Can we just say one thing? We're stuffed. Gorging ourselves at Thanksgiving is one thing, but that's generally an isolated instance of applied gluttony; one decent hibernation later and we're right as rain. Christmas, on the other hand, is a whole different story. When we embark on our semi-annual Midwest Tour, our social calendars get jammed full of lunches and dinners with various relatives and friends who, therefore, only ever see us once a year-- stuffing our faces. Add the Chicago Diner into the mix (where the portions are huge and all the desserts are vegan), stir, bake for half an hour at 350 degrees, and voilà: the perfect recipe for a week of stomach-stretching, pound-packing excess. Bloat City! And with an excess of holiday cookies and other goodies lying around, we assume we're not the only ones needing to punch an extra belt hole or two this time of year.

Now, with Macworld Expo less than two weeks away, we're wondering if the holiday poundage factor is influencing the buzz building around Apple's upcoming products. We're noticing a lot more discussion about the rumored PowerBook G4 than those alleged faster Power Macs, despite the clock speed drought that's had Mac fans gasping for cycles for a year now. Sure, the road warriors have been waiting for a portable G4 for even longer than that, but somehow we still think that holiday pigging out is influencing the rumor mill. Why dish the dirt about a big ol' Power Mac when there's a slim and svelte PowerBook to talk about? And when we say "svelte," we mean it. According to an inside source reporting to AppleInsider, "you wouldn't believe how light it is." And for those of you who were holding out hope for a zaftig wide-screen display, apparently you're out of luck; the PowerBook G4 has been resisting the temptation of holiday gluttony and has managed to retain the classic 4:3 aspect ratio that's still the rage on the runways in Paris and Milan.

AppleInsider's not the only one talking about the PowerBook's remarkable slimness, either. Go2Mac has declared this week "Mercury Week" (after the PowerBook G4's code name) and has the scoop on some rather... extreme methods by which Apple kept the unit's weight down. Reportedly Mercury's 1.5-inch thickness was achieved in part by the surgical removal of the PowerBook's expansion bay. That's right; if Go2Mac is correct, say goodbye to the convenience of swapping your DVD-ROM drive with a Zip drive, CD-RW, or the like. Likewise, digital nomads who live life on the plane may blanch at the prospect of Mercury's internal fixed iBook-like battery; here's hoping that Apple managed to squeeze a lot of juice into that single battery, because a lighter PowerBook isn't going to be a whole lot of use if it conks out halfway across the Atlantic. Hmmm... we were going to ask Apple for dieting advice, but now maybe we'll pass. Heck, there's just more of us to love. Pardon us, but we hear a couple of slices of German chocolate cake calling our names...