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?