We have a confession to make. Your friends here at Boston Daily are Mac geeks. Flannery and I each got shiny new MacBooks recently, and our loved ones have started to worry about our slavish devotion to the machines. Also, our refusal to put the thing down and get in the shower is starting to bother them. (ed: speak for yourself)

So we’re thrilled beyond words to read (via Universal Hub) that the new Apple store location on Boylston Street is (allegedly) opening on May 16.

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There are precious few places in Boston where one can rent a pair of wretched shoes and get his or her bowl on. Or sing karaoke with a live band. Soon these activities will be even harder to find. The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports that the Milky Way Lounge and Lanes has been forced to close.

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There is a lot of unsettling economic news out there these days. The worldwide food shortage is starting to affect Americans, with Sam’s Club and Costco limiting the amount of rice their customers can buy. High-end condo complexes on the fringes of Boston have been forced to auction off vacant units due to the housing slowdown.

But it isn’t all bad. There have been several huge financial deals in Massachusetts in recent days that have us feeling a little better about the local business scene.

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Last we heard from former House Speaker and WRKO host Tom Finneran, he was under fire for saying one of George Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words on his show. At the time, Finneran had just backed away from a plan to launch his own lobbying firm after his bosses at WRKO pointed out that his side job would create a minefield of potential conflict of interest.

What a difference a couple of months make. Finneran is giving his bosses the middle finger and has decided to start a lobbying business anyway.

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In the fall of last year, Red Sox Nation learned a lot about Jonathan Papelbon. We discovered that his lights-out pitching could withstand the pressure of the postseason. We laughed as he danced a merry jig to the sounds of the Dropkick Murphys. But most importantly, we learned Papelbon has quite the shapely derrière.

Which is why we’re disappointed Dunkin’ Donuts used a stunt butt in a new ad featuring the Sox closer.

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With Opening Day less than 24 hours away, the baseball season really feels like it’s getting started. The Green Line will be packed with confused out-of-towners, paying $5 for a hot dog suddenly seems reasonable, and bars around the city are stocking up on Sam Adams.

While we normally enjoy a nice bottle of Sam during the game, we think we’ll skip it tomorrow. The company has recalled an “undetermined amount of [bottled] beer” because glass particles may be floating around in the brew.

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There’s nothing worse than a fistful of Sacajawea dollars. Whenever you try to spend one of the gold coins, people look at you suspiciously. What are you doing, pal, they seem to think. Trying to pass off some sort of Euro coin as American currency?

Luckily, we don’t get many of these bizarre dollar coins. And a state representative wants to make it so we see even fewer of them.

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One of my grandmother’s favorite hobbies is calling her utility companies and demanding better rates. When she gets an offer from AT&T for unlimited long distance at a few dollars less than Verizon, she calls her current provider up and tells them she’s jumping ship unless they make her a comparable offer. Chris Matthews looks like a pussycat after you watch my grandmother play hardball.

She must be in heaven right now. It seems that Comcast and Verizon are fighting over how much is too much in the battle to win customers.

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We’ve spent the last couple weeks in a state of denial. We kept reading Steve Bailey’s columns, still not quite believing that he’d given up his job with the Globe after 30 years. But today, the reality of Bailey’s departure set in with his final piece for the paper of record.

Man. We’re so bad at goodbyes.

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All of New England prepared to stop this morning to enjoy the pre-dawn opening of the 2008 baseball season. The electric grid was doubtlessly strained as coffee pots around the region flicked on at 6 a.m.

But it was the most important utility of the day that struck out swinging. Bloggers around Boston report that their cable or satellite TV went down.

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