Piano music.

A little girl watches the Apollo rocket launch on television. "Wow," she says in hushed breath. Her parents concur. "Wow."

African children watch a soccer game projected onto the outdoor wall of a home. "Wow" they exclaim in admiration.

Riveted citizens watch the felling of the Berlin Wall. "Wow."

A jogger pauses to admire the misty mountain horizon. "Wow."

Narrator: "Every so often you experience something so new, so delightfully unexpected, that there's only one word for it."

Man opens his laptop. "Wow!"

Narrator: "Introducing Windows Vista."

I own two Windows XP computers. I will eventually upgrade one of them to Vista. But I assure you that it will not be an experience remotely comparable to any depicted in one of the lamest commercials I have ever seen (and not just because almost all of its "new features" have been in Apple's operating system for years now, or because MS's Jim Allchin's "I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft" memo). I thought I was watching a commercial for ... I dunno, a nuclear-powered supercar or something. I laughed loudly at the punchline, and I assure you it wasn't supposed to be funny.

Microsoft is too large and has too much baggage to market well; luckily, they don't have to. But whether it's Ballmer having a conniption on stage or Microsoft's newest "WOW" campaign, they sure play into Apple's PC-Mac commercials really well: the PC wants to be cool, but has no idea how.