At first, $241.38 for a computer that is not only nearly 20 years old, but that is—for all intents and purposes—fairly useless in the modern computing world, seems to be as absurd as a notion can get. The winning buyer will get a lot of functional software and games that will remain fun to play (Gnarly Golf!), but he won't get photo and video editing. He won't get broadband Internet access. He'll barely even get a hard drive (16MB! 1278K RAM!). What he will be getting is nostalgia, and that says something about Apple that many people miss.

I know Grey's Anatomy has its fans, and God bless you all. You're able to be entertained by a woman having to give birth to a dead baby, people with live RPG ammunition in their abdomen, people hating their friends and men and women constantly cheating on and berating each other. I don't have that ability. I'm entertained by actors in latex suits destroying models of Japanese cities. Can I really say who's wrong or right? Probably not, much to my chagrin, so I'll just help you get your writers' strike fix of all the pretention and maliciousness that Grey's Anatomy offers by suggesting you play Freeverse Software's Hereos of Might and Magic V.

If you need your fix of uncharted island survival between now and whenever the writers start getting their money, I recommend Aspyr's Virtual Villagers. This game, developed by Last Day of Work and originally published by Big Fish Games (both of which are related to Lost in title, anyway), gives you control over a large number of people as they try to survive on a deserted island. No plane crash here, though. They were fleeing a volcanic eruption, and apparently did so by sailing to a neighboring island. Not sure what they did for a living before they got there, but it apparently wasn't survive, because they've forgotten everything that entails...

If ever there was justification for the writers' strike, this is it. Heroes has become such an ugly mess of illogical plot lines and boring characters that creator Tim Kring has issued an apology. So, the writers' strike conveniently allows them to kill off the season early (and hopefully a couple characters) and attempt to get back on track with season three. Good luck, guys. I'm rooting for you. In the meantime, if you're one of those gluttons who managed to suffer through Heroes season two, what do you now do until next fall? You play Freedom Force.

If you're missing TV because of the writers' strike, the only thing that can replace it in convenient half hour to one hour chunks are video games. Glorious video games, which allow you to exercise your brain a little and your body even littler. They offer that excellent sense of accomplishment without making you go through the trouble of actually having to accomplish something. In fact, with the wealth of Macintosh games now available, you don't even have to turn to consoles to find a logical replacement for your programs.

Good Lord, do I even have to be the one to suggest this? It's not that Desperate Housewives can easily be replaced by Aspyr's The Sims 2, it is The Sims 2. The creators of this show simply removed the diamonds from above the actors' head, allowed them to speak proper English (some of the time), and pulled the focus away from buying furniture and placed it squarely on the sex. Honestly, I'm completely shocked that Electronic Arts hasn't released a Sims 2: Wisteria Lane expansion pack.

To his credit, Mr. Ballmer did stop shy of calling all iPod owners Satanists, although I'll wager that easily 80 to 90% of us are. Have you seen the music Apple promotes at the iTunes music store? As I write this, a band called The Killers is being promoted. Obviously Satanists. And what's this Jimmy Eat World? More like Satan Eat Souls. That Bjork woman may not be a Satanist, but she does dress like one, and don't even get me started on the evil inherent in the Aladdin soundtrack. When Alan Menken dies and goes to hell, Satan will appoint him composer laureate.

Before I get any further, I should make it quite clear that I dig the iTunes Music Store. I've used it a bit in the past, and I'll use it again. Unfortunately, I'm not using it the way I would like to, and I don't blame that entirely on Apple. I have a feeling they may be trying too hard to please the enemy.

I understand the usefulness and importance of laptops. I'm not questioning that. I just don't get why their increased sales for some reason have to point to the death of the desktop machine. Perhaps Mac users have been on the end of the "your platform is going to die" debate for so long that we just like having another product whose doom we can predict. "Aha, laptops are selling well! I own a laptop! I made the right decision and now every single other computer user agrees with me! I was right! I belong!"

I wish Bill Gates would quit pulling stunts like this, because I'd really like to start writing about something other than him and Microsoft. To that end, I'll lead in this article with some comments on a hot political topic right now. Maybe upset a couple people, get some hate mail, forever turn away another 50,000 Applelinks readers. But read on, friends, because, it comes with a Macintosh related point, and it's all done tongue-in-cheek, anyway. The topic? Well, I'm not opposed to removing "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, provided...

One of my many PC using friends told me recently that he was reading my latest Absurd Notion column, but started to drift off when I went on another Microsoft diatribe. This is okay by me, as this guy spent five years of college and a whole mess of money learning to program for the PC, so it's difficult for him to consider that maybe that money and time could've been put to better use on a better system. I mean, imagine if I'd sunk all my college years and cash into my English major, only to find out the national language of the United States was being switched to German.

I don't know...maybe everyone has it wrong with Microsoft. Sure, they seem like bullies, but they do enjoy giving out free stuff. They give free toys to kids who are too smart for their legal department. They give free certification classes to tech guys who will use that certification to make sure that major corporations are forced to rely on Microsoft products. They give free software to schools so the U.S. government won't declare them a monopoly even as their monopoly grows through the education market. Look at all that free stuff! Microsoft is the most charitable organization in the world!