Speaking of "more current events," we're pleased to note that Apple isn't trying to stuff all of its New Year product releases into one teensy lil' Stevenote, which would be a blatant violation of local fire codes. Instead, ever safety-conscious, the company has opted to trot out some of its less consumer-oriented new gear a week ahead of time, thus conserving valuable keynote space for the gazillion mass-market announcements it obviously has stacked up and ready to wow all of humanity come Tuesday. (Smokey no doubt approves.) And thus does the world come face-to-broad-flat-surface with (insert trumpet fanfare here) the new dual 2.3 GHz Xserve G5.

That's right, folks, it's not just for breakfast at college in Virginia anymore: according to faithful viewer Small Paul (and confirmed by Apple's press release), those custom-built dual 2.3 GHz Xserves currently powering Virginia Tech's "System X" supercomputer are now available for purchase by any shmoe with four grand in reasonably negotiable currency or credit. Yes, for the same $3,999 that only would have gotten you an Xserve with dual 2.0 GHz G5s just days ago, now you can get an extra 600 MHz of raw Xservin' power and a Combo drive instead of the previously-standard CD-ROM unit. The entry-level Xserve, incidentally, is still a single 2.0 GHz G5 config for $2,999-- except that now it comes with the Combo drive as standard equipment and twice the RAM (1 GB instead of 512 MB).

And is that all the tasty pre-Expo fun for the enterprise set? Nuh-uh, Maynard; another press release reveals that Xsan (Apple's 64-bit Fibre Channel-based Storage Area Network cluster file system for "scalable, high-speed access to centralized shared data for storage consolidation and workflow"-- well, duh) has finally shipped, and only a couple of weeks late. Oh, and what's this? There's something for the creative pros, too, because according to MacMinute, there have also been significant across-the-board price drops on Apple's entire line of LCD displays, which can save you at least a coupla hundred clams if you're hankering for a deskful of aluminumy LCD goodness. My, my, my... we're all pretty sure that the Stevenote wasn't yesterday, right?

Of course it wasn't, but that's still a lot of pro-oriented announcement action that Apple spewed forth a week before the big gig. Let's tally it all up: by our count, now Apple has reduced its Stevenote clutter by one speed-bumped rack-mount server, one buzzword-laden enterprise network file system thingy, and one set of Cinema Display price drops, all of which ought to make the local fire marshall breathe a bit easier.

All supremely dorky fire safety analogies aside, though, Apple choosing to trot out new Xserves a week before the Expo really does hint strongly at a slew of more consumer-focused announcements next week-- and in particular, consumer-focused Mac announcements. You might recall that last year's Stevenote yielded only a single new Mac: the Xserve G5, which was mentioned only briefly, since it's obviously more at home in a data center than in the living room and was only included as a token Mac hardware presence in an otherwise exclusively software-'n'-iPods presentation. Apparently this year, Apple has some other Mac stuff lined up at the starting gate. So, uh, you may want to grab a second drool-bucket. Just in case.