The Apple Retail Machine just keeps chug-chug-chugging along, and while stores continue to open with an almost alarming regularity (especially in an economy recently classified by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan as a "reason to consider the many subtle benefits of assisted suicide"), most of the magic has long since dissipated from the big freakin' party known as the Grand Opening. Oh, sure, each store's opening is special in its own little way; the recent launch of the mondo enormo Chicago store produced a healthy level of spectacle with its own rock concert, and even the little rinky-dink theaterless Apple stores like our own local Chestnut Hill location pull in a fair number of loyal fans a few hours early for a pre-opening lineup that lends the day a nice sense of occasion. But gone are the days of rabid Mac fans hitchhiking for three weeks across two continents and subsisting on nothing but roadkill and adrenaline just for the honor of lining up ridiculously early for the latest Apple retail store's big debut.

Or so we thought. Tonight's 6 PM grand opening of the Apple Store Third Street Promenade (deep in the dusty badlands of Santa Monica, California) already has a little extra going for it, what with scheduled in-store acoustic performances by Less Than Jake and The Rising-- but what really grabbed our attention was the story of Hal Bergman, who brings an old-school recipe of recklessness, enthusiasm, and-- most importantly-- total disregard for the law to the Third Street opening by camping out on the street a full twenty-four hours before the store is slated to throw open its doors. And lest you think he's just confused and thinks he's waiting for Episode III tickets, Hal is actually documenting his twenty-four hours on the streets in semi-real time via periodic updates to Electronic Mayhem, thanks to a Pismo and the store's open AirPort network.

Yes, folks, it's a gritty story of life on the streets-- albeit life on the streets with lawn chairs, junk food, plenty o' portable Macs, and a home to return to when the whole goofy story is over. Swoon at the ingenuity as Hal and his friend Josh learn they can plug their laptops into the outlets for the decorative lights on the trees! Thrill to their getting hassled by The Man for violating curfew, stealing power, and (gasp!) sitting in lawn chairs! Marvel at the depths of sleep deprivation as Hal attempts to operate a motor vehicle to go buy more snacks! There's even a little unintentional social commentary as Hal notes the plight of the homeless with whom he's sharing the streets, albeit temporarily. Trust us, this story has everything. Dibs on the movie rights!

Kudos to Hal and Josh for putting some of the original spark back in the institution of the Apple retail store grand opening. These days we certainly wouldn't have expected nearly this much drama from what we believe is Apple's 61st such event, especially since Third Street is (somehow) also Apple's 439th retail store in California. While we obviously can't be there in person, the AtAT staff hopes to gatecrash via a remote video link during at least part of the opening. If you're planning to attend and you can find a free Mac with an iSight hooked up while you're there, consider sneaking us in; we expect to be available for video chats as atat@mac.com, although we should warn you that the public beta of iChat AV is most definitely a bit wonky on our end. Hope to see you there! And Hal, if you're out there, drop us a line-- if you're still awake, that is...

Say, remember about a week ago when we made the stunningly perspicacious observation that the Power Mac G5 introduction may have negatively affected sales of the current G4-based Xserves? Controversial stuff, we know, but at the time we figured we just had to go out on a limb and make the prediction, taking on the endless legions of people who embraced the conventional wisdom and insisted that the coming of the G5 would actually sell lots more G4 Xserves. See, whereas most people figured that G4 Xserve sales would steadily increase as savvy tech purchasers snap them up before the G5 processor makes the Xserve "way too fast" for "too little cost," we made the bold prediction that people would actually postpone Xserve purchases in order to get G5 speed. Seriously, if you think about it for a little while, it actually makes sense.

And not only does it make sense, apparently it was right! InfoWorld quotes an anonymous reseller as saying that "Xserve sales are dead," and that the time of death was "the day Apple came out with the G5." Moreover, the guy claims that Xserves (especially when paired up with the RAID box) were a hot commodity and selling well until Steve trotted out the G5 hype, after which he "couldn't give [them] away to [his] grandmother." Apparently when it comes to servers, Grandma's more of a Linux gal. Or possibly she's taking some kind of mind-altering prescription drug, because no one in her right mind turns down a free Xserve. Hey, Anonymous Reseller Guy: if those big honkin' Xserves are taking up precious space in your warehouse, we'd be more than happy to take 'em off your hands. And we're sorry about your grandmother's apparent inability to grasp the concept of price/performance, as well as her appalling lack of taste.

While it's somewhat off the topic of our own personal superhuman prescience, the article also mentions that rumors sites like MacRumors are predicting G5-based Xserves before the end of the year, and Apple's own discounting practices certainly hint to a release sooner rather than later: Apple developers "can now get 25 percent off the developer price, which is already quite generous." And as we all know, Apple doesn't slash prices down to "almost half off" for anyone unless it's trying to clear out inventory-- or fight a massive drop in demand. You know, kind of like the one we so marvelously predicted. Ooooh. Aaaaah.

Assuming that Apple doesn't get a G5 Xserve out the door until sometime in September, we might find out if all this is really true in about three months' time; the quarterly earnings stats would probably reveal a precipitous drop in Xserve sales for the July/August/September timeframe if one does turn out to exist. Until then, we'll just stick with citing Mr. Anonymous Reseller Guy when we need to demonstrate the breadth and scope of our astounding predictive abilities. Hey, does anyone know how we might go about applying for a government grant?...

Okay, now we know that we're slipping in our old age. Remember last month when we did a scene on a new Apple patent that had Mac obsessives all abuzz? Said patent covered "multiple personas for mobile devices," and included references to and diagrams of a handheld device that was clearly a Newton MessagePad 130. At the time, we assumed that the most drama we could wrench out of the situation was to play it up as a surefire harbinger of the Newton's return from the dead. Man, how wrong were we?

See, it turns out that The Register has hit upon the real motherlode of drama embedded in this whole "multiple personas" patent spiel: they surmise that Apple is attempting to patent "Fast User Switching," one of the hundred-odd zesty new features in Mac OS X 10.3, otherwise known as Panther. "But AtAT," you ask, "isn't 'Fast User Switching' a feature that Apple took from Windows?" Why, yes it is, little Timmy! In fact, Steve Jobs plainly admitted that fact onstage when he first gave us an eyeful of Apple's improved implementation. But remember, the patent is a continuation of one that Apple filed way back in 1995, which seriously predates the feature's inclusion in any operating system that Microsoft had slapped together by then.

According to The Reg, the new patent application contains some telltale changes to the original, such as referring to "one of multiple personas available on the computer system and associated with one or more users of the computer system," whereas the original patent apparently mentions personas only in a single-user scenario. Obviously, then, this is all about Fast User Switching and Apple's trying to patent the technology now in an attempt to gain a little leverage against Microsoft, should the Redmond Giant decide to drop the Mac version of Office the same way that it dropped Internet Explorer. We don't know why we never saw it before.

Well, okay, to be fair, when we produced the original scene Steve hadn't yet delivered his WWDC keynote and shown off the "Because We Can" rotating cube effect that instantaneously transformed "Fast User Switching" from something that Windows has that Microsoft maybe didn't rip off from somebody else into a must-have feature that has Mac users who live alone attempting to induce Dissociative Identity Disorder just so they have an actual reason to use it. Had news of the patent surfaced after the Stevenote, we might have had a fighting chance at spotting the real drama the way The Reg managed to do-- but ultimately, that's just an excuse, and now we look forward to that stage of our careers known as the "Ever-Declining Quality/Riding Out The Clock" phase. Woo-hoo!!