Meanwhile, not to poop all over the G5 shipping celebration, but, uh, suppose we might see new PowerBooks anytime soon? We're only bringing it up for a purely selfish reason, i.e. while Mac OS X does a wondrous job of protecting our Pismo from operating system crashes, it turns out that it's surprisingly less effective at preventing hardware crashes. As in, three feet down onto a hardwood floor. Apple should really be clearer about what they mean by "crash protection"; if we'd known, we wouldn't have been juggling the thing with a lit torch and a chainsaw. (The torch and chainsaw both survived intact, you'll be relieved to hear.)

Following preliminary diagnostics and fifteen minutes with a pair of needle-nose pliers (true!), the patient is up and running again-- a grand testament to Apple engineering, considering that the PowerBook was open, on, and playing a "How to Tie a Karate Belt" QuickTime movie off its hard disk when it went boom. (Hey, it's all part of the act.) But we're a little leery of its AC connector, which was the point of impact, and all told we figure we probably just took a good two years off this sucker's lifespan, so as far as we're concerned, we're living on borrowed time. Which is why we're even more gosh-darn interested than ever to see what magic Apple spews forth when it finally deigns to toss the pro portable market a long-overdue bone. After all, didn't titanium become Yesterday's Metal™ in, like, January? (No offense to TiBook owners, of course-- c'mon, we're the ones still sportin' black plastic and an upside-down logo.)

You may recall that the last date we'd heard bandied about for poppin'-fresh PowerBooky goodness was on or about Tuesday the 19th, which just happens to be tomorrow. Well, while it's not quite as nice as an intro tomorrow, there's still some good news for all you other all-thumbs Pismo-and-torch-and-chainsaw-jugglers out there who find yourselves in the same boat as us: Think Secret's sources insist that development of new 15- and 17-inch PowerBooks "wrapped up" earlier this month, and one source tells them that the new models "are expected to arrive later this week." As for 12-inchers, those "should be ready for release in September."

Personally, we'd probably hold out for a 12-incher (assuming the Pismo clings to life that long), because as far as we're concerned, portability comes first; there's surprisingly little room left in a diaper bag after you toss in the baby wipes, rash ointment, a changing pad, a towel, plastic bags, a change of clothes for the kid, a change of clothes for the dad, sunscreen, Infant's Tylenol, a plastic bag full of Cheerios, two board books about hippos, and a squeaky ladybug with crinkly wings. Oh, and a diaper. Here's hoping that the rumors of the auto-sensing backlit keyboard filtering down into the 12-incher come true, because if they do, then we wouldn't be above hastening our Pismo's demise just a smidge once the new 12s hit the shelves. Perhaps we could add an open can of 40-weight motor oil to the juggling act to make it a little more "challenging"...