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It's Something In The Water (7/9/01)
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Breaking news flash-- we've just learned that the water supply of St. Paul, Minnesota has been contaminated with some form of mind-altering chemical that temporarily suppresses the reason and logic centers in the human brain, while simultaneously boosting unfounded optimism to unprecedented and potentially dangerous levels. Well, okay, we haven't actually learned that; it's just the only conclusion we've been able to draw from a new article in today's St. Paul Pioneer Planet. While we're willing to believe that author Julio Ojeda-Zapata is usually a right-thinking and sober individual, we're hard-pressed to come up with any other explanation for his own Expo predictions.
See, the first sign that poor Julio is operating under the influence of some sort of outside influence is his earth-shattering discovery that if you set a completely arbitrary spending limit of $800 for a new computer, an $899 iMac is-- gasp!-- $99 too expensive! It is this startling revelation that leads Julio to hope and pray that what Uncle Steve has up his big, baggy sleeves next week is (drum roll, please) a $700 iMac. In other words, he's hoping for an iMac that not only fits within his arbitrary $800 spending limit, but also leaves him $100 left over for extra software or a down payment on enrollment in a detox program.
That in itself isn't too wacky; remember, the previous iMacs started at $799, so if Apple were to go with a very stripped-down model (no FireWire, cheesy video circuitry, smaller hard disk, slower processor, etc.), the company actually could offer up a $699 iMac and still make a profit. But Julio doesn't want just any $700 iMac; he wants one with a "modern flat-panel display" (a 15-incher-- he's not greedy) and a "peppier G4 processor." Never mind the fact that a 15-inch LCD display alone costs $500, leaving Apple just $200 with which to add a G4 processor, RAM, a hard disk, a video card, ethernet, a modem, speakers, a mouse, a keyboard, and a spiffy enclosure to tie it all up in a nice little package.
Julio states that "this isn't an unreasonable request." (Let's not even get into his $5 bet that Steve will unveil G4 iMacs with 17-inch LCD screens and built-in SuperDrives next week-- hey, it's not nice to take advantage of people wagering under the influence!) All we can say is, if he wants any hope whatsoever of his dream coming true, he'd better ship some of whatever he's been drinking to Steve Jobs, and fast. And if Steve does ship a 15-inch LCD G4-based iMac in nine days' time, we'll admit that we were wrong about St. Paul's water-- as long as someone will send us some.
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SceneLink (3165)
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 7/9/01 episode: July 9, 2001: Visions of gigahertz dancing in your head? Simmer down, because now we're hearing 866 MHz at the high end. Meanwhile, Apple steals the education sales crown back from Dell (maybe), and one individual insists that an iMac with a G4 chip and a 15-inch LCD screen all for $700 is an eminently reasonable request...
Other scenes from that episode: 3163: Nocturnal Visits Are A Drag (7/9/01) Another day, another Macworld Expo prediction-- and another harrowing brush with the supernatural. Regular viewers will recall that a couple of weeks ago, we tried our hand at the ancient art of hieroscopy, which is a more concise and vastly more pleasant way of saying that we attempted to foretell future events by poking around in a mass of rapidly cooling goat entrails... 3164: Lies, Damn Lies, & Estimates (7/9/01) So whaddaya think-- is Michael Dell currently a) crying like a little girl with a skinned knee, b) trying to settle on an effective and painless suicide method, c) trying to settle on an effective and painful murder weapon, or d) all of the above?...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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