"So where ya been, AtAT?" Glad you asked. Well, let's see, here... you last heard from us late Friday afternoon, after which we collapsed in a heap from prolonged sleep deprivation. On Saturday morning we arose at some ungodly hour typically reserved for chickens and farm reports and motored on up to Peabody, Massachusetts to attend the Apple store grand opening. On Sunday we returned to that illustrious boutique to get the "let's see it when it's less crowded" perspective, before moving on to a family barbecue and finally heading down to Providence to catch Hey Mercedes and Jimmy Eat World at Lupo's. And yesterday was Labor Day, so of course we spent the hours 'twixt dawn and midnight fasting and meditating as according to divine law. (We hope for the sake of your karma that you did the same, as Labor Day is second only to Arbor Day in spiritual import and significance.)

So as you can see, we had valid reasons for our dereliction of duty-- we couldn't broadcast yesterday due to religious reasons, and Viewer Mail once again had to take a back seat to an Apple retail experience. And don't go telling us we should have been answering Viewer Mail on Sunday night instead of indulging in indie rock bliss across state lines; one of the inalienable rights granted by living in the modern U.S. of A. is that one need never apologize for rocking out. Besides, Bob from Hey Mercedes is a Mac guy; as faithful viewer Brian Hall pointed out, he uses a titanium PowerBook G4, and we therefore bestowed upon him an AtAT t-shirt and stickers. He just might wear that shirt during an upcoming performance, thus netting AtAT some free publicity-- so that show was a business trip, pure and simple.

While we're spinning excuses, we should also mention that for the forty-eight hours following our initial trip to the Apple Store Northshore, we were far too disoriented to get any actual work done. Not that the grand opening was a wild and crazy affair, by any means; on the contrary, it was a far more mellow experience than the previous week's festivities in Woodfield. We're talking shorter lines, far fewer rabid AtAT fans (evidently we're much bigger in the Midwest than on the East Coast-- but do we play in Peoria?), and a surprising lack of music blaring as the doors were opened. What, no Love Shack? What would Steve say?

No, the distressing part of the experience was the store's actual layout. In our last episode we made a big deal about how all Apple stores would probably be almost identical, other than square footage and the like. Indeed, upon entering the Northshore location, we were suffused with a warm feeling of familiarity originating from our trip to the Woodfield store just a week earlier; there were the same wood floors, the same black shelves, and (generally speaking) the same beaming, enthusiastic salespeople. But only moments after setting foot inside, we became gradually aware that something was... askew.

We walked over to the Kids section-- or, we should say, what should have been the Kids section-- and found ourselves in Photos instead. Stumbling forward into where Music should be, we instead arrived in Movies. Confused, we stumbled back to the Genius Bar, only to find shelves of scanners, printers, and other peripherals. That's right, gang: the entire Northshore store is a mirror image of the standard Apple store layout! According to store employees, everything had to be flip-flopped because of how the space was set up; for one thing, there's a giant pillar sitting right where the Genius Bar is supposed to be. When viewed as a single retail entity, it's no big deal, but if you've already committed Apple's standard floor plan to memory, we don't mind telling you that the effect is disconcerting as all get out.

So after an experience like that (not to mention narrowly avoiding death when our discombobulation nearly led to a head-on collision when we drove part of the way home on the left side of the highway), our only reasonable course of action was clear: an extended return to the Apple store to acclimatize ourselves to its looking-glass layout, followed by a therapeutic barbecue and a heaping helping of out-of-state indie rock-- and most importantly of all, no work. We're happy to say that our treatment regimen appears to have worked, and all traces of hysterical dyslexia have since subsided. We're ready to take on the challenges of soap opera production once more, and we're gust jlad we suffered no pernament neulorogical madage...