by , 10:30 AM EST, March 18th, 2002

The Mac Chatter series gathers up some of the juiciest, silliest, most outrageous, and most interesting discussion about the Mac industry from around the Web. Raena Armitage and Bryan Chaffin scour the forums, message boards, and article comments from some of the most (and least) popular hangouts in the Mac Web and beyond.

Please note that we have left the quoted posts "as-is," including bad punctuation, bad spelling, and bad writing.

Smell that? That's the smell of fresh MACWORLD speculation. MACWORLD Tokyo is around the corner and Mac users the world over are salivating at the opportunity to fantasize over what Apple will be announcing next. From the "That'll Be The Day Department" (forwarded to them from the "Dude, Take A Chill Pill Department), we bring you a fresh and funky post from an anonymous poster in our very own forums.

I think a PC compatible version of the iPod will be released, or maybe a PC version of iTunes. In addition, it would be nice to see a powerPod with PDA like functionality in addition to being an mp3 player with 5 or 10 gigs. Then have the iPod have similar capabilities only without a touch screen. Just type the info into your computer and transfer. The biggest possible problem would be keeping the cost down, that is why I think it will be available for PC. Do I think it will happen, probably not, but it sure would be nice.

That's like 7 things that simply won't happen.

In the midst of the feeding frenzy, we were delighted to see that MacNN forum member BrunoBruin took time out to have a little fun at Apple's expense in response to another poster's question:

silverghost said:
Ok is it just me but does Steve Jobs do any keynote where he didnt announce something new?

Hardware-wise? Last year he wowed the crowd with Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian iMacs, and added a CD-RW to the Cube. Hundreds were injured in the stampede to place orders.

Ouch.

Of course, if you're a rumor monkey, the only painful part of the truth is when you stretch it out to within an inch of its life. tsukurite at the AppleInsider forums really, really wants to believe.

what that exec said was no new CPU's. Now, I think the question is what Apple considers to be a CPU. Is it the chip? Is it the box? If it's the chip, then yeah, no new chip intros. Ah, but the G4 is already here, it's not new. Does a speed bump count as a new CPU?

If CPU means the box then I guess we'll have to wait on rack mount servers, etc. But what about existing boxes? PowerMac/book/ibook? Are updates considered new?

Just some of the things that make you say "hmmm." :D

Sure, it makes us say "hmmm" all right, but not for the reasons you think...

When we're not wildly speculating over the joy that is MACWORLD, the heads of Mac users are filled to the brim with dastardly ways for Apple to claw its way to the top of the pile. An anonymous MacSlash reader has some good ones:

I'd go to the strip club and get lap dances for 8 hours straight. I'd write "Everything is easier on a Mac" on every single dollar bill spent there. These dollar bills would eventually propagate across the entire world (think viral marketing guys). And wahla...world domination. At this point, I'd have $1B left...which I would then use to do a hostile takeover of Enron (getting lots of attention from the media...great opportunity to advertise the new iMac).

Briliant! What's the catch?

The members of Macintosh-Sisters were greeted with this fine comment from some random troll by the name of Daniel Figueroa last week, and I quote in full:

Ddfadfdsfkdff... Sorry this macintosh froze something its notorious for...

O-kayyy.

What's happened to the quality of Mac-bashing lately? Heavens, some of them used to be intelligent. The folks at Geek Culture have the right idea:

macadddikt18: "i do like the new imac, i am just jealous of the new thing. I mean i would like to own one and all, but it does look like a blob of poo with a mirror on a stick. Be it a very fancy one."
Rednivek: "So, it would go well with your decor?"

Smackdown!!

Seen anything of note? Drop us a line, and if it's good stuff we'll send you a genuine mirror on a stick. You'll need to provide your own poop. That might tide you over until whenever this iMac backlog gets out of the way, anyway...