Just a couple of music-related reminders, folks: first of all, do you have a few (or a few dozen) winning Pepsi caps still sitting around unclaimed? Because as faithful viewer Lyle Gunderson points out, there are only a few more days in which to cash in your free-tune redemption codes, and since you're limited to claiming ten songs a day, if you've been hoarding winning caps, you really need to get on the stick before all that luscious yellow plastic turns back into a pumpkin at midnight on Saturday. Or Friday. Depends on how you choose to define these things; Friday night, a.k.a. 12:00 AM Saturday. You know what we mean. Mark the calendar or something.

Secondly, while this is technically Monday's episode, thanks to some wacky renovations that have thrown the AtAT compound into an even greater state of higgledy-piggledy than usual (the contractors left our toilet out in the rain-- it's like "MacArthur Park," only with doody humor!), you're tuning in on Tuesday-- which means it's Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day, and as we mentioned last week, if you're one of the first 50,000 people to take their online Oath to Vote, you'll be emailed a free iTunes Music Store song code in a few days' time. (Regardless of whether or not you're quick enough to score a free song, you'll also be entered to win a free iPod, an iMac, and a trip to Vermont "to spend a day as an honorary Flavor Guru." Can't beat that with a stick.)

Meanwhile, in slightly less-free-song iTMS news, faithful viewer neopod informs us that Apple is planning a special birthday event of some sort this coming Wednesday. According to MacMinute, at 11:30 AM EDT on the 28th Apple will be throwing an "iTunes Music Store anniversary conference call," during which the Big Steve himself will "update media and industry analysts on the iTunes Music Store one year after its launch." How 'bout that? The Mac turned 20 this past January and Apple let the day pass without so much as a cupcake with a candle stuck in it, and yet the iTMS gets a full-blown media event (albeit a telephonic one) complete with Steve just one year out of the gate.

But we digress. The thing to focus on, here, is that Apple is fully acknowledging the iTMS's imminent anniversary and isn't trying to weasel out of reporting just how far it fell short of Steve's "100 million songs sold in the first year" goal. Last month, you'll recall, Steve remarked to the press that Apple was "not going to make that number" and figured on maybe "70 million to 75 million" songs total once the first full year's sales were tallied up and all those Pepsi downloads were rolled in as well. But if Steve is going to have a full-blown conference call to discuss the numbers, which he's obviously not obligated to do under any existing federal, state, or local laws (at least until the National Groovy Download Tally Disclosure Act passes), maybe the iTMS did better than previously expected.

Then again, maybe Steve's got something else up his sleeve. Some people are already getting their hopes up for an iTMS launch in Europe or Canada, but we tend to think that Apple would stage something a bit bigger than a conference call for news of that magnitude. (And faithful viewer johnny0 noticed that Apple's still looking to hire a Featured Content Manager that speaks French and German, so that may hint that the Europe store, at least, is as far off as EuroSteve Pascal Cagni recently implied.)

Whatever. There's only a day or so before we find out exactly what's up, so there's no sense spraining a lobe trying to puzzle it out. In the meantime, don't forget to cash in those Pepsi caps-- immediately, if possible, since there's still one last day in which Apple can try to inch closer to that iTMS sales goal. Likewise, if there's anything you've been planning to buy (admit it-- ever since we mentioned it after the flood of Disney albums, you've had your eye on that Hayley Mills album), now's the time.