And we're back! Sorry about the late broadcast, kiddies, but just like we warned you, we spent the greater chunk of today with no 'net access as we hooked the AtAT compound into a different and hopefully less problematic cable company. At least in our experience, MediaOne went a little downhill when it became AT&T Broadband, but all hell broke loose once it turned into Comcast. If you're the ultra-attentive type, you might recall that we recently had a four-day outage because-- Oops!-- Comcast kindasorta forget to tell us that the cable modem they were providing us was about to become completely incompatible with their new system. Well, okay, that's not entirely true; they did send us an urgent letter warning us of the problem. Unfortunately they sent it three weeks after our service died, which seemed less like help and more like flailing incompetence. Or gloating. Either way, the really important thing is that our new slate-grey cable modem from RCN goes a lot better with our decor.

Anyway, like we said, we're back, and with a faster connection, even-- although we're still a little shaky after a moment of panic when it looked like our AT&T Broadband-branded TiVo might not be compatible with our new cable service. (Many thanks to Juan at TiVo tech support, whose expert advice and secret codes saved us from a fate worse than death; like the Bible says, what profiteth a man if he gains the Lifetime Movie Network and loses his own TiVo?) Seeing as we stared a TiVoless existence straight in the eye today and lived to tell about it, we're not really up for any heavy lifting as far as the whole drama thing's concerned. How about we ease back into things with an innocuous rumor about Apple being infiltrated by Oracle sales staff?

It's true! Well, the fact that there is a rumor is true; we have no idea if the rumor itself holds any water. But InfoWorld TechWatch most definitely claims that a source at Apple insists that the company "is hiring away Oracle sales people to help [it] target enterprise accounts," and if that's the case, then it's just one more clue that Apple is covertly gearing up for a full-on assault on big business to be launched as soon as Admiral Steve deems the wind to be blowing in Apple's favor.

And just how does Oracle CEO, notorious loudmouth, and all-around snazzy dresser Larry Ellison feel about Bestest Buddy Stevie poaching his free-range sales talent? Surprisingly, he's said to be fine with it; in fact, the same source goes so far as to claim that Larry "gave his blessing" when Apple wanted to swipe a "top Oracle sales executive" to fill out the lineup in Steve's fledgling enterprise sales force. Sounds like Steve's got an eager ringer to help him with his whole "Macs in Enterprise" scheme, and given that it's no less an authority on the subject than Larry "the Six Million Dollar Suit" Ellison, how can anything possibly go wrong?