Okay, by now, anyone who actually cares has seen last week's Jeopardy! episodes featuring Katie, AtAT's own resident fact-checker and Goddess of Minutiae, so we shouldn't be spoiling anything by mentioning that she scored twelve grand and change in her first game, which she won by a single dollar thanks to some judicious wagering in a harrowing round of Final Jeopardy. (See, kiddies? Math is important!) In her second game she led heading into Final Jeopardy, but then fell into third place when she failed to identify Houston as the largest U.S. city named after a person. This is perfectly understandable, however, since it's really, really easy to forget that Texas is indeed a state and not a whole other country (as many Texans have repeatedly tried to convince us). Congratulations to Katie for accomplishing something that relatively few people ever manage: reigning as a Jeopardy "returning champion," however briefly. Oh, and winning fistfuls of cash in the process.

While she still hasn't actually been paid yet (they take their own sweet time, trust us), she did engage in a little anticipatory splurging at the Apple Store Cambridgeside upon our return from the taping in Culver City last February; she plunked down $1799 plus tax and waltzed out with a brand spankin' new combo drive 12-inch PowerBook, which has inspired envy and grabbiness in the other denizens of the AtAT compound, who are saddled with portables over three years old. Anya, in particular, seems to take umbrage at the fact that her Blueberry iBook is over three times as old as she is. Still, even though it's not ours to play with and/or eat, the rest of us are still pleased to have a current PowerBook sitting around and prettying up the joint.

Better still, we got to enjoy it a whopping three and a half months before Apple finally shafted us with a price drop! Yes, according to MacNN and easily confirmed at the Apple Store, Katie's combo drive model just dropped $200 to $1599, while the SuperDrive model dropped $200 to $1799. (Incidentally, the 15-inchers also dropped a few hundred bucks, but Big Daddy 17-Inches is still selling for the same $3299-- except in Canada, where apparently prices dropped even further.) Our immediate response to this news, of course, was a mild twinge of buyer's remorse; if we had only waited, Katie could've saved a couple hundred clams or gotten a SuperDrive for the same price.

But like we said, it's mild; not so much a "D'OH!!!" as a "d'oh." After all, three and a half months is a perfectly acceptable price drop grace period for new Mac ownership. Six months is exceptional, and two weeks, well, those poor saps can always call the Samaritans if the depression gets too overwhelming. Or drown their sorrows in Pez. Meanwhile, if you were considering picking up a 12- or 15-inch PowerBook sometime soon, now's as good a time as any. Except, of course, that this quietish (i.e. no press release) price drop hints strongly at a channel clearance and revised models just around the corner-- at the very least, those updated 15-inch TiBooks that have been rattling the cages of the rumor hounds for so long now. So what's your priority? Features or price? Ooooh, decisions...