Ah geez, here we are at the end of another year already-- and we just got used to writing 2002 on our checks. (Yes, we know it's 2003. What's your point?) Well, despite having to subject ourselves to hypnosis and intense aversion therapy to stop seeing "2004" as a really alien sequence of digits, we suppose there are some up sides to the whole year-change thing. New calendars, for one; this year we actually got on the ball and have three, count 'em, three new wall calendars ready to roll as soon as that clock strikes twelve. Yessiree Bob, 2004 is primed and ready to be our year of suspended babies, talking house pets, and wiener dogs made out of bananas. Bring it on.

But it's not all just about wall hangings; New Year's Eve also means that Macworld Expo is just around the corner, and while we're going to be monitoring the festivities from about 3,000 miles away, that doesn't mean we can't get excited about the big event. There's a Stevenote; it's going to be webcast (though the original teaser page seems to be down right now); what's not to like? Especially with all the miniPod buzz, which has become so prevalent that we half-expected to see a mention on the side of our box of corn flakes at breakfast this morning. (No such luck, though... just a blurb about the importance of starting out the day with a balanced breakfast and a quick paragraph about imminent wireless tablet Macs.)

While it'd certainly be nice to attend the show live and in person, we have to admit, in at least one way we're actually sort of glad we'll be all the way on the other coast: faithful viewer Luc points out an article in The Register which reports that "dead iBook owners take protest to Macworld show." As you may have noticed, we've yet to weigh in publicly on this whole iBook faulty logic board fracas, mostly because we were having trouble squeezing enough drama from it. Sure, an irritatingly high number of dual-USB iBooks have been dropping like flies lately, but Apple quality control issues are, sadly, nothing new these days... and even its practice of deleting "troublesome" posts from its support forums has been standard practice for ages. But now that "dead iBook owners" are planning a protest at the Expo, well, heck, that's enough drama to feed a family of four and still leave leftovers for breakfast.

So yeah, we are a little glad we'll be on the other side of the continent when legions of iBook-owning zombies haul their reanimated but bedraggled corpses to the Moscone Center to pick a bone with Steve. The Living Dead are notorious for their fierce advocacy of consumer rights, and in addition to all the shambling and moaning, they're not above tossing one of their own limbs or even eating a brain or two in protest. What's worse, riot gas and rubber bullets have no effect on them whatsoever, so if things get rowdy the cops have to mow them down with squad cars and then the taxpayers get stuck with the cleaning bill when the force gets all that dead flesh scraped off its cruisers. Nobody wins in a situation like that.

We hear tell, though, that in addition to dead iBook owners planning their little zombie protest, living owners of dead iBooks may also be arranging a bit of organized bellyaching for the contingent of affected customers who are still breathing, and that's apt to be far less messy. Mac users with an active pulse are generally a bit more rational than their reanimated brethren, and only rarely eat the brains of their enemies. But hey, push 'em too far, and who knows what might happen? Note to Steve: consider wearing a helmet.