Ah, the dark side of fame! When we set out to take over the world by crafting an intensely popular and hypnotic 'net soap capable of holding hordes of dutiful minions in our thrall, little did we suspect that someday we'd start seeing our own timeless words appearing in surprising and occasionally unwelcome places. It's one thing to be quoted on occasion; being quoted out of context and sans any hint of irony, on the other hand, can be just a wee bit painful.

See, here's an example of a "good" cameo: faithful viewer Necris Rex pointed out that we made an unexpected appearance in, of all things, an About.com article on alternative religions. The article itself is a lighthearted take on an age-old subject: the concept of the Mac faithful as cult. Indeed, we had taken a stab at it ourselves back in May when we noted the disturbing similarities between Mac community behavior and "cult characteristics" listed by the Cultic Studies Journal, which is what spawned our surprise walk-on appearance in the About.com article in the first place. But our original scene was simply used as a springboard for some editorial musings, everything worked out just fine, and no one got hurt.

At the other end of the spectrum, faithful viewer Kat noticed that, unbeknownst to us, we actually got quoted in an article for an Australian IT web site that evidently forgot to read our disclaimer. First of all, we were described not as "an edge-of-your-seat drama destined for Emmy consideration any day now," but rather as "a Macintosh rumour and gossip Web site." Clearly something is terribly, terribly amiss, here. And then, in describing last month's brouhaha when Microsoft "upgraded" Internet Explorer and killed QuickTime in the process, the article quotes us as describing the "upgrade" as "obviously an overt anti-competitive sleazoid move" and "part of some massive conspiracy to undermine Apple's media technology."

Now, of course, we did say that, but taken out of context, it makes us sound like raving paranoiacs! In contrast, if you go back and read what we said in context, we think you'll agree that we instead come across as calm, collected, and well-medicated paranoiacs. Ooo, we hate being misrepresented... but that's what happens when everyone's out to get you.