Regular viewers of our little show are already well aware that Verizon doesn't exactly hold a spot on AtAT's fabled Wall of Coolness. In fact, ever since those guys arbitrarily stole two-thirds of our bandwidth without so much as an apology (let alone any reasonable attempt to give it back), we started a Nixonesque "enemies list" just to have a good place to stick Verizon's name. We spend our voluminous spare time during commercial breaks cursing the Big V and looking for unflattering anagrams of "Verizon Communications." (We're not having much luck so far, though "Venomous Zinc Mortician" has a somewhat ominous ring to it.)

So how, exactly, were we meant to react when faithful viewer Greg Hill pointed out a VARBusiness article about how the Evil Red V plans to bolster its business systems with "more than 600 Macintosh G4 installations throughout the United States"? It's not a joke, people; Verizon evidently wants to use Macs to run its business. Needless to say, we were torn on the matter. It's certainly nice that Apple will be selling more Macs, and into a traditionally Mac-hostile market, to boot (the article refers to "Apple's efforts to crack the enterprise market," which was good for a hearty chortle or two). At the same time, however, the thought of Verizon furthering its patently transparent anti-AtAT agenda by using our own beloved Mac platform against us was enough to make us quiver with rage.

The obvious scenario in place here is so dark and disturbing, we're trying not to dwell on it: it's so extremely unlikely that Verizon would actually choose to use Macs voluntarily, our more paranoid sides can't help but wonder about complicity between Verizon and Apple. Did Steve offer Verizon a good deal on a slew of Macs and free tech support in exchange for hobbling the efforts of a small Mac soap opera who occasionally shows Apple's CEO in a less-than-flattering light? One little snip with a pair of wirecutters, and blammo, AtAT's running at 33% capacity. Subtle. Very subtle.

Eventually, though, cooler heads prevailed, and we decided to look at things in the most positive light possible. Here's now we see things going down: Verizon saw the light and really did decide to buy Macs on its own. Apple sells more Macs to a very large and very visible corporation, thus blazing further inroads into the lucrative enterprise market. Meanwhile, the sudden influx of Macness turns Verizon back to the Light Side of the Force (what, you thought having James Earl Jones as a spokesperson was a coincidence? Granted, AT&T's the one with the Death Star-looking logo, but still...) and the company installs a free T3 directly into the AtAT studios to make amends. Sounds good, right? We're wai-ting...