Quick, everyone start practicing your "Irrepressible Optimism Despite Everything History Has Ever Taught Us" faces, because you're going to need an appropriate expression to wear the next time you wander into Best Buy. You all know that the Keeper of the Big Yellow Tag has dropped the ball and been canned twice with the whole Apple-Authorized Reseller thing. Or is it three times? We lost count at some point over the course of the past six years. Let's see, there was the original retail shakeout in 1998, when Best Buy got the hook for using the display Performas as the official test targets for its grand "Can the staff extinguish a flaming computer entirely by spitting on it?" experiments. Then they came back on board to get some of that sweet, sweet iMac action and left again after having botched the entire campaign to a degree that can only be described as "unparalleled." Or possibly "brick-stupid."

As far as we can recall, though, there haven't been any further splits since Best Buy came back yet again last September just to sell iPods-- and apparently that's been going well enough that Apple has renewed confidence in Best Buy's ability to move Macs, too. Rumors of yet another unholy alliance have been swirling for some time, and now Mac Rumors reports that, yes, selected Best Buy stores will once again be selling Macs-- some possibly as early as today, although the official launch is apparently next month. The test program is reportedly "focused in California and Illinois, with scattered stores in other states (AZ, VA, NY, MD, MN)." If you happen to live near a Best Buy in once of these locations, head on in and maybe you'll see a wide selection of Macs available for sale. If you hurry, you may even see them before they're set on fire and covered in phlegm.

Oh, but wait-- things are going to be different this time! Apple has a plan to keep Best Buy's Macs both unsinged and mucus-free, and that plan is the old "Do The Stores' Job For Them" strategy: Apple will stick its own full-time sales reps into Best Buy stores, who will presumably field customers' questions about Apple products with polite and accurate answers-- in stark contrast to responding with tear gas and rubber bullets, as was store policy previously. This tactic has worked well in the past; it's transformed shopping for a Mac at CompUSA into an experience that, while certainly not perfect, at least no longer has Mac users longing for the release that only merciful death can bring. Woo-hoo!

Provided that Apple can break the Curse of the Yellow Tag, this is all ultimately good news. Sure, buying a Mac in a dank warehouse surrounded by the decaying corpses of fallen bargain-hunters falls a little short of the posh Apple retail store experience, but there are a lot more Best Buy stores scattered across the land; location, location, location. And putting Macs where "regular people" shop for electronic equipment ought to improve mind share, and possibly even-- dare we say it?-- market share. We've also heard from viewers who have encountered some very liberal interpretations of the chain's price-matching policy, which might score you a sweet deal if you're devious enough to, say, write in lower prices on a CompUSA circular with a black Sharpie. Besides, we've been holding our breath since September waiting for the Best Buy-iPod relationship to crash and burn, and it never has; maybe this latest arrangement really is going to work out after all. Maybe.