All slide quotes actual and documented. Hello Kitty, Spongebob Squarepants, Blue's Clues, and Dora the Explorer © their respective companies. Steve Ballmer is a big sweaty idiot.

Microsoft has apparently decided that "viral marketing" means "assembling a group of demographically-balanced suburbanites to hold a high-tech Tupperware Party." The unfortunate results of the idea:

The conceptual geniuses who created Tivo have spent the last decade locked out of the company's strategic planning meetings. Despite the magical TV box's enthusiastic adoption by tube lovers from Oprah to the chairman of the FCC -- who famously called Tivo "God's machine" -- the corporate masters of the original DVR have allowed it to languish in the shadow of vastly inferior ripoffs pushed by America's crap-tastic cable companies.

A recently leaked mockup from an ad agency presentation suggests that Tivo may be about to raise its profile and grab some much-needed mindshare:



Now that's more like it. As longtime Tivo-heads, the staff of the MacInquirer applaud this "get medieval" concept, and look forward to future installments. Ad model "MC Escher" might generate more streed cred if he lost the metallic aqua Cherokee, but you know what they say about the journey of a thousand miles...

Five minutes of awesome: a special report on how crappy cell phones and bad mobile service can actually kill you:



One wonders how many AT&T customers have to die before the Death Star spends some of their iPhone money on upgrading their network.

Kylie from the new Windows 7 ad hits a slight glitch:

An instant analysis of the MacInquirer's RSS content, courtesy of the amazing wordbots at Wordle:



We're not all that surprised to see "Apple" and "Store" at the top of the most-frequently-used words -- though it's interesting that after that it's apparently a 77-way tie between stuff like "cancer," "nutjob," and "upper-body-covering." We shudder to think what this reveals about the editorial staff's state of mind.

This video is really great. Amazing. Incredible. Easy. Et cetera.

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Yipes -- it appears Mrs. Apple Store found a strange number in the Apple Store's pants pocket. The following screen appeared briefly at store.apple.com this evening:



Hope he doesn't try that "must be a MobileMe glitch" explanation. If you're reading this, Apple Store -- don't fall for that "I won't get mad if you just tell me the truth" trick. This is gonna be ugly. But it's your own fault.

UPDATE: Ugly indeed. A mutual friend tells us that Apple Store is spending the night at Amazon.com's house tonight.

Tired of the glossy screens on current Apple products? Presenting the Laptop Burka, an upper-body-covering shroud that eliminates glare when using your shiny new MacBook Pro outside, or your Apple Cinema Display in bright indoor environments. It has the added benefits of reducing your risk of skin cancer and making you look like such a nutjob that no one will want to talk to you, which means greater workday productivity. Celebrities, fair-skinned IT people, relocated Federal witnesses, and squinty folks of all types will love this breathable fabric marvel. Despite the name, the device is NOT recommended for women in countries ruled by authoritarian Islamic regimes -- because the lower legs and ankles of the user are still plainly visible.

And before you ask -- yes, this is absolutely for real.

An unfortunate juxtaposition placed by the ad-bot at the Wall Street Journal earlier this week:



We're not sure which is worse: that it happened, or that we're calling attention to it.

UPDATE: The apologetic headline didn't innoculate us. Apparently, we're a "jacktard," Which Urban Dictionary defines as something in the same category as "dickweed" and "dillhole." In case we weren't clear: this isn't a Photoshop job, it actually happened.