Hey, folks, we're back... kindasorta. Didja miss us? Well, Slim, don't go expecting much Apple-flavored melodrama just yet; consider this episode our fledgling attempt to start easing back into the swing of things, following the arrival of a significant (but exceedingly cute) broadcast interruption named Anya. Believe it or not, people, it's actually been a little tough to establish an AtAT production schedule around the needs of a newborn child. Believe us, we were just as shocked by that fact as you are!

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And let's face it: it's a tough but true fact of life that when you do something every day for nearly five years and then stop for several weeks, it can be really hard to start back up again. Don't believe us? Try it yourself. Pick a task you've probably been performing daily for the past five years: breathing. Then stop for a month. We bet you'll have a little difficulty resuming when the time comes.

We should probably mention that we're also still working through some pretty significant feelings of disappointment and betrayal, because Steve Jobs himself royally shafted us in the trust department. See, a few days prior to Anya's birth, the AtAT staff was enjoying some Aloo Gobhi in the Food Court at The Mall when His Steveness pulled up a chair, set down his tray of Chana Masala, and asked us what was shakin'. That's when we told him that we were considering putting AtAT on hiatus during the month of May to focus on the baby's needs, but were concerned that as soon as we went off the air for a while, Apple would rush to release all sorts of long-rumored products and make a slew of breathtaking announcements which we would then miss.

"No worries," said Steve; "I hereby give you my solemn pledge that while you're off the air, Apple won't introduce the long-rumored 17-inch CRT iMac, the legendary rack-mount server, integrated handwriting recognition in Mac OS X, an Apple-branded instant messaging application, or anything else dramatic that's been plot fodder on your show in the past." Uh-huh. Right. Thanks a lot, Steve. eMac, Xserve, and iChat and Ink in Jaguar-- all blown AtAT plot twist opportunities. Steve, bubbelah, we're hurt... really, we are.