You know, about six months ago, an AtAT field operative inconspicuously disguised as Blackbeard the Pirate snuck into Apple's Top Secret Underground Laboratory / Bowling Alley and managed to take some extremely covert and exciting video footage, despite his hook hand. This footage finally confirmed an age-old but outlandish Apple rumor as being 100% true: Phil Schiller does bowl lefty.

So floored were we to witness definitive evidence that Phil is a southpaw that we barely gave a second thought to the dozen or so engineers in white lab coats milling busily around a largish satellite in the background of the shot; said satellite was perhaps fifteen feet on a side, looked maybe, oh, six months away from reaching a launchable state, and bore a large label with the caption "'MAKE EVERYBODY TALK ABOUT NOTHING EXCEPT FOR APPLE MUSIC-RELATED PRODUCTS AND SERVICES FOR A WEEK' SATELLITE." "Gee," we idly thought to ourselves at the time, "what do you suppose that thing does?"

Well, now we know.

One of the latest pundits to be affected by mind-altering rays from space is Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, whose latest column talks up the third-generation iPods which officially go on sale tonight at 6 PM (and which, an anonymous faithful viewer tells us, Best Buy has apparently been blithely selling anyway for the past day and a half or so-- oopsie!). For the most part, Walt's pretty darn enthused about the new models and how they're lighter, thinner, higher-capacity, and easier to use than ever. But he raises one important drawback of the latest and greatest: battery life.

Yup, it's sad but true; in order to make those 'Pods smaller and lighter, Apple apparently had to rip out a chunk of the battery, and the result is that the new models are rated at 8 hours of play time, versus 10 hours for the previous units. Apple claims that "the new batteries still will last for a full day of typical use," but that's cold comfort for those millions of atypical users suffering from Barstow's Malady who require ten hours of uninterrupted music at a time each day to keep their skulls from softening into a spongelike substance and eventually dissolving completely, leaving the afflicted sufferer's head little more than a skin-bag with a brain in it.

Our same AtAT field operative, this time cleverly disguised as Cesar Romero's portrayal of the Joker (yes, the guy even grew a mustache just so he could refuse to shave it off and then try to cover it with white makeup-- our operatives are that dedicated), thusly managed to walk into an Apple board meeting unchallenged. He reports that, despite the company's knowledge that Barstow's Malady is an entirely fictional disease that we just made up about thirty seconds ago, Apple isn't taking any chances on a boycott by the equally fictional Barstow's Malady International Support Group, and therefore has a new, longer-life iPod in the works and slated for release by the end of this month. This groundbreaking new model reportedly boasts a solid week's worth of continuous play on a single charge, although it is slightly larger and heavier than any other previous or current iPod design, inasmuch as it's basically a third-generation iPod duct-taped to a car battery.

"But AtAT," we hear you asking, "what on earth does any of this iPod battery nonsense have to do with the earth-shattering revelation that Phil Schiller is a closet lefty?" Honestly? Nothing at all, folks. Mostly we're just looking for ways to convince ourselves that our original 5 GB iPods are at least somehow superior to the new models, because we can't afford to trade up right now. Pathetic, sure, but hey, it gets us through the night.