People, people, people... you really all need to calm down about this whole date conspiracy thing. Over the course of the past two or three weeks, we've received several messages from viewers insisting that the truth about Apple's Next Big Thing™-- if not the What, then at least the When-- was subtly hidden within the recently-reworked version of that oh-so-historical 1984 commercial. No, we're not talking about the iPod that was digitally clipped to the runner's shorts, although we still get three or four messages a day from people who've just noticed. We're talking about the spate of messages (just one or two at first, but a whole hatful in the past day or so) which exhort us to load up the highest-res version of the ad, examine the frames right around the 41-second mark just before the hammer flies, shoo away any pesky black helicopters buzzing around, and look at the date in a Mulder frame of mind.

What we're supposed to see is that Apple has cleverly altered the date on Big Brother-Dude's screen to read "1.26.04," which is, of course, today's date, and presumably indicates that Apple has some super-special 20th-Birthday Mac or something which will be unveiled at some point today. Which isn't all that far-fetched, actually, since Apple's only acknowledgment of the Mac turning 20 seems to consist of Steve's opening comments during his Expo keynote and the posting of the reworked ad itself, and that seems a little light to us for such a momentous occasion (though we've heard third-hand reports that Steve isn't big on birthdays and this is all we're going to get). But as we've acknowledged before, product unveilings on a Saturday aren't good business, so if Apple were planning to introduce something special for the Mac's 20th, it'd probably be best to do it on the Monday after the actual birthday-- i.e. today, 1.26.04.

Now, we're putting this together in the wee hours of the morning, so by the time you actually tune in, it's entirely possible that the entire Mac community will already be abuzz with incredulous squeals about that newly-announced and mind-blowing new G5 iMac with the 22-inch screen, 8x SuperDrive, and a price tag of just $999 for anyone who proves ownership of an existing Mac, released as Apple's big fat Thank You to its customers for twenty years of unwavering platform loyalty through thick and thin. We're not ruling it out as a possibility. (Well, okay, the $999 part we are ruling out as a possibility. This is Apple we're talking about, here.) All we're saying is that, to our currently all-too-Scully eyes, even if Today's the Day, the digitally-altered and reposted 1984 ad doesn't provide a scrap of evidence to indicate that fact.

We're not going to post screen grabs and such, because copyright is such a thorny issue these days. (Well, okay-- the real reason we're not posting 'em is because bandwidth doesn't come cheap, and one of you people returned a PlayStation 2 you bought last quarter from an AtAT-provided Amazon link, so we're out nine bucks in associate's fees. There goes our carefully-planned quarterly budget, right into the toilet...) But here's the thing: if you do, indeed, take a hard look at the close-up of Totalitarian Screen Fella right before Ms. Tank Top heaves a blunt instrument through his face, the date on the screen does sorta look like "1.26.04." That is, until you compare the alleged "0" in "04" with the definite "0" in the time underneath, which should read about "09:13."

See, people are assuming that the date is "1.26.04" and that the "0" is of the "oval with slash through it" variety, but if you look at other numbers in the same display, all the zeros are actually wide and slashless. You can see this best, perhaps, by checking out frames from around 36 seconds in, when the time reads "08:08"; the eights are clearly (well, pretty clearly) distinguishable from the zeros because they're much narrower and are closed across the vertical center. Now look back at the frames from 41-43 seconds; we think you'll agree that you're looking at "1.26.84." (If you're still not convinced, mess with the brightness and contrast and take another look without the Oswald-colored glasses; we bet you'll come around.) While it's true that if Apple wanted to plant today's date in the ad, the easiest way would be to make the critical eight look more like a zero, if that's what the company tried, it did a pretty crappy job. And considering how freakin' amazing the added iPod looks, we just don't think that's a very likely scenario.

So that's our take on it, folks. We weren't able to locate any terrifically high-res versions of the original, unPodded commercial floating around for further study, but we think the one posted here is clear enough to show that the date looks unchanged. (And make sure you watch the "Making Of" video, too-- it's a hoot.) Then again, that just raises another interesting point: why does the 1984 ad say "1.26.84" when the Macintosh was introduced two days earlier, on the 24th? Unless, of course, Apple has planned this all along, and knew way back in 1983 that it would introduce an amazing new product on January 26th a couple of decades later. Grassy knoll! GRASSY KNOLL!!