Waitaminnit, Monday already? But we still have leftovers! Sigh... It's the same trouble every year; if you eat 'til you pass out, then you're not eating anymore. Maybe next year we'll invest in a big, scary blender so we can continue to ingest liquefied leftovers intravenously during the digestive coma. See? We're all about innovation-- and luckily for us, Apple is, too.

That's why, on the iPod's kindasorta two-year anniversary, the New York Times just ran an extensive six-page article on the device and what makes it tick. (Many thanks to faithful viewer openshift for pointing it out.) There's a wealth of interesting information in there about the iPod's components, who makes them, and how they all come together into a whole decidedly greater than the sum of its parts; the author struggles with the very nature of innovation, and how the iPod somehow manages to assume iconic, if not necessarily mythic, proportions.

Is it the look? The technology? The way it all hangs together? How, exactly, has Apple managed to innovate so thoroughly that "just another MP3 player" is now at least as recognizable as a pop culture icon as the iMac was at the height of translucent fruititude? And if that's not enough for you, there's also the comic relief of RealNetworks' Rob Glaser claiming that "it's absolutely clear now why five years from now, Apple will have 3 to 5 percent of the player market." Really, it's very interesting stuff.

And, of course, since we're such brilliantly innovative people ourselves, we're going to ignore all of that.

See, the bit that sticks out for us comes right at the end, when Steve is waxing peevish about how nobody else "gets" the nature of innovation-- he rants, "We don't think, 'Let's be innovative! Let's take a class! Here are the five rules of innovation, let's put them up all over the company!'" And when he's told that there are companies who do just that, he continues, "Of course they do. And it's like... somebody who's not cool trying to be cool. It's painful to watch. You know what I mean? It's like... watching Michael Dell try to dance. Painful."

Now, we're not entirely sure how Steve just happens to be privy to Mike Dell's lack of boogie prowess, but since they're both tech billionaires and might wind up at some of the same fundraisers, we'll have to take him at his word. So Dell can't dance, eh? You do realize what this means, right? The No-Rhythm Microsoft Billionaire Curse is not limited to Microsoft billionaires like Ballmer and Gates, but is, in fact, a more general No-Rhythm Tech Billionaire Curse, since Mike Dell is apparently similarly afflicted!

At first we thought that perhaps there was still a Microsoftian link to the syndrome (since Dell sells such high volumes of Windows), but then reports came trickling in from AtAT sources in the field that AOL bigwig Steve Case "dances like Al Gore after a Taser hit," Cisco CEO John Chambers "couldn't find a beat if it were spray-painted Day-Glo and stapled to his kiester," and Oracle's Larry Ellison (one of the most vocal anti-Microsoft tech billionaires around) "has the dancefloor moves of a drunken polar bear trying to escape a large vat of peanut butter." So, clearly, involvement with Microsoft isn't necessary for the syndrome to strike.

Needless to say, this is an important medical discovery-- one that might save countless souls from a terrible fate of dancing like a dork. You know, we'd hoped to ease back into things after the long weekend with a bit of fluff and a few slow-pitch scenes, but even though we're now totally drained of every last vaguely investigative impulse in our bodies, we feel pretty good about having jumped right back into hard news like this. Sure, it hurts, but it's a good kind of hurt. And we can recuperate secure in the knowledge that we've discovered something vital to every man, woman, and child on the face of this planet: if you value your Groove Thang, then for the sake of all that's rhythmic, do not make a billion dollars in the high-tech industry. Your bumpin' booty will thank you in the long run.

"But AtAT," you posit, "isn't it a far simpler and therefore likelier scenario that the billionaire factor really doesn't enter into it at all, and that all this really just boils down to the simple fact that, whether they've got wads of cash or not, nerds can't dance?"

Interesting theory. No. Shut up.

And pass that stuffing.

Hey, remember back when Apple retail store openings were new? People would flock from hundreds-- even thousands-- of miles around and wait in line for days on end just to check out each store on its first day open to the public. Of course, that sort of enthusiasm wilted as time passed; as veterans of six or seven grand openings ourselves, we can state unequivocally that there's been a steep dropoff in craziness at the events as more and more stores open up. Sure, people still line up; we're willing to bet that even the Apple Store North Point in Alpharetta, Georgia will get a few dozen diehards waiting in line bright and early when it opens its doors this Saturday. But somehow we doubt that anyone's going to fly in from Finland and establish base camp outside the store three days ahead of time, getting their sustenance from wild berries and grubs native to the local mall ecosystem. (Well, and maybe Arby's, in a pinch.)

But as it turns out, all you need to do to recapture the insane zeal of the first Apple store openings is open one in another country. Faithful viewer Michael Causton forwarded us a JapanConsuming article which reports that when Japan's first Apple retail store opened at 10 AM yesterday, there was a staggering crowd of 5,500 people waiting to get in. Apparently the guy first in line showed up on Friday afternoon at 4 PM-- all the way from Berkeley, California. (Note to Mr. First-In-Line-San: there are seventy-something stores in this country, you know, including sixteen in your home state; Emeryville's probably only about fifteen minutes away. No need to fly to Japan whenever you need to pick up a five-pack of blank DVDs.) Apple has posted a nifty photo gallery of the five-floor store, with pictures of the place both before and after it got mobbed by over five thousand drooling Mac freaks. Seriously crazy stuff.

Of course, eventually the enthusiasm will die down over there, too, once Apple opens enough stores; according to MacMinute, Apple told journalists in Tokyo that it would open a second retail store in Osaka next year, so this is just the beginning. But it should be a good long while before Japanese Mac fans get as jaded as we are with the whole retail grand opening thing-- and besides, they still get to go through all the iTunes Music Store excitement, too. Faithful viewer David Triska notes that MacRumors references a new item at Asahi.com pertaining to news about the iTMS touching down in the Land of the Rising Sun: we weren't having much luck with Babelfish, for some reason, so we used Sherlock's translation function to unearth a little meaning. (Apparently Steve is Apple's "highest management patsy." That's good stuff.)

So here's the relevant bit of the article, as translated by Sherlock: "In Japan and starting the apple and music transmission service in 04: The apple the Japanese record company and the like which receives the offer of music and while negotiating, after acquiring the aim of offer, starts service." Which, if you stare at it long enough, clearly means that Apple is negotiating terms with Japanese record labels, and once an agreement is set, the iTunes Music Store will launch in Japan next year. Of course, if you stare at it a bit longer, it instead starts to look like a command from the Dark Prince of the Netherworld to bite the head off a bat while listening to Black Sabbath backwards and playing Dungeons & Dragons, so we definitely recommend that you look away once you get the basic gist of the whole record label negotiating thing, because the bat thing could get messy.

So Japan's going through Retail Mania and will soon experience iTMS Frenzy, as well. The bottom line? If you're looking for a new thrill in the form of an old thrill, hey, there are worse ways to blow your frequent flyer miles...

You know, Apple gets so much recognition in the form of magazine "awards" and the like that, frankly, the whole topic gets pretty boring after a while. Okay, sure, when PC Magazine names the Power Mac G5 the Computer of the Year, that's pretty amazing-- a Mac getting major props from a seriously Wintel-centric publication, yadda yadda yadda. Still, even the so-called "interesting" awards (like Steve Jobs getting named the fifth-best-dressed billionaire by Forbes) get washed away in a sea of, say, design journals tripping all over themselves to bestow their prestigious accolades upon the Mighty Jon Ive. It's just not all that exciting. Maybe if there were a little gold statue involved, or something.

And yet, faithful viewer trusswalker found a magazine award that really does inspire more than snores. Shield your eyes with our PG rating badge, sensitive viewers, because apparently the Mac is the king of the castle on Playboy's list of "50 Products That Changed the World." (C'mon, don't give us that look-- we swear, we only read it for the pictures of naked women.) We weren't able to find the article at Playboy's web site (and we looked really, really thoroughly), so we're taking trusswalker's word for it, here; reportedly the Mac ranks all the way up at Numero Uno, which means that Playboy considers the Mac more influential than Buffalo Wings (48th), the G-string (44th), the Jacuzzi (36th), the miniskirt (25th), the microwave oven (13th), Viagra (8th), and the birth control pill (2nd). The Macintosh-- more world-changing than the birth control pill? We sense an imminent Hot News mention! Or, um, maybe not.

What's more, the Mac isn't the only Apple product on the list. The QuickTake 100 (Apple's original digital camera, and the first anywhere priced for mass-market consumer use; if you didn't know that, aren't you a little scared that Playboy is more up on Apple history than you are?) comes in at 17, ranking higher than the DVD player (21st), and the iPod grabs a healthy 12th-place finish-- which doesn't quite beat out the Sony Walkman (9th), but hey, we're talking about a two-year-old product squaring off against the two-decades-old reigning king, so we consider that a pretty good finish.

We predict an upcoming Apple ad campaign that "practically writes itself"; seriously, how can Apple pass up a marketing opportunity like Playboy declaring the Macintosh to be more world-changing than breast implants (6th)?