For those who, like myself, have an occupational tie to new technology, this is unfortunately a debacle you have to look at. It's like a train wreck, except the reason you can't look away isn't morbid curiosity, but the fact that your job is to clean up train wrecks. So I've been keeping a pretty solid eye on my RSS feeds for the last few days.

What have I seen so far? Other than the fact that every new display is going to be in headache-inducing 3D for the next couple of years until people realize that it's stupid, mostly a lot of banter about how Palm/HP/Microsoft/Everyone is trying to, and may, "steal Apple's moment" with a surprise product reveal this week in Vegas.

This "moment," for those under a rock, is the expected worldwide debut of an Apple tablet device at a scheduled press conference on the 27th of this month. With all of the rumors of this reveal buzzing around the interwebs, every half-assed tech blogger that got wind of another company showing a flat slate device this week at CES decided to speculate the move was an effort to undermine Apple and steal their thunder by beating them to the punch.

This is absolutely silly. Apple is the one bending everyone else over. Let's look at the facts:

First, Google and the Nexus One. The blogosphere (as well as open-source hawks on Digg and Reddit) had practically elevated this thing beyond sliced bread before it actually hit the stage. And when it did, what a thud. Hey, look! It's the first real competitor to the iPhone! Just three years late. No IP telephony. No radical new model for sales. Just another T-Mobile Droid built by HTC. Move along, please.

Then, after piles of rumors that Microsoft was looking to upstage the Cupertino Gestapo by revealing the vapor-ware Courier tablet, what we got was a completely underwhelming HP-built touchscreen Netbook. Courier, according to several MS spokespeople is a long way off. Every single report of this pressie that I have read has called it, at best, "underwhelming." Or forgettable. Or lame. 

Then Dell! Oh my God, Dell has a slate! And.... it's a big iPod touch. Then Palm! You get the picture.

While all of these guys are getting two days of hot laps around the blogs with a flash in the pan rumor that turns out to be a complete dud, Apple is chilling. They're sitting at home, having a beer, watching you kids, and laughing. They don't need to be at CES, because they're elitist bastards that think they've eclipsed CES. They are consumer electronics in their minds, and they don't need your show—they'll have their own in a couple of weeks.

And undoubtedly, what Apple shows us is going to be fucking amazing. It's going to make the Kindle look like old news and it will make Microsoft's slate look like something found on an archeological dig. Yes, it will also be overpriced, closed platform, and riddled with other stupid proprietary shit. But it's going to be beautiful. It will actually look like the future.

Everyone will forget everything they saw at CES. All the rumors will turn to dust. No one will even remember what the hell that HP thing Microsoft showed was, nor care to see it again. And after all the money, martinis, months of preparation, nervous hung-over presentations, hookers and blow of CES are spent, and their toll taken, it will all amount to nothing.

Apple is stealing your show, boys. Make no mistake.