Another day, another lack of new Macs to play with. Not that any of us were seriously expecting any, right? After all, we've been playing the waiting game on these G5s long enough to have been essentially beaten into a state of slack-jawed submission. Indeed, given that the latest consensus on anything vaguely resembling a ship date now hovers closer to the end of this month (with some considering the possibility of no faster G5s until June or July-- a contingency we've officially dubbed "The Doomsday Scenario"), if 2.5ish GHz Power Macs had miraculously appeared today, fully two-thirds of the Mac-using population would now be scraping grey matter off their ceilings following the ensuing cranial blowouts. So if nothing else, we're saving on paper towels and Fantastik.

Besides, while we may be starving for drama of the New-Macs-Shipping-Now variety, at least the constantly shifting rumors about what could possibly keep delaying the announcements pack a dramatic punch all their own. In addition to ongoing (and relatively mundane) claims of cooling problems, graphics card shortages, etc., there was that questionable but oh-so-exciting rumor about massive hush-hush government Mac purchases contributing to supply-related delays. Government intrigue! Massive cover-ups! Black helicopters and guys wearing dark glasses and those little earpiece thingies! Sure, we still don't have new G5s to oooh and aaah over, but at least we're suffering in the interest of national security, and that always makes for a good story. If you can't have the bread, at least you can watch the circuses.

Of course, it's possible you're not quite credulous enough to swallow the whole "feds secretly building secure Mac clusters to ward off the onslaught of terrorist attack" spiel, but that's okay, because even without the spy-tinged conspiracy theories, trying to pin down the exact cause of the G5 delay is a hoot and a holler. AppleInsider, for example, reports that "rumored US government purchases touted elsewhere on the Web are completely false and fabricated," but offers little in the way of concrete explanation as to just what the heck's going on. The good news is that even the lack of info is bursting with entertainment value; AI quotes one source referring to the "unanticipated setback" thusly: "Something has gone terribly wrong."

Actually, let's repeat that little gem the way it should be presented: "SOMETHING HAS GONE TERRIBLY WRONG!!" Yeah, that's the stuff. Typhoons? Hail the size of grapefruits? A colossal unchecked outbreak of cholera? Vest-wearing winged monkeys attacking the plant with an aerial Go-Gurt assault? The possibilities are endless. See? Who knew that a lack of new equipment could be so gosh-darned fun?

And the fun doesn't stop with the Power Macs. Let's not forget those other rumors that speed-bumped PowerBooks were going to ship... um... last week. In case you hadn't noticed, that particular report turned out to be slightly less than 100% accurate. While AppleInsider doesn't offer any ship dates, it reports that the slightly-revised PowerBooks had been seeded to external testers "earlier this year"; the PowerPage meanwhile, is sticking to its original claim that the new 'Books are done and ready for store shelves, and were indeed supposed to ship last week. The reason they aren't here yet, it claims, is because the manufacturer "missed a critical shipping deadline" so the goods are still "waiting on the shipping dock."

Sheesh, you miss one lousy FedEx pickup and suddenly an important product launch gets postponed by a whole week. Between disturbingly infrequent shipping pickups, the feds swiping all our terrorist-proof G5s, and SOMETHING GOING TERRIBLY WRONG, who needs new Macs for excitement? It's like a zoo or something in here. Isn't it great?

Oh, what might have been! Don't you wish you were privy to the various prototype designs that Apple cobbles together on its path to perfecting a product? Some of them must be pretty darn nifty, even if they wind up changing drastically before making it onto store shelves. The LCD iMac, in particular, went through some serious changes throughout its development; we recall some Jonathan Ive interview somewhere in which he revealed that his original designs did the obvious thing and built all of the Mac into the thickness of the screen itself, and Steve made him start again from scratch.

Well, we doubt we'll ever get to see those original scrapped designs, but The Mac Observer was cool enough to dig up a new Apple patent for a "display device with a moveable assembly," which comes complete with line drawings-- only the drawings don't quite match up with the iMac as shipped. The base and screen looks pretty much the same, but the arm... well, geez, take a look for yourselves. The arm is either seriously cool or seriously messed up, depending on your sensibilities. Instead of the double-hinged chrome-looking jobbie with which we're all familiar, it's one of those multi-jointed hose-looking thingies that you sometimes see on desk lamps, or scary medical equipment that only gets wheeled out when there's something seriously wrong with you.

Now, like we said, you may like the hose-thing better than the released design, but based on the facial expressions of the people we flashed the drawings at, the odds are pretty good that you don't. (Oh, that poor checkout lady at Trader Joe's... luckily we had smelling salts at the ready.) Personally, though, we think it's sorta neat. For one thing, it certainly provides a whole heckuva lot more freedom when it comes to positioning the iMac's screen; sometimes you just want to twist the whole thing upside down so you can read while doing yoga, you know? And being able to twist the arm all the way around itself like a pretzel would provide a handy place to hold a lovely beverage. Mainly, though, we can't help thinking that this earlier design was heavily influenced by someone having read one too many Spider-Man comic books. Wow, even before the movie sequel, Doc Ock does live-- in convenient high-tech patent form!

Incidentally, does anyone find it interesting that the patent was granted to "Jobs, et al"? No fewer than seventeen people are listed as inventors, but "Jobs, Steven P." is first on the list-- while "Ive, Jonathan" for some reason comes in second to last. Apparently the Stevester is at least as hands-on as people who've worked with him (often tearfully) attest.

But we digress. So do these drawings indeed represent a prototype iMac design that evolved into the current hinged-arm version, or is this an inadvertent sneak peek into the iMac's future? Well, most likely the first thing, since the patent was filed over nine months before the first flat-panel iMac was introduced. But hey, you never know; with rumors of a semi-imminent iMac G5 running rampant, maybe Apple will resurrect the older design for a movie tie-in. Only it'll have four screens, sunglasses, a dorky haircut, and a penchant for tossing cars through café windows. Sign us up!

Folks, we need to clear up a little misconception, here: apparently Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is, in fact, capable of a form of communication that technically qualifies as "speech"-- and we're not talking about a Koko-style sign language deal, either. Seriously, the guy can emit actual words and complete sentences and everything! We know that if your only exposure to the guy has been grainy video files showing him jumping around while hooting like a mad ape or squeakily repeating the word "developers" as if it's some sort of mantra that might stop the secretion of sweat, this may come as some sort of shock; it certainly knocked us for a loop. But we stumbled across an honest-to-goodness interview with the guy at CNET, which claims that he "talked," and they've got the transcripts to prove it.

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

So now that we're aware that Ballmer can talk, what does he have to say? Well, basically his message is "everything's fine"; he sounds remarkably relaxed about what CNET calls his company's "long list of serious concerns," but really, why shouldn't he? Microsoft can pay off that $600ish million European antitrust fine with the change it finds in the couch, Linux is realistically years away from being a serious threat, and having a monopoly means never having to say you're sorry that the next version of Windows won't ship until 2006 at the earliest. All in all, Ballmer describes himself as "super-optimistic" about the future-- and since you've seen the man's "super-optimism" at work, now might be a good time to back away slowly or run screaming for the hills or something.

There aren't very many surprises in the content. CNET asks what limits should be imposed on what Microsoft can lump into Windows; Ballmer replies, "I do not think there should be limits." When asked if he had to do it all over again, he says, "I would still integrate a browser. We would still integrate the Media Player." (Why not? It's not like they ever suffered any consequences.) There's the obligatory "huh?" moment when he insists that "there has never been a platform more open than [Windows]" because it has the most applications and the best hardware support; apparently his vocabulary still needs a smidge more work, because he thinks "open" is an adjective describing "the thing everyone wound up basically forced to use to survive." And, of course, there's all sorts of remorse for past actions: "Is it okay that Netscape is out of business? I think so. Apparently."

Regardless, the interview's worth a gander, because discovering that the man is literate-- heck, occasionally even bordering on eloquent-- will blow your mind. Especially if you go back and watch those videos again. It's like finding out your goldfish solves differential equations or something when you're not looking. Freaky.