Happy St. Patrick's Day, one and all! Granted, circumstances have forced our special St. Paddy's scene to broadcast a smidge late, but since when has any of us been uptight about scheduling? That said, it is a bit of a shame that the holiday didn't happen to fall sometime during last week's "International Week" thingy, because it would have been truly apt on a number of fronts. Again, though, things happen when they happen. Anyone getting old waiting for speed-bumped Power Mac G5s knows all about that.

But we're not getting into the G5 thing just yet, because in honor of the holiday, we're going to Irish things up a little around here, first. In a classic (and rare) example of good timing, faithful viewer Thes Quid forwarded us what purports to be a transcript of a taped "candid conversation" between Kim Jong Il, the poofy-haired leader of North Korea, and a couple of bigwigs from a supporting organization. While we can't really vouch for the authenticity of the transcript, if you're willing to accept that it's legit, you'll be mightily amused by Kim's references to "Japanese devils," "Yankee devils," "South Korean Devils," "Austrian Devils" (who knew devils were so cosmopolitan?), and former South Korean president Kim Young Sam as a "filthy dirt-bag." Well, c'mon... it was a candid conversation, after all.

So what the fuzzy heck does any of this have to do with St. Patrick's Day, you ask? Or, possibly even more to the point, what does any of this have to do with Apple? Well, aside from reports that Kim Jong Il is one seriously talented Riverdancer, scroll way to the bottom of the transcript and you'll spot this excerpt: "American computers made in the United States work better and last longer. But the Macintosh sold to foreign customers are assembled in Ireland and other nations and they are of poor quality and break down often. For a year or two, we thought the machines had no difference and bought them from Ireland. Later we bought some machines from the United States and found that they were different. Even the keyboards were different."

Now, far be it from us to foment unrest between nations, but it sure sounds to us like ol' Jong Il is dissing the hardworking folks in Cork something fierce. True, he never explicitly refers to "Irish devils" ("Western Devils" is the closest he gets), but still, that's some questionably translated anti-Irish smack talk of dubious authenticity if ever we've heard it. Nuclear arms, shmuclear arms; if the man is seriously impugning the Mac-building prowess of the Irish, we anticipate some sort of retaliation-- if not from the Irish themselves, then from St. Patrick's Day-celebrating Emerald Isle sympathizers. We're not experts in foreign relations and the prediction of international incidents, but we're thinking maybe a drunken beating by six or eight frat guys who are plotzed on green Budweiser.

On a side note, Kim's generalization about U.S. customers being sold American-made Macs is apparently rather off the mark in the first place. We just took an informal inventory of a few of our active Macs sitting around, all of which we purchased here in the States, and the iBook and both PowerBooks were all made in Taiwan. Maybe he was just talking about desktops and servers. Our Xserve was made in the U.S.A., as was our Power Mac G4-- but then again, the Power Mac was built-to-order, so that may well have forced an "assembled in USA" situation.

Whatever. In any case, nothing beats knowing that Macs are big sellers to the Axis of Evil. Meanwhile, we've surely doomed ourselves with the label "AtAT devils" in a future "candid conversation" just by bringing any of this up in the first place, but hey, it's St. Patrick's Day (sort of). We'll take the hit for the team.

Good news, everyone! Despite our initial "Yeah, Whatever" reaction to the recent release of Mac OS X 10.3.3, several viewers have written in with thumbs-up reviews. A number of people in cross-platform environments praise 10.3.3's non-broken implementation of the Finder's network browsing ability. A few expressed gratitude for Energy Saver's newfound direct support for certain Uninterruptible Power Supplies. Some who hadn't gone in and fixed the problem themselves were pleased that 10.3.3 fixes the slow-booting problem that afflicted several users of 10.3.2. One or two people reported that the OpenGL improvements fixed problems in certain important 3D applications (meaning, ones in which most of the rendering is not of blood and severed limbs). And one guy just really likes the new version number, because-- and we quote-- "you can never have too many threes."

Ooooookay.

For us, though, the most promising thing about 10.3.3 is probably its role as evidence that new Power Macs are imminent. As pointed out by a reader at Mac OS Rumors, if you go poking around in the Localizable.strings file buried in the System Profiler libraries of 10.3.3, you'll reportedly find a second Power Mac model listed, which doesn't appear in the same file in 10.3.2. We're taking that on faith, mind you, since we haven't had a chance to 10.3.3ify just yet, and even if it is true it doesn't necessarily mean anything-- remember the .WMA icons in iTunes? But still, in light of numerous viewers pointing out that any promos supporting a Power Mac revision on or near March 27th may in fact simply reveal normal end-of-quarter attempts to boost last-minute sales, we'll take anything we can get.

Case in point: MacRumors now reports that it has "received word that Power Mac and Display updates are in the final stages and should be released shortly"-- although there's no new word on just what "shortly" means. Still, lump that in with the existing end-of-March hints (we just this second received email from Apple reminding us that its "special memory offer ends March 27") and those new chunklets of evidence buried in 10.3.3 (sketchy though they may be), and we can't help but start to get mighty optimistic about a release within the next two weeks or so. We're not placing any bets or anything, but still.

And by the way, yes, reportedly the new displays finally ditch the oh-so-last-year "pinstripes 'n' clear plastic" look to fall in line with Apple's current aluminum fetish. Says MacRumors, "according to sources, the new displays do resemble the recent artist rendition of upcoming Aluminum Displays based on a slide seen in a routine Apple presentation-- with monitor feet resembling the Power Mac G5 handles." So if the mere prospect of owning a dual 2.5ish GHz G5 doesn't have you scrambling to open your wallet, how about the prospect of getting a matching display to go with it? Ooooooh, fashionable.

Uh-oh, folks-- miniPod fever shows no signs of abating, and apparently Apple is having more than a little trouble keeping up with demand. Faithful viewer MiniMe forwarded us a message he'd received from the Apple Store informing him that an "unexpected supply delay" has caused the expected shipment of his silver miniPod to slide to March 22nd. The really harrowing bit, though, is this: "If we do not hear from you or we cannot ship your order by the revised date above, we are required by federal law to cancel your order and issue a prompt refund, and we will do so."

Wow, just how far behind do you have to be before the feds force you to require your customers to confirm they still want their stuff? And where the heck were they when we waited literally 15 months for our My So-Called Life lunchbox to show up from Another Universe? (Given how long it took to get that thing, it really must have shipped from another universe.)

Anyway, given that Apple can't seem to increase its supply to a reasonable level, maybe the company should consider reducing demand-- you know, hire the Neistat Brothers to spray-paint "iPOD MINI'S NONREPLACEABLE BATTERY SMELLS LIKE FEET" all over the place, or something. Or better yet, why not transfer some of that demand to a different product line by increasing the appeal of the miniPod's big brother again? After all, Apple sold 730,000 of those hulking white behemoths last quarter before the miniPod started driving people into a frenzy. Surely a fourth-generation iPod upgrade could distract the masses from the miniPod at least a little.

Or even a lot, if AppleInsider is correct. According to the site's "reliable sources," plans to unveil the 4G iPod are already underway, and the changes are a doozy. In addition to the top-of-the-line model boasting a 50 GB hard drive ("12,500 songs in your pocket" doesn't quite have the right ring to it, but whatever), the new iPods are rumored to feature a "2-inch color screen for displaying photos" and "a video output jack that will allow users to connect their iPods to television sets," presumably for the display of the same photos and-- dare we dream?-- video. (Memo to Apple: toss in an on-'Pod color Visualizer and we're in heaven.) Oh, and the controls are going to be miniPodified, too, so 4G iPods should have the same spiffy Click Wheel as their diminutive siblings. Sign us up!

But when? AI won't say, but it does point out that the iTunes Music Store's anniversary is just around the corner. And remember, the 'Pod's last major revision (not counting disk bumps and software upgrades) also took place that day, so the product line really is due for an overhaul. Here's hoping Apple can ride out the miniPod hysteria until the new iPods can stem some of the rabid demand. Of course, that doesn't help unless Apple can supply enough new iPods, too, but c'mon, who thinks that far in advance?