Oh, how life imitates art. Or at least art imitates hoax. See, back in early January, when the pre-Expo rumors were at their peak, our mailbox got flooded with all kinds of predictions as to what Uncle Steve would unveil onstage. Pismo-- of course. New iBooks with DVD-ROM drives-- natch. And let's not forget the perennial favorite, the iMac with the seventeen-inch screen. Of course, none of those came to pass (at least, not at that particular event), and most of them were fairly believable rumors. For instance, we admit, we were as surprised as you were not to see Pismo. But we heard other rumors that we pretty much dismissed as hoaxes right out of the gate. In particular, we're thinking about the anonymous tip we received that Steve would introduce a Pikachu-edition iMac. The words "yeah, right" sprung to mind.

When we referred to that rumor, a faithful viewer known as Cyril told us that he'd seen a joke mock-up of a Pikachu iMac a while back, and even put the image on his web page. That was good for a chuckle. But what do we have here? Faithful viewer Matt Johnson made our day by pointing out that what appears to be a real Pikachu iMac is being auctioned off on eBay right now. No joke! Those photos look legit. It's a Tangerine iMac 333 tricked out to the gills: it's been upgraded to 467 MHz, and it has 128 MB of RAM, a 20 GB hard drive, a mouse that "lights up lightning-blue when clicked" (yeah!), and, of course, it looks just like everyone's favorite Pokémon. It's got a "custom 3-layer (at least) paint job with frost finish for soft fuzzy look" and "soft felt ears with velcro for posing and felt tail." Folks, we're not fans of the Pokémon phenomenon (though we don't particularly have anything against it, either), but this thing is cool.

There are no bids yet, so this work of art can be yours. Bidding starts at $2000-- Sure, it sounds expensive, but consider all those upgrades, and remember that this is a one-of-a-kind deal-- "only one will be built." Of course, we suppose you could use the tips in our guide to painting Macs and create your own, but for the cash-and-carry, gotta-catch-'em-all collectors out there, we're sure this will be of interest. Heck, it's eBay; somebody's gonna buy this thing.