Decisions, decisions... do we make this episode an Apple press release hat trick and yammer on about free G5- and Panther-optimized updates for Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, and Shake, or do we bail on the official word from Cupertino and go hunting for plot developments outside the sandbox? The pro app updates are big news, to be sure-- Shake renders 45% faster on a G5 than on a G4, DVD Studio Pro encodes video up to 55% faster, and Final Cut Pro can now play back "seven fully uncompressed standard definition video streams with real-time effects" on a dual G5 (as long as you've got an Xserve RAID)-- which means you can watch seven episodes of "Charles in Charge" at once while making Willie Aames look green like a cheesy Star Trek alien. Important stuff!

The thing is, though, those are all professional-grade applications, used by people with actual jobs-- whereas the latest marketing stats show that, as you'd expect, AtAT's audience consists almost exclusively of the unemployed and people living on disability. (Expect banner ads from correspondence schools and personal injury attorneys any day now.) Given that fact, we're going to have to pass on pro-app drama and instead go for the sure-fire ratings appeal of the alien autopsy vibe aimed squarely at our primary demographic. So grab the pork rinds and generic beer, you lugs, and ponder the eternal mystery of... PC Magazine's 20th Annual Awards for Technical Excellence! (You're supposed to hum the X-Files theme here.)

Why so spooky, you ask? Because, as pointed out by faithful viewer mrmgraphics, the winner in the Personal Computers category is none other than the Power Mac G5. Yes, PC Magazine chose a Mac as the best personal computer of the year. Which it is, of course-- nothing weird about that-- but the fact that PC Magazine thinks so (and admits it publicly) would have Mulder on the next flight out, if he weren't spending all his time these days investigating abandoned pets.

Still not weird enough for you? Then consider how PC Magazine calls the G5 a "dazzling display of disruptive technology and processor independence" that's both "commendably quiet" and "an important step forward in desktop computer technology." What's more, while the rest of the PC industry keeps harping on about how Apple's original G5 benchmarks were clearly the result of blatant underhanded cheating involving disabled Hyperthreading, nonproduction settings of processor registers, and enough steroids to vaporize the liver of a charging rhino, PC Magazine reports that the G5 "equaled or bettered the performance of Intel-platform machines" on "all-important graphics and content creation tests."

Score one for Apple-- and, of course, for whatever pod-based alien simulacrums are currently masquerading as the PC Magazine editorial board. Apple gets awards, the aliens get the delicious human flesh of the people whose form they've taken on after feasting; it's win-win, baby!