Waitaminnit, Monday already? But we still have leftovers! Sigh... It's the same trouble every year; if you eat 'til you pass out, then you're not eating anymore. Maybe next year we'll invest in a big, scary blender so we can continue to ingest liquefied leftovers intravenously during the digestive coma. See? We're all about innovation-- and luckily for us, Apple is, too.

That's why, on the iPod's kindasorta two-year anniversary, the New York Times just ran an extensive six-page article on the device and what makes it tick. (Many thanks to faithful viewer openshift for pointing it out.) There's a wealth of interesting information in there about the iPod's components, who makes them, and how they all come together into a whole decidedly greater than the sum of its parts; the author struggles with the very nature of innovation, and how the iPod somehow manages to assume iconic, if not necessarily mythic, proportions.

Is it the look? The technology? The way it all hangs together? How, exactly, has Apple managed to innovate so thoroughly that "just another MP3 player" is now at least as recognizable as a pop culture icon as the iMac was at the height of translucent fruititude? And if that's not enough for you, there's also the comic relief of RealNetworks' Rob Glaser claiming that "it's absolutely clear now why five years from now, Apple will have 3 to 5 percent of the player market." Really, it's very interesting stuff.

And, of course, since we're such brilliantly innovative people ourselves, we're going to ignore all of that.

See, the bit that sticks out for us comes right at the end, when Steve is waxing peevish about how nobody else "gets" the nature of innovation-- he rants, "We don't think, 'Let's be innovative! Let's take a class! Here are the five rules of innovation, let's put them up all over the company!'" And when he's told that there are companies who do just that, he continues, "Of course they do. And it's like... somebody who's not cool trying to be cool. It's painful to watch. You know what I mean? It's like... watching Michael Dell try to dance. Painful."

Now, we're not entirely sure how Steve just happens to be privy to Mike Dell's lack of boogie prowess, but since they're both tech billionaires and might wind up at some of the same fundraisers, we'll have to take him at his word. So Dell can't dance, eh? You do realize what this means, right? The No-Rhythm Microsoft Billionaire Curse is not limited to Microsoft billionaires like Ballmer and Gates, but is, in fact, a more general No-Rhythm Tech Billionaire Curse, since Mike Dell is apparently similarly afflicted!

At first we thought that perhaps there was still a Microsoftian link to the syndrome (since Dell sells such high volumes of Windows), but then reports came trickling in from AtAT sources in the field that AOL bigwig Steve Case "dances like Al Gore after a Taser hit," Cisco CEO John Chambers "couldn't find a beat if it were spray-painted Day-Glo and stapled to his kiester," and Oracle's Larry Ellison (one of the most vocal anti-Microsoft tech billionaires around) "has the dancefloor moves of a drunken polar bear trying to escape a large vat of peanut butter." So, clearly, involvement with Microsoft isn't necessary for the syndrome to strike.

Needless to say, this is an important medical discovery-- one that might save countless souls from a terrible fate of dancing like a dork. You know, we'd hoped to ease back into things after the long weekend with a bit of fluff and a few slow-pitch scenes, but even though we're now totally drained of every last vaguely investigative impulse in our bodies, we feel pretty good about having jumped right back into hard news like this. Sure, it hurts, but it's a good kind of hurt. And we can recuperate secure in the knowledge that we've discovered something vital to every man, woman, and child on the face of this planet: if you value your Groove Thang, then for the sake of all that's rhythmic, do not make a billion dollars in the high-tech industry. Your bumpin' booty will thank you in the long run.

"But AtAT," you posit, "isn't it a far simpler and therefore likelier scenario that the billionaire factor really doesn't enter into it at all, and that all this really just boils down to the simple fact that, whether they've got wads of cash or not, nerds can't dance?"

Interesting theory. No. Shut up.

And pass that stuffing.