Nick Douglas reports from Apple's campus in Cupertino:

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In three hours, Apple will announce its secret new product. As always, the company's stayed coyly silent, and the Apple rumor kiddies have shouted every possible prediction, and have long since moved to the impossible ones.

Another shot in the "What will Apple announce" dark:

Here's some love for the gadget freaks fidgeting over tomorrow's Apple announcement. The loveable un-blogger (and would-be Microsoft employee) Chris Coulter sends in specs for the Microsoft iPod.

Could Apple buy Disney? Probably not, but Barron's (in what's surely not an attempt to drum up controversy and circulation) published a piece speculating so. But just because Apple CEO Steve Jobs owns 7% of Disney doesn't mean he wants the rest. There are the obvious reasons:

iBuzz USA celebrates Steve Jobs's birthday with US iPod sex toy launch [Response Source]

Femfox: sexy women advertising Firefox. Possibly the strangest browser-inspired furry fetish ever. [Femfox]
Even if Verisign's shopping its mobile biz, maaaaaybe mobile phone content isn't dead. India's Mauj Telecom gets $10 mil in first-round funding. Bollywood should hold the mobile content market over til American teens get back into ringtones — but this time, all ironically. [alarm:clock]
Hm. Basically, no one knows what Apple will announce next week. Most likely, it's more Intel-based Macs (yawn). Whatever happens, I'll be on the scene, unfairly belittling it. [Macworld UK]
Classic! Jonathan Grubb of Rubyred Labs: "When the Linux Enthusiast asks you if you use Linux try saying 'no, our company makes pretty good profits so we can afford Windows.'" [Jonathan Grubb]
Today was Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day. So, uh, hope you did. And when Google hired her, I hope you sent me her photo for the Google Gals contest. [Unofficial Google Blog]

So Apple's holding a special event. (A real one this time, presumably sans Bono.) They promise "fun new products" — hopefully not a new iPod, because we just bought ours, dammit.

Can someone translate this photo's Chinese caption and tell whether this Google tattoo is permanent? Cause if I were in China, I'd consider that a BAD long-term decision. [Flickr]

This week, Alex Kuczynski discovers the Apple Store in Soho, and uses it as an opportunity to fill us in on the technology fabulousness of her life. There's the iBook G4 wedding present from the financier husband, the G5, the 23-inch monitor, Harmon/Kardon sound system, and the 100 operas and 5,000 songs saved in her iTunes. And there's also this:

You picked Pope Steve over His Holy Larryness, Listmaster Jim over Shiny Czar Jon. Now the Apple CEO and Craigslist CEO go head-to-head, black-turtleneck-to-black-turtleneck. Who's earned your love (or your unbridled lust)?

Jonathan Ive is Jobs' style guy. The industrial designer keeps it beautiful by keeping it simple. So does Jim Buckmaster, the Craigslist CEO who keeps the classifieds unadorned.

Andrew Lin blogs his daily commute between San Francisco and Apple's Cupertino HQ. Not to be confused with the one on Google Video (guess great minds think different). Lin records both the morning and evening commutes each day. There's a good reason: it's not every day you pass a car on fire.

Nice job, Cisco! Sinking $48.5 mil into a use-controlling video machine that even Disney is neglecting? That's forward thinking. [WaPo via TechDirt]
"Companies like Netscape productized the output." Whoa there! "Productized"? You. Yeah, you. Out of the pool. [Inside Firefox]
What if they held a system outage and nobody came? [Blogger Status]
Leave it to Digg to have the "Steve Jobs has no license plate" story covered. [Digg]
Jobs's little white ingot shrinks to 1 GB. [Chicago Tribune]

When you crunch the drive from San Francisco to Cupertino down to 1 minute 50 seconds, it becomes as thrilling as racing a Ferrari through Paris (which is also on Google Video). No engine noises on this high-speed video of the commute to Apple HQ, so you'll have to make "vrrrrrrum" sounds with your mouth.

You know those people who, during an uncomfortable moment, say "Awk-warrrrd..."? And that makes the moment so much worse? Well, CNN Money is that guy, and Intel's Apple deal is that uncomfortable moment.

What kind of entrance will Steve Jobs make at the Disney boardroom? Hopefully the kind he made when he returned to Apple in 1997. BusinessWeek's new cover story reveals what the mogul told his executives.

Tsk, tsk: Someone hasn't been closely following their Monster Ballads.

Well, shit. Now that they have the Obliviion, does that make the Nano obsolete?