Well, impugn our pine-scented virtue and call us Martha-- it happened again. If you thought Thursday's inexplicable climb of $1.24 was Twilight Zoney, just look at what Apple's stock did today: up $1.58 to a startling $26.74 a share, after going as high as $27.49. Most news outlets are reporting this as a "new 52-week high," but the price actually reached its highest point in two or three years, depending on whether you're going by the intraday max or the closing price. We can at least say this with utter certainty: eyeballing a five-year chart shows that AAPL is "at or near" (gotta love the wiggle room) its highest levels since the Big Scary Cliff-Dive of 2000 (also known as "Black September" or "AAAIIIIIEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeSPLAT!"). If anyone spots Rod Serling delivering a squinty-eyed, moral-ridden monologue into a camera somewhere, tell him we'd like a word with him when he gets a chance.

At least this time the gains are too obvious for the analysts to ignore, though, so people are offering explanations for today's run-up. So far there seem to be only two theories put forth by the mainstream media, neither of which has anything to do with playing card battery packs. (Ingrates!) A Reuters article reports that some analysts attribute AAPL's rise in part to "persistent takeover speculation, with the purported suitor this time being consumer electronics giant Sony Corp." More Sony-Apple merger rumors? Is this about those benign little comments that Sony CEO Nobuyuki Idei made to Business 2.0 about those "joint projects between Sony and Apple"? Geez, just because he mentioned that he's "seen Steve Jobs three times in the past year" doesn't mean a buyout's in the works, people. C'mon, we've seen Steve at least six times in the past year (granted, always through binoculars while hiding in the bushes), but that doesn't mean AtAT is about to replace Apple's Hot News page.

Although, you know, we'd consider a serious offer.

The other factor being thrown around as the catalyst for skyrocketing AAPL shares is the runaway success known (well, to us, anyway) as the miniPod. USA TODAY just ran a big, high-profile story on how the miniPod is a "smash hit" and is "virtually sold out" just about everywhere you look. This follows hot on the heels of a similar gush job in the slightly less visible New York Daily News which surfaced earlier in the week, and even comes with the obligatory sound bite from a harried NYC reseller; this time around it's Jack Wahrman of J&R Music World, saying "I've never seen a product sell like this. The iPod is a phenomenon." Meanwhile, Apple's own Greg Joswiak chimes in to ask customers to "be patient" (since even the Apple Store quotes a lead time of "1-3 weeks") and confirms that the delays and SOLD OUT signs have nothing to do with any kind of component shortage; Apple simply can't build the things fast enough to satisfy demand.

So that's what they came up with: miniPod success and insubstantial Sony takeover rumors. Is that really enough to trigger a 12% price hike in two days? No one knows (though the analysts pretend to), but hey, we'll take it any way we can get it. After all, as faithful viewer Robert Creek points out, Apple's stock is now priced higher than Microsoft's. Okay, sure, it means absolutely squat since Microsoft has a market cap almost thirty times the size of Apple's, but doesn't it still make you feel all sunny inside?