Well, here we are at yet another Halloween, and we don't mind telling you, the whole thing's gotten pretty old. Call us jaded, but really, in this day and age, can anything be really scary anymore? Seriously, over the years we've faced-- and survived-- such horrifying demons as Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian, Steve Jobs in a suit, and (lord help us all) Steve Ballmer on PCP. At this point, legions of putrescent zombies could assault the AtAT compound with room-temperature head cheese, hairless cats, and episodes of "Full House" on VHS and it just wouldn't faze us a bit.

But, of course, the prospect of Dell selling iPods is gut-wrenchingly horrifying enough to give us a screaming case of the heebie-jeebies.

And yet it's true! Faithful viewer Jeff Wiley was the first of some eighty-blajillion horrorstruck casualties to inform us of the news; according to CNET, you can now purchase a Windows iPod direct from Dell via phone, and the devices are expected to show up on the company's web site "soon." Reportedly Dell has admitted that some of its customers "had been asking them to carry the iPod" because-- will wonders never cease-- apparently at least some people with so little regard for design and innovation as to be buying a Dell in the first place still paradoxically realize that the iPod kicks major booty over the other MP3 players offered on Dell's site.

Apple, for its part, seems to have jumped at the chance to enlist Dell as an iPod reseller, seeing as the move fits so perfectly with the whole "World Takeover One iPod At A Time" initiative. (Yesterday Apple also issued a press release confirming what Think Secret had originally reported last week: yes, the iPod is now available at 1,148 Target stores nationwide. Hubba hubba.) Between Dell, Target, and Best Buy, distribution channels for the iPod have multiplied at ridiculous rates over the past six weeks. Soon iPods will be everywhere; you won't be able to walk down the street without tripping over half a dozen of 'em. And that's when they'll hatch and everyone on the planet will soon feel an alien life form attaching itself to his or her central nervous system. (What, you never wondered why those things are called "iPods"?)

Of course, we're awaiting the inevitable conversion of the world's population into 'Pod People with aplomb. The real problem, here, is that we now live in constant fear that someday we'll be flipping channels and we'll accidentally see a Dell commercial in which either the Dude or one of the new Lobotomized Interns utters the word "iPod," at which point our heads will surely explode with an unpleasant moist popping sound and money will have to be deducted from our estate to get the walls cleaned before the AtAT compound goes up for sale. Whoever knew that life would become so complicated?