And the post-Galvin Motorola just keeps on truckin'! When the company's founder's grandson finally "resigned" due to a disagreement with the board of directors ("We want you to turn this company around" / "But if we keep going in the same direction eventually we'll go all the way around the world anyway"), there was a pretty solid consensus that as soon as the company had hired a replacement, it would probably heed the long-repeated advice of analysts and sell off its semiconductor business so that it could focus all its attention on its world-saving mission of making cell phones with little cameras in them.

As it turns out, though, Motorola's not going to wait until a new CEO comes on board. A couple of weeks ago, it briefly looked like maybe its whole chipmaking unit was up for sale, but that turned out to be a false alarm; Motorola was only selling off an interconnect technology that hooked "main processors to other systems." Still, that revealed what appeared to be a certain "if it ain't a phone, sell it off" mindset... a mindset that has now crystallized still further in the harsh light of day. Yes, what we thought might happen eventually appears to have happened already: faithful viewer Jeff Duran tipped us off to a Reuters article which confirms that, you betcha, Motorola has finally decided to spin off its entire semiconductor business as a separate entity.

It's probably worth mentioning that a spin-off doesn't necessarily mean a sell-off-- Apple still owns FileMaker, Inc., for example, and the spun-off Newton company was never sold, despite what we're told were several reasonable offers. Sure, Motorola has already said it's going the publicly-traded route with this spin-off, but we suppose it's possible that it could still retain a majority of the stock in "Semiconductors 'R' Us" or whatever. But given how much money Motorola's chipmaking venture has lost in recent years, we'd be pretty darn surprised if the goal here isn't the amputation of a dying limb so it doesn't take the rest of organism down with it.

That said, do you suppose anyone out there is nuts enough to actually buy this thing? Apple, in particular, has been mentioned as a candidate, since it could then get all of Motorola's PowerPC technology under its own roof. (Don't forget, Motorolan G4s are still used in Apple's PowerBooks, iMacs, and eMacs.) Frankly, though, we can't see Apple wanting to take on a whole chipmaking business just to work on its own processors-- especially since the company seems pretty shrewd about its purchases and rarely buys that kind of red ink. No, the only organization we can see bothering to scrape together the cash to effect a buyout in this economy is, well, us.

In fact, we've got this plan to make a direct offer to Motorola for its chipmaking unit before the spin-off takes place, figuring that the company would much rather have cash on the barrelhead and no questions asked than go through all that SEC malarkey, the harrowing IPO experience, etc. We've just been under the couch cushions and through the winter coat pockets, and we've got $7.34 so far. Anyone want to shoot us the remaining $12.66 so we can make a reasonable offer?

Are you feeling a little empty inside now that Apple has finally refreshed its PowerBook line after months and months of frothing pique by impatient Mac fanatics such as yourself? Hey, it's only natural; people get addicted to Frothing Pique after a while. Personally, we're still appalled that the FDA doesn't regulate it better, at least to the extent of putting a note about potential addiction on the label. (Not that they should ban it, or anything; after all, there's nothing more refreshing on a hot summer's night than a tall, frosty mug of Frothing Pique. Consume responsibly, kiddies.)

Anyway, if you grew so accustomed to waiting in vain for updated PowerBooks that you find you can't sleep at night now that said PowerBooks are actually here, we may have a partial solution for you: AppleInsider reports that the iBook, Apple's Other White Meat™, is on tap for a revision in time for the upcoming holiday shopping season. And they're not just talking about an extra 100 MHz of clock speed and 10 extra GB of hard disk space; they mean a revision revision, including a "completely new form-factor that has been under development at the company's Valley Green 6 facility for some time now."

A whole new enclosure? Now that's a spicy meatball! And those of you who, like us, regularly witness a 17-month-old child bounce up and down on the flexy lid of an original Blueberry clamshell iBook as a springboard and wonder whether any new iBook from Apple could possibly withstand such a supersize bucket of abuse, well, AppleInsider claims that there's "an emphasis on durability that remains essential for the iBook's core audience of students and youngsters," so we'll see. (Apple: if you really want to assess the physical moxie of your new iBook design, drop us a line and we'll talk about setting up an Anya Test. She will break you.)

In addition to the new enclosure, the revised iBook will reportedly be brought up to speed feature-wise, gaining processor speeds up to 1.1 GHz, AirPort Extreme support, internal Bluetooth support, USB 2.0, 166 MHz DDR RAM, a better keyboard, a brighter display, and new flavor crystals for longer-lasting minty-fresh breath. Sounds like a winner, right? Well, let's hope that Apple does indeed get it onto shelves in time for the holiday shopping frenzy; technically the company's got over a month to go, yet, but that doesn't mean we can't launch right into the fun stuff. Everyone raise your mugs of pique and repeat after us:

"Why the [expletive deleted] isn't it here, yet?! We've been waiting for minutes!"

Mac-loving mallwalkers of Minneapolis must be mildly miffed-- mostly at that completely unnecessary display of excessive alliteration, but also because their local Apple retail store at the Mall of America is closed from today through November 10th, as originally reported by MacMinute last Friday. Closed why, you ask? Well, Apple claims that it's for "remodeling," which had us a little worried for a second, because in Retailspeak, "remodeling" translates as "intensive de-ratting, significant reduction of the Hanta virus, and exorcism of angry poltergeists on whose sacred graves the store is constructed." However, we have it on good authority that Apple's speaking a lesser-known dialect, and that its "remodeling" translates as "replacement of all Depleted Uranium bathroom fixtures and, well, remodeling."

Now, the extent of the remodeling is known only to the bigwiggiest of the bigwigs at One Infinite Loop, but five weeks of downtime certainly implies something a little more drastic than new squishy black sphere-things in the Kids section. Indeed, rumors are a-flyin' that Apple is planning to expand the store-- possibly upwards, making it a two-story affair like some of its brethren. Personally, we have no idea if this is true or not, and we're actually not all that interested in finding out. We're far too starry-eyed over the list of planned changes we received from Unimpeachable AtAT Sources™ last night. Feast your eyes on this, Martha:

• A new Pumpkin and Lime color scheme that disorients customers into a spending mood

• Retractable disco balls and automatic fog machines that activate whenever a customer says the day's Secret Word O' Funk

• Batpoles that lead straight to the batcave for when the red Mac Genius hotline starts flashing

• Every surface-- every surface-- is upholstered in a thick, luscious shag

• An expanded theater with a Floyd laser light show that's so trippy it makes the iTunes Visuals look like the stock ticker on CNBC

• Three words: doilies, doilies, doilies

Meanwhile, the Apple Store Tysons Corner is also going to be spending five weeks in remodeling limbo, starting one week from today, so Virginians should plan their retail jaunts accordingly-- and prepare themselves for a grand reopening showcasing the finest interior decoration that ingesting loads and loads of psychotropic drugs could inspire. Now where'd we put our Groove Thang?...