So what’s tonight’s chatter from around the water cooler?

Mmm...17” MacBook Pro goodness
The 17” MacBook Pros are starting to find their ways into users’ hands, which means one thing: the traditional packaging photos! Alas, no new Apple product release would be complete without photographs of everyday people unpacking their brand spanking new computer equipment--the rest of the computer-using public must think we’re all nuts. Anyway, if you’re into such things, here are some photo galleries (via MacRumors):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ecbusalacchi/sets/72057594129114051/

http://homepage.mac.com/davehagan/macbookpro/

This isn’t 17” MacBook Pro related, but it made my day:
”When they’re not out there kicking ass, ninjas use the downtime to update their blogs.”

Next Tuesday...we promise
This whole MacBook thing is becoming a debacle for the rumor sites. In fact, now the insider sources are all confused. So last week Think Secret claimed that the MacBook--the iBook replacement--would be making its grand debut, uh, yesterday (May 9). But noooo, AppleInsider couldn’t take Think Secret’s report for an answer and countered that the MacBook will not make its debut until a later date. Tuesday came and went with no announcement, and now Think Secret is telling us that the MacBook was delayed and will show up next Tuesday. Promise.

Is it me or does anyone else think that Apple likes to toy with us?

The G6?
Capping off an all-Apple break at The Water Cooler tonight, it appears that the successor to the G5 isn’t the Intel Core Duo or Core 2 Duo after all. (Core 2 Duo...now there’s an original name for you.) A company called Alibaba is supposedly selling a computer called the Apple Mac G6, featuring a “G6 CPU:90nm 3800MHz SSE3 Central Processing Unit Intel Pentium4 3.8GHz SSE3 Prescott 64-bit PowerPC-G6 Processor Intel Inside 284KB Memory On-Chip.” Huh? Jokes about Ali Baba and his forty thieves have already been floating around on various forums, drawing a collective reaction of “OK, it was funny the first time!” with a few groans mixed in.

Anyway, see you tomorrow (hopefully) for some more tidbits.