Close your eyes and clear your mind. Now picture 5 million iMacs. If you've got a decent visual imagination, right now you're probably emitting a low whistle and thinking to yourself, "that's a whole lotta iMacs." (If you're a real Mac fanatic, you're probably also drooling a little.) Acres upon acres of translucent curves, a vast translucent sea of Bondi Blue, Blueberry, Indigo, Graphite, Lime, Strawberry, Grape, Ruby, Sage, Snow, Flower Power, a smidge of Blue Dalmatian, and even a few isolated blobs of Tangerine-- all bobbing and undulating as if to beckon and say "try us; there's no step 3." It's like some kind of beautiful dream, isn't it?

Well, as faithful viewer Mark Chally pointed out, some dreams do come true. According to an Apple press release, the company's 5 millionth iMac just rolled off the lines, and that's a milestone of which Apple is justifiably proud. We still recall the skepticism that arose when CompUSA's CEO said that he thought that Apple would sell "a million of 'em," but as it turns out, the man was thinking small. In fact, Apple's iMac count has now surpassed AtAT's Nielsen ratings, despite the fact that our Nielsen count has been around for about a year longer. For purposes of illustration, consider that these days, AtAT manages to sucker roughly twelve thousand of you poor misguided souls to tune in each weekday-- maybe that'll help you get a more visceral feel for how many iMacs Apple has sold in the past few years. In short, that's an awful lot of translucent plastic getting shipped around the world.

But the fun doesn't stop there; reportedly Uncle Steve actually had the boxed 5 millionth iMac on display at yesterday's annual shareholders' meeting, at which the proud poppa announced, "I look forward to shipping the 10 millionth iMac a few years from now." Now, whereas the pessimists are no doubt already noticing that, judging by his described time frame, Steve clearly isn't anticipating any iMac sales growth and therefore the company is doomed, the rest of us are taking this as a not-so-subtle clue that Apple doesn't have any short-term plans to retire the box that saved its bacon. So apparently we can look forward to at least a few more years of iMaccy goodness to come.

Incidentally, our own operatives have managed to secure some data on just where those 5 million iMacs wound up; apparently about 4 million of them shipped to the sets of various television shows. Who'da thunk it? But, as faithful viewer geddes and pointed out, even Survivor's getting into the "let's stick an iMac in front of the camera" game, thus proving two things: Hollywood loves a pretty face, and (as faithful viewer David West puts it) the iMac is the computer of choice among "stranded primal money-grubbers in the Australian Outback." So at least we know there's a ready market for the next 5 million...