While we were off lollygagging and watching infomercials and twiddling our thumbs and raising a kid and resolving to use the word "lollygag" a lot more often, you no doubt heard elsewhere that Mac OS X 10.2, the world's first major operating system with enough self-confidence to get away with wearing animal prints, went gold master a couple of weeks back. And while the springy new OS isn't slated for sale for another twelve days or so, Think Secret reports that honest-to-goshness retail copies of Jag-wire are indeed already shipping to retailers. An Apple product in stock twelve days early? Savvy and impatient consumers may do well to keep their eyes peeled for a repeat of the Premature Retail phenomenon that occurred in Staples last year, or scrape together a little extra cash to bribe a Mac dealer to sell them an early fix.

For those of you content to wait for the official release date, assuming you've managed to get over that nagging little "I can't believe I have to pay $129 for a full copy because Apple has chosen to screw loyal early adopters by not offering an upgrade price" dealie, good news-- there ought to be plenty of copies available when you grit your teeth and slap down the plastic a week from Saturday. True, we here at AtAT are a little disappointed that we probably won't be able to work Jaguar Shortage Riots into our plot two weeks from now, but at least we're resting assured that when we trundle on down to one of our local Apple retail stores, we'll be able to pick up a copy of 10.2 without having to wrest it from the clutching grasp of an elderly woman whom we've just sprayed with Mace. Good karma all around.

Or almost all around. We've been reading all sorts of gushing praise for 10.2's performance and feature set, and anecdotes of Quartz Extreme's blinding speed alone has got us pretty jazzed to upgrade our systems as soon as the software hits store shelves. But there's one teensy little sticking point that has us hesitating: according to Mac OS Rumors, Apple's "Out With The Old" initiative continues, and it's felled another old friend. If you're a traditionalist Machead who suffered a cardiac event when you heard of Clarus the Dogcow's reduced role in early builds of Mac OS X but then made a mild recovery when it was revealed that Clarus might be more prominent in Jaguar, well, keep those heart pills a-handy, 'cause Clarus's potential return comes as we learn of another casualty of progress: the Smiley Mac is reportedly no more.

If you're anything like us (and seek professional help if you are), the prospect of starting up your Mac and not being greeted by that grinning little fella has you gasping into a paper bag. True, an icon of a 9-inch Mac Classic is an anachronism in this day and age, and its replacement ("a sleek grey-on-grey Apple logo") sounds just nifty, but to be perfectly honest, we're not sure we can bear to part with the little guy. The only real consolation is that with Mac OS X we hardly ever restart our Macs anymore, so we don't see him much these days anyway. But still, can we deal with knowing that, after eighteen years of loyal service, Smiley Mac has just been given the shaft? C'mon, the guy showed up for work every single day since 1984, even when he was sick enough to have X's for eyes. Now that's dedication.

All we can say is, here's hoping Apple kept him on in a part-time capacity and he continues to grace the expanded startup process of the Classic environment. And heaven help them if those scum laid a finger on his pension fund.