This is it! Super Tuesday, the Return of the Steve, clobberin' time. In mere hours, Fearless Leader will walk out on stage at Moscone and take a moment to bask in the hysterical applause of his faithful legions before proceeding to wow us all with... well, we don't know for sure, because if we did, we probably wouldn't be wowed. But the rumor mill has been spinning like a top for the past couple of weeks, and all but the most oblivious Mac users know enough to expect some sort of new Power Macs, a brand spankin' new PowerBook, and (with a little luck) a handful of genuine surprises in classic Steve form.

Sadly, the AtAT staff didn't make it to Moscone early enough to secure a seat for the keynote address-- mostly because 1) we were up late, 2) we don't actually have tickets to the Expo, and 3) we're three thousand miles away and watching lots of white fluffy stuff fall from the sky. You can understand how a combination of these factors made it a little tough for us to beat the crowd and stake out a spot in line. And so, instead of sitting in the audience and absorbing all of that industrial-strength Reality Distortion Field energy live and unfiltered, we're going to be tuning in the old-fashioned way: via the sure-to-be-hideously-oversubscribed QuickTime webcast.

As those of you who frequently observe QuickTimed Stevenotes are painfully aware, performance is a hit and miss proposition-- as in, usually we start hitting our heads on the desk in frustration, and missing the good ol' days of the previous summer when we could just see Steve in person. Streams are tough to grab, and even if you're lucky enough to snatch one, odds are you'll lose it at some point. Last year we also experienced several fun stretches during which we either had sound and no video, or video and no sound. It was like some kind of object lesson in the frailty of high-tech or something.

So this year, we've come up with a foolproof plan to catch a stream, hold onto it, and experience problem-free video bliss for the entire event: we're sacrificing an Apple Desktop Mouse II to the ancient gods of Internet streaming. Sure, it'll be harsh on the mouse when we set it on fire and fling it in a graceful arc from the roof whilst chanting in Sumerian, but hey, we need our Steve-- even a tiny, smeared-out, pixellated Steve. If you're really serious about tuning in to the webcast, we strongly suggest you perform a similar sacrifice. (We know some people who are simply praying to St. Akamai, the patron saint of webcasting, but we think we've got them beat.) Good luck! And to those of you who are actually lucky enough to be in the audience: we hate you, plain and simple.