Yes, we're well aware that it's Wildly Off-Topic Microsoft-Bashing Day, but even though this was technically a short week, it was definitely also one of the longest short weeks of our lives. Since we'd desperately like to close the books on this mutant time-dilated week from the Scary Hot Place, we're going to keep this as short and sweet as we possibly can (which probably isn't saying much). Besides, the appeal of this tidbit is pretty esoteric, and probably limited primarily to longtime Mac fans who remember the sort of media coverage Apple was getting during the Amelio Era of 1996ish. Everyone else can just use this time for independent study.

It was faithful viewer Joel who tipped us off; there's an opinion piece by one of the contributing editors over at InfoWorld which discusses the ramifications of the Department of Homeland Security officially recommending that patriotic Americans stop using Internet Explorer because it's just too much of a security risk. And while we mentioned that whole thing on last week's Wildly Off-Topic Microsoft-Bashing Day, we bring it up again now because it's prompted InfoWorld to slap Microsoft with the very adjective the press once reserved almost exclusively for Apple. Yes, folks, Microsoft is officially "beleaguered."

If you recall the Amelio days, then you know what we're talking about; to the press, Apple wasn't Apple-- it was beleaguered Apple, always and forevermore. Even the most innocuous stories mentioning Apple in passing would still include the mandatory "B" word and would be sure to mention the company's imminent demise: "Sunnyvale resident Janie Morris, 27, tripped over a discarded watermelon Thursday as she walked home from the headquarters of beleaguered Apple Computer, where she works as a receptionist for the doomed computer manufacturer," that sort of thing. Heck, it was the incessant over-the-top doom 'n' gloom news coverage of the Apple deathwatch that prompted us to start producing an online Apple-flavored melodrama in the first place, so you can imagine our nostalgia.

What's particularly sweet about this reference to "beleaguered Microsoft" is that there's no indication that the author did it with Apple in mind; he writes strictly from a Windows-centric IT perspective, and is probably totally unaware of the term's history. As far as we can tell, this is a completely unprompted, organic, and honest use of the word, devoid of any knowledge of the term's prior exclusive association with Apple. This guy's not a bitter Mac fan with an axe to grind; he's just a Windows geek who honestly believes that Microsoft is now "beleaguered."

Oh, how sweet it is. Now all we need is for someone to suggest that Microsoft "shut itself down and give the money back to the shareholders" and we'll be in hog heaven...