If you've tuned in for more than two and a third episodes of this little soap, you know that we tend to play fast and loose with the whole "Apple-themed melodrama" kick, since roughly 40% of our content is actually just about the latest lame and/or evil stunt Microsoft just pulled. But it is thematically linked, after all, since a deep-seated incredulity that something as fundamentally icky as Windows can be the overwhelming market leader is a pretty fundamental aspect of the whole Mac fan experience. We weep for the death of the spirit and the soul. (Hey, who doesn't?)

And, of course, we also cackle uncontrollably every time Microsoft technology fails in a spectacular and highly visible manner. That's why faithful viewer SuperMatt breathlessly forwarded us a Daily Aardvark article about how Suchart Jaovisidha, the Finance Minister of Thailand, wound up trapped in his BMW "after the onboard computer crashed, leaving the vehicle immobilized." Reportedly the crash disabled the door locks, power windows, and air conditioning, leaving the minister and his driver baking in the sun and wondering whether heatstroke would kill them before they ran out of oxygen. Eventually they were rescued by a guard who smashed one of their windows with a sledgehammer he just, uh, happened to have lying around.

The article notes that BMW 7-series cars are running Windows CE, as confirmed by a Microsoft press release, which is presumably why the Mac community have pounced upon this story as a nifty new "Windows almost killed my Finance Minister" anecdote. Unfortunately, there's just one teensy little problem. Well, okay, two.

The first is that, according to CNET, the case of the oven-roasted Finance Minister was actually due to "an electronic fault" and not to "a system crash of the car's Windows-based central computer, as other reports have speculated." And the second is that the car in question was a ten-year-old BMW 520i, which doesn't have a Windows-based central computer in the first place.

But don't go all frowny-clown on us; we never let anything as inconsequential as mere facts stand in the way of a good ol'-fashioned Microsoft-bashing. Observe how deftly we dispense with these two minor contradictions: firstly, still reeling from its iLoo PR disaster, Microsoft clearly bribed CNET to report that the glitch was electronic in nature instead of a near-fatal Windows crash; secondly, Microsoft went back in time and saw to it that the BMW 520i never had a Windows-based central computer-- which it obviously did, before Redmond started messing with the fourth dimension. See? All fixed. Bash away!