get happy! And thank you for tuning in.