So has everyone come to terms with, if not necessarily the likelihood, then at least the distinct possibility that new Power Macs won't surface until WWDC at the end of June? Because if not, we strongly suggest that you find some way of reaching acceptance before you wind up crushed under a big, honkin' ball of disappointment. We realize it's not an easy scenario to stomach, especially without an embarrassing quantity of cheap liquor, but given the increasing frequency of "No G5s 'Til WWDC" rumors sprouting up like weeds all through the garden of Apple speculation, you owe it to yourself to spread the misery out a bit instead of taking it in one big wrecking-ball slam if NAB comes and goes with nothing to show for it but a new version of Shake. 'Cause, you know, that kind of thing can be fatal. Or at least very drying to the complexion.

See, for what it's worth, after mentioning the first hints that faster G5s might not show up until "June or July," Mac OS Rumors now joins AppleInsider in citing sources with large resellers and "Apple's largest corporate/institutional buyers" who claim that Apple has broadly hinted-- and possibly even flat-out said-- that its pro products aren't slated for a refreshing Blast o' Fast for another couple of months yet. And yes, it's all still just rumor at this point, but it'd break our hearts if an overoptimistic viewer put all his faith in the NAB target date and then wound up dead, or having to buy way too much Oil of Olay or something.

As for why Apple's pro products might not get updated until summertime, there's still more speculation on that front as well. AppleInsider now reports that Apple was "forced to completely rework the internal temperature sensors inside the current G5 case design to accommodate the new 90 nanometer G5 processors." While you might expect that lower-power chips like the 90-nano G5s would work just fine in a Power Mac enclosure engineered to cool hotter-running processors, apparently the heat sensors were screwing up big time and "throwing the fans into a frenzy"-- which, although it's not exactly the sort of thing you want happening in a shipping product, actually sounds like it'd be kind of a neat thing to see. (Nine fans going berserk! Better than monster trucks!) So even though they were cool like Fonzie, the Macs thought they were overheating and shut themselves down-- and all this, apparently, was the SOMETHING that HAD GONE TERRIBLY WRONG.

While that little chunk of ugliness has allegedly been sorted out, AI also claims that "low processor supplies" have also been a problem, with IBM's 90-nano G5 having "failed to yield even the baseline 2.0 GHz mark on a consistent basis"-- which, if true, is clearly the outcome of some Motorolan Evil Eye curse in action. While no one's got any hard evidence to back up the supply shortage report, it certainly might help explain why Xserve G5s shipped as late as they did, even at their 2.0 GHz speed.

Personally, however, we find these explanations a little too pedestrian to soothe our troubled souls. If we're going to have to wait until the end of June to see faster G5s, we're going to need a better reason that cooling malfunctions and supply shortfalls. Thank goodness, then, that faithful viewer Micah Tremain pointed out the real reason why Apple's pro lines will be stagnant until summer: according to an AFP article (found via MacRumors), there's a "global aluminum shortage" in full swing. Gee... aluminum miniPods severely constrained in the U.S. and delayed three months outside U.S. borders... aluminum Power Macs and PowerBooks not slated for revision for another two months yet... suddenly it all clicks into place, doesn't it?

We'd donate our Giant Foil Ball to Apple for the good of the cause, but, well... nahhhhh. Besides, we can't get it out of the basement.

All right, who's all fired up for Macworld Expo Boston? It's gonna be "mad" or "phat" or "groovy" or whatever the kids are calling it these days. After all, it's the show's triumphant return to its roots! Can we get a rousing hands-in "Whoa Beantown?" C'mon, let us hear ya shake the roof!

No?

Sheesh, tough room. Seriously, folks, don't be like that; we know that Apple has chosen not to attend and a Macworld Expo without Apple is sort of like a hot dog without "'meat' derived by advanced Meat Bone Separation and Meat Recovery Systems," but really, we can still have plenty of fun without Apple there, right? Okay, so there won't be a Stevenote, and yes, that's a tragedy to those of us who were looking forward to a live infusion of Reality Distortion Field energy (it's been clinically linked with clearer sinuses and whiter teeth, you know), but there are going to be plenty of other exhibitors there that'll make you forget all about Apple's whole "We Hate Boston So We're Keeping Our Ball And Staying Home, Boo Hoo Hoo" routine. Check it out: MacCentral has the goods on a "first look" at some of the companies that'll soon have you asking "Apple who?"

Just look at that lineup! Quark! Yes, Quark will be there, "headlining the event" alongside... Xerox! And Harman Multimedia! Talk about your Triad of Expo Oomph, right? Honestly, why would you want to drool over the same tired old Apple booth packed full of new Macs and iPods when you can instead evaluate publishing software to run on them, printers to plug into them, and speakers to play them through? This is a golden opportunity, folks.

And look at everyone else that's coming: Brenthaven, Hash Inc., Roku, Software MacKiev, Unitek... why, the list just goes on and on. Sure, there may be one or two big names missing from that line-up-- like, say, Adobe, or Microsoft, or Macromedia-- but what do any of them make that's so dadgummed special to the platform?

Oh, and before you say anything, we just have to mention that it'd be pretty darn cynical of you to point out that MacCentral is the "News Service" of Macworld which is owned by IDG which also owns IDG World Expo which is the company putting on this show in the first place. Implying that MacCentral might be trying to talk up the viability of a sagging conference just because it's owned by the same entity as the show's organizers? For shame! Why, that's like implying that we're cheerleading for a less-than-compelling event just because it moved about ten miles away from us and saved us a zillion dollars in travel expenses. Ooooh, the effrontery of it all! Besides, we're not even sure if we're going-- so there!

Um.

Well, you know, it's just that... without Apple or Adobe there, it's going to be a little tough to justify the subway fare. Don't look at us like that-- they raised the rates recently, you know, and now it's like a buck and quarter. Each way. And that doesn't even include the bus down to the train station. Maybe if we needed a PowerBook bag or something, but the ones we've got are actually still holding up pretty well. Don't get us wrong, we'll try to make it and everything, but we're pretty busy these days. With... stuff.

Whatever. Registration is open now; operators are standing by!

Okay, you're going to have to bear with us on this one, here, because we're actually not entirely sure how to proceed. See, we want to mention a certain application and the circumstances surrounding it and what wound up happening to it, but there are... issues. You know about this thing called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, right? It's the law that makes it possible for Really Bad Things to happen to people who, among other things, circumvent copy protection systems. You may recall that there was a huge flap a few years ago when some guy figured out how to unscramble DVDs and a judge ruled that reproducing a certain snippet of his source code in any way was apparently against the law. Stick this code on a t-shirt, go to jail-- that sort of thing.

Now, we should mention (for the benefit of any "special guests" tuning in) that we here at the AtAT compound are Fine, Upstanding Citizens who never duplicate copyrighted material, even under the terms of Fair Use, and in fact we try to make up for the moral failings of our less ethical fellow human beings every chance we get. Some folks download songs for free; we buy three copies of all our music from the iTunes Music Store and then order the CD, too, just in case. Other people with TiVos skip commercials; to balance that heinous act, we use ours to watch all commercials at least twice, and keep detailed lists of all advertised products so we know what to buy immediately after the show is over. To counteract the selfish folks who download entire first-run movies and burn them to disc, we buy tickets at the local cinema and then skip the movie entirely. We register all of our shareware, too, and floss after every meal. That's just the sort of Fine, Upstanding Citizens we happen to be. (Insert righteous grin with pinging tooth-glint here.)

So given our impeccable moral fiber (and the fact that we're far too pretty for prison), we're unsure how we should incorporate a plot thread about a certain application that bypasses Apple's FairPlay Digital Rights Management system, which is what makes iTMS songs playable on only three registered computers at a time. We think we recall web sites getting smacked down under the DMCA just for linking to other web sites who had posted that illegal DVD-cracking code. So while it's presumably okay to tell you that Apple recently used the DMCA as leverage to get this FairPlay-disabling software pulled from its previous home, would we be breaking the law by telling you the address of the Indian site to where it moved? And what if we tell you the software's name-- is that facilitating access and opening us up to prosecution?

What about charades? Because we don't want to start in with "two words, first word, one syllable, sounds like 'yay'" if jack-booted thugs are going to come busting in here with Tasers and a branding iron. That would be unpleasant.

So here's what we're going to do: we're going to direct you to a story over at The Register, in hopes that linking to an offshore public news article that then in turn links to the Evil Software in question removes us enough from Ground Zero to eliminate our liability. Oh, and we'll mention that we got that article from faithful viewer Mike Scherer, so if we go down for this, we can take him with us. See? Now everyone's happy!