[NOTE: The AtAT staff would like to apologize in advance for the forthcoming tasteless reference to the alimentary canal-- though, of course, we're still actually going to make said reference. Clearly we just can't help ourselves.]

Hear ye, hear ye! Can it be? Is the AtAT staff finally done redefining the term "missing in action" for generations of slackers to come? Well, no, not really. Truth be told, we'd really hoped to produce at least sporadic episodes while embroiled in our journey from Beantown to Where The Sun Don't Shine ("Seeee-ATTLE, WASHINGTON!!") back over to the lush and verdant climes of Milwaukee and Chicago, but sadly, the trip turned out to be Fraught With Peril™. Which, we're sure you immediately realized, is code for "every damn person in three states with whom we share a chromosome or two or even once said 'hi' to in 8th grade gym class wanted a piece of us, plus we were toting a seven-month-old child which tends to chew up every remaining waking second and Hertz totally screwed us twice in ways that will surely one day send the company's execs to the Big Hot Place and it turns out that pulling together the sort of wit and sunshine to which you're all accustomed under those conditions is absolutely a losing proposition and by the way trying to do it all over dialup just really really makes us want to have someone park a Volkswagen on our heads." Or something.

That said, however, we've been back from our BabyTour 2: Electric Boogaloo whirlwind romp across the sweeping plains of this great land ever since New Year's Day, and we fully intended to jump right back into forcefeeding the faithful with 2500% of their recommended daily allowance of mean-spirited sarcasm and turtleneck jokes. Unfortunately, there were a couple of things we hadn't exactly counted on when we finally made it back home. First of all, there was the dire fact that despite our sunny assumptions that it would surely have been melted away by a solid week of above-freezing-- some might even say balmy-- temperatures in Boston, the foot-plus of snow that got dumped on the compound by the big Christmas Day storm apparently didn't get the memo. And secondly, that not only would we have to dig through that mess (and the additional foot-and-change that arrived in spurts over the next few days, heavy enough to have pinned the AtATmobile in the AtATcave by virtue of snapping two Mighty Driveway-Blocking Limbs from our own Mighty Oak), but we'd have to do it while afflicted with the plague.

Well, okay, maybe not the plague, per se; we're not doctors (though we've seen one on TV). Katie, AtAT's resident fact-checker and Goddess of Minutiae, deduces from the symptoms-- e.g. fever, chills, aches not attributable to having moved eighty tons of snow, and copious mass in all three phases of matter issuing forcibly from both ends of the alimentary canal (remember, we did apologize!)-- that what the compound is probably experiencing is a localized but virulent stomach flu epidemic. Call it what you will; we'll just call it "Three Short Inches From Death's Sweet Release" and leave it at that. We'll spare you further details of the experience, but remember, now you owe us. Big. On the plus side, we discovered a really fun new party game, in which everybody present has to decide whether they'd rather actually have the stomach flu, or simply be taking care of a baby with the stomach flu. (Hint: either is better than both. Trust us.)

Needless to say, our absence from the airwaves is far more attributable to, say, the double vision and the crippling intestinal cramping than to trying to avoid getting snowed in (and in hindsight, just why were we trying to avoid getting snowed in? What exactly were we going to go out for? Food?). Luckily, we seem to be past the worst of it-- both the snow and the sickness. We're by no means 100% yet, and there's still a bit more of the white stuff falling outside even now, but we're certainly on our feet enough to gross you out with vague allusions to peristalsis gone terribly awry, and that's something, at any rate. And look at the bright side: it's not like there's anything special happening in the Apple world now, anyway.

Wait, today's the 7th?...

...Aw, poop.

Hmm, well, yeah... okay, so we apparently barfed our entire way through the entire traditional pre-Stevenote SpeculoFrenzy, and unfortunately only in a purely literal fashion. Nurtz. Well, we're sure you kept up to speed via the usual suspects; Mac OS Rumors appears to have had a list of "expectations" up since Sunday afternoon, and even folks as out of it as we are know that it'd be a crime to pass up MacRumors's roundup of the likeliest goodies to fall come noon Eastern when Steve kicks the Apple tree. Video iPods? Integrated Bluetooth? An Apple-branded web browser? Lordy be, we feel slightly faint. We'd best keep that thermometer handy... once the dust settles tomorrow, we just might need it again. Which is, you know, just fine with us-- provided that nothing Steve unveils sends us scurrying for the commode.

As for us, well, we think we're back on the air, as we're now at the stage of the illness at which fluid pours freely from every hole in one's head, which is not nearly as debilitating as having to decide which of those two blurry dancing toilets you should aim for. We're only just starting on the massive mail backlog, so it may be just a bit longer before we get to that death threat you sent us for vanishing during Expo season, but we'll see it eventually, no worries. If all goes even remotely according to plan, when you tune in tomorrow you'll actually see a proper episode all about the various rabbits that Steve pulled out of his big, shiny hat. Will wonders never cease?