Here at last, here at last, thank Steve almighty, it's here at last-- not Panther itself, mind you, but official word on when it'll finally arrive. After faithful viewer Monkey Boy hepped us to the Apple Store's not-so-mysterious "We'll Be Back Soon" status earlier this morning, it was faithful viewer jeffNOTjon who noted the formal press release with the good news: yes, the rumors were correct, and the next of the Mac OS X felines will indeed be padding onto store shelves and into our hearts on Friday, October 24th at 8PM.

Great news, right? There's just one drawback: the advent of Panther means that we've finally got to shell out the ducats to pay for it, and as Apple's countdown makes oh-so-clear, if you want to be Leading Edge Mac Guy come the 24th, you've only got 16 days left in which to scrape together the cash necessary to score your copy. Apple's price, as expected, is $129, and the Apple Store is taking preorders right this second. Odds are you'll be able to shave a few bucks off that price if you poke around elsewhere, however; for example, as of production time it's not yet showing up at Amazon, but they've got Jaguar for nine clams less than Apple's price and with free shipping, so we'd expect similar savings on Panther.

Of course, you needn't bother searching for the best price if you're affiliated with an educational institution-- Panther's just $69 for students, faculty, and staff. And don't forget: if you need to upgrade more than one Mac in your home, Apple's got a $199 "Family Pack" that's good for up to five Macs, provided that they're all "located in the same household and used by persons occupying the same household." And for the best price of all, all you need to do is, um, already own a Power Mac G5; Apple has graciously decided to dish free (well, almost free; don't forget the $19.95 shipping and handling fee) copies to everyone with a G5, regardless of purchase date, via the Mac OS X Up-To-Date program. (You can also score the $19.95 price if you buy any Mac starting today that doesn't have 10.3 pre-loaded, so don't let Panther's imminent release stop you from buying that tricked-out 17-inch PowerBook you've been eyeing. Fatcat.)

The bottom line, though, is that no matter what, you're going to need at least twenty bucks-- and probably more like six times that amount-- to get Pantherized, so start scrounging. We know times are tough, but we Mac users are resourceful; it comes from having gone shopping for compatible software back in the days when CompUSA's Mac section consisted of two copies of After Dark and a RAM Doubler. We're sure you'll find a way. Personally, we're planning on wrangling a quick settlement from a spurious slip-and-fall lawsuit. "Ooooh, my lumbar!"

Speaking of lawsuits, does anyone know if Spike Lee has sued Apple over Panther's box design yet? 'Cause if the guy's going to get all litigious over a network calling itself "Spike TV," we'd be stunned if he didn't try to nail Apple for capitalizing on the success of his 1992 biopic Malcolm X, too. There must be a trade dress suit in there somewhere, right? Customer confusion, and all that? Of course, it works both ways, kids; remember, if you pick up your copy of Panther in the DVD aisle of Best Buy, double-check that you're actually buying software. And we're pretty darn sure that Panther won't be sold at Suncoast Video.

That said, does anyone else think it's a little odd that Apple's marketing department seems to have gone a little heavy with the "black power" motif with this software release? Think about it for a second: in addition to coming in a box that's darn reminiscent of the packaging of Malcolm X, said box is black, which, when coupled with the software's name, takes on a not-so-subtle second meaning. Black Panthers, anyone? Oh, sure, it could be a coincidence, but what if Apple really is intentionally tapping into that whole "wronged minority's struggle for freedom and equality" dynamic?

There are parallels, after all; Mac users have always been treated like second-class citizens of the high tech society. Now, before everyone gets out the flamethrowers and sets them to "Crispy Critter," we want to make it perfectly clear that we certainly don't mean to imply that centuries of slavery, segregation, and racial oppression are somehow on par with Mac users never getting a port of Half Life; clearly the amplitudes are off by a few thousand orders of magnitude.

Nevertheless, the vectors are similar enough in direction for certain parallels to resonate-- Mac "ghettos" in computer superstores, for instance, instead of separate drinking fountains. And given that Apple's marketing department has formerly dared to sell its brand with the image of Rosa Parks on the side of a bus, it's not out of the question that, on a subliminal level, we're mean to be associating Panther with a means of radical revolt against our longtime Wintel oppressors and the act of reclaiming our own. We half-expect that when we show up at our local Apple retail store for the ominously-named Night of the Panther event, we'll be handed weapons to prepare for the coming revolution. If Rodney O. Lain were alive to see this, we'd most likely have gotten the bestest iBrotha column ever.

Nah... never mind. Apple would never be so tasteless as to trivialize the civil rights movement by likening it to Macintosh vs. Windows. Still, the revolution will not be televised! (It might be webcast, though.)

Meanwhile, if you're wondering how you're going to kill time until Panther becomes available on the 24th, why not follow that epic battle between titans known as the (dun dun dun dunnnnnnn!) Clash of the Rumors Sites? Yes, Clash of the Rumors Sites, everyone's favorite distraction; marvel as 100-foot goliaths cross Big Scary Swords and trail vast swaths of terror across the night sky! Tremble in awe at the prospect of godlike toothy entities tearing at each other's colossal throats as the fate of worlds upon worlds hangs in the balance! Reel with cosmic horror as one rumors site says one thing, and another says something vaguely contradictory! AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!!!

Ready? Here we go: AppleInsider reports that Apple is finally just about ready to revamp its line of displays again. Word has it that Apple will soon be adding a new 30-inch Cinema Display HD and jettisoning the 17-inch model; each of the new 20-, 23-, and 30-inch displays will allegedly boast "stunning color and faster refresh rates," and will sport new aluminum enclosures with an integrated USB 2.0 hub and a design emphasizing "less body and more screen." According to AI, we should expect these new lookers early in November alongside redone iBooks and eMacs.

Great stuff, yeah? But prepare to go limp with fright, because herein lies the Clash of the Rumors Sites: Think Secret concurs that iBook and eMac updates are due soon, but cites a source reporting that any new displays won't turn all aluminicious (and possibly not even USB 2.0-y), but will instead wrap the same ol' enclosure around "updated internals featuring better color and a faster refresh rate." Quick, fetch the smelling salts... or possibly a priest!

If we had to pick which report to believe, we're not at all sure which way we'd lean. On the one hand, AppleInsider mistakenly asserts that "currently, Apple offers Cinema Displays in 17", 20" and 23" High-Definition flavors," whereas every Mac fan obsessive enough to care about any of this stuff in the first place knows that the 17-incher has a traditional 1280x1024 native resolution and is therefore a Studio Display, not a Cinema Display. Is that enough to cast doubt on AI's display predictions? Because on the other hand, we'd have trouble standing behind the Think Secret report just because we find it hard to believe that Apple would actually ship non-matching displays that long after the aluminization of the company's entire professional product line. Then again, the 15-inch PowerBook stayed titanium for how long after the 12- and 17-inchers debuted?

Nope, we just can't pick a side. Instead we're going to huddle under this here table as the two leviathans duke it out and then sacrifice a goat to whichever one leaves the battle clutching the other's still-beating heart in a twisted claw. Heck, that's always a safe strategy. It's even how we refinanced our house.