DRUMMING IT INTO OUR HEADS

"Hey man, is that a real poncho, or is that a Sears poncho?"

-- Frank Zappa

I'm sitting outside under the front portal (that's Spanish, pronounced "por-TAHL"), watching some actual live rain, and I can hardly believe it.

Yes, for what must be the fifth or sixth time since last September, rain has fallen hard enough to connect the dots on the flagstones. Usually we count the rain here by drops: "Hey, honey, looks like about 2 dozen! No, wait -- wow, maybe 50!" But for the last two minutes (it's ending now) enough rain has come down to make a contiguous wet area. We must be living right.

You'd think most New Mexicans would understand about things like water, but from what I read in the papers, ignorance runs as rampant here on this important topic as anywhere else. The Rio Grande river is running at 10 percent of its normal flow. TEN PERCENT! But that isn't stopping Intel from adding to its production capacity in rapidly-growing Rio Rancho, just north of Albuquerque. Unbeknownst to many of you, I'll bet, is the fact that manufacturing microprocessors is not a "clean" industry. Yesterday's Albuquerque paper had a story about noxious emissions from Intel's boilers. Uh, boilers? That means water usage. Heavy water usage. And the new suburban homes in Rio Rancho aren't being sold to people who give a damn about water conservation.

Oh well. We might not have water or sensible development, but at least we have Indians. No, not on the reservation, right here in our own community. It turns out that one of my neighbors was adopted by a northern tribe (Lakota Sioux?) several years ago and that a bunch of them come down here to visit her every year. Native Americans being very considerate visitors, these bring their own accomodations with them, setting up an encampment with tipis and cookfires. For the past week we've heard nearly-constant drumming and singing drifting up from the lower valley. Back in Maryland the noises from our neighbors were more likely to be John Deere lullabies, so this is quite an interesting change. It's all I can do to keep from barging in on them (blame it on the drums), but this isn't a public spectacle, so I just sit outside on the patio and listen to the thumping and whooping from afar. Perfectly delightful, I have to say.

Meanwhile, in New York City, it's raining press relases, and a different kind of drumming is drawing the Mac faithful from far and near. Everyone expects Apple to introduce something new at long last, and we're reasonably sure this will happen, if only because it's hard to believe Jason O'Grady has had to wait so long for his glow-in-the-dark PowerBook keyboard. Midway through the week that this column will be current, Steve Jobs will reveal all -- or nothing! If Apple was plotting to turn the yammering off once and for all, another keynote like last January's would do the trick. And while we might enjoy the spectacle of slumming academics and teenage nerds being forced by sheer exhaustion and embarrassment to at last get a life, this ain't gonna happen. No, there should be plenty of grist for the mill, and the rumor that seemed the dumbest last week now seems to make sense to this observer.

"Da Cube," as it will be called in New York, could be sold alongside nifty relatively inexpensive flat screen monitors and sell like tickets to the simultaneous public executions of both major party presidential candidates. When you think about it, a smaller monitor-less unit in the style of the PowerMac G4s is a pretty good idea. If what I've heard about these things is true, they'll be good for Apple's bottom line, but no one's going to trade in a decent PowerMac to get one. A good second machine, perhaps, or a substitute for an iMac for those who have a spare monitor. We shall see.

At the same time, I would expect the iMac all-in-one models to stay in the lineup, whether with larger screens or not. The simplicity of an all-in-one unit for use in kiosks or as they are now used at trade shows and in computer labs everywhere is just too attractive an advantage to give up. Besides, my 87-year-old aunt hasn't bought one yet, and turning the tables at this point in time would only confuse her. And my God, if Steve Jobs expects her and my mother to start squeezing the damned mouse instead of pushing a button, he's gonna lose 'em both* right there! Maybe I should have more faith. It only took each of them about a year and a half to learn how to click, after all (we're still working on click-and-drag).

And speaking of the Apple Dogfoot: while this particularly hilarious mouse design's primary purpose seems to be sandbagging rumor sites, one equally-skeptical Apple-savvy commentator told me through gritted teeth that the asymmetrical, dust-catching lump might actually be the real deal. All I know is, if the new mouse is actually a better way to fling a cursor, I'll get one. If you're reading this after Wednesday morning, you already know. Other than that, who the hell cares? It's a mouse, for chrissakes, and it's all we've heard about for weeks! (Moving on. . .)

You PowerBook fans may have gotten something to be excited about by the time you read this. Then again, just getting the current model to work right would be an improvement. After years of badgering, a PC-using engineer friend of ours who loves nothing better than to make fun of Mac users actually went out and bought himself a brand-new PowerBook! Cool, huh? -- except it now crashes on startup every time and can't be used without booting from a CD (I'm afraid to ask how his USB peripherals are working). Anyway, I heard about a high-zoot G4e Powerbook coming out later this year that supposedly has a titanium shell, and if there was ever a rumor to scuttle potential sales of any other laptop in the meantime, this has got to be it. (Titanium! Where do I sign?) Considering that such a beast will probably cost more than the average price of a good used car or a nice new motorcycle, I'm not really in any hurry. My iBook works just fine, thank you, and I only had to wait 4 months after the intro to get my hands on one. Just imagine how long you'll have to wait for a titanium-shell 750MHz PowerBook: hahahaha! Apple might as well do a limited production run of a few dozen machines and auction them off at eBay: lots less hassle, plenty potential for profit.

As for OS X, Apple had better be ready to sell us a beta copy or two, so we mere mortals can discover what the fuss is all about. I'll be able to find out if it runs on my upgraded 8600 and the second shift of Macintosh poobahs can spend another six months yammering about "betrayal" and whether Aqua is a "real" interface or a Sears interface, har. . .

All the rumors and hype about what's coming and whether it means anything reminds me of long-ago days in West Texas, back in those forgotten days when cars came before girls and the strongest drug was Coca-cola. My junior high friends and I used to sneak around the Abilene car dealerships at midnight, hoping to catch a glimpse of the new Fords and Chevys and debating how they'd run on the dragstrip. (Note: legal driving age back then was 14, learner's permit issued at 13!) We never did get caught, and once we saw the new Buick. Wow, what a thrill! Of course, it didn't come with a stick shift and nobody's dad would ever take it out on the strip, but still: we saw it first, and if you don't think that made us kings for a day at Jefferson Junior High School, you don't know what real fun is, or was. (Guess that explains a lot about the Mac Web!)

Hmm, it's raining again, at least a dozen and a half golfball-sized splats on the flagstones. Hell, that oughta do it. Tell the folks in Rio Rancho they can fill their swimming pools now. Our Lakota visitors are drumming again, too. You don't suppose. . .nah! These are 21st century Natives. They're probably all wearing "Think Different" T-shirts and just passing the time till it all goes down in New York.

In 72 hours it will all be over, thank goodness. Whatever will we find to write about then, I wonder. . .("Titanium! Titanium!")

Anything to avoid bringing up quarter-mile times, eh?

John H. Farr edits the news for Applelinks.com and invites your comments. The Farr Site Archives will take you to the past two years' worth of columns. John also writes his WebFaust column for MacAddict.com and a monthly op-ed page column called "El Emigrante" for Horse Fly in Taos, NM. And if you liked this week's column, you'll want to look at his latest project, Zoozone News.

*Aunt Mary has a Power Macintosh 8100 and she who gave me birth is reading this now on her Rev. A iMac. "Hi, Ma!"

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