MacBU is gearing up for the annual pilgrimage to MacWorld Expo in January; a good chunk of the team will be in San Francisco for the entire week of the show, meeting customers, taking questions, and showing off our products.

In addition to working in the booth (which, truth be told, is a ton 'o fun), I'm participating in two public sessions:

• The two-day "Power Tools" session called, "Getting the most out of Office 2008 for Mac" (Monday and Tuesday), and
• A "Birds-of-a-Feather" called "Office For Mac: After Hours" on Wednesday, January 7 from 6:30 to 7:30 PM.

Both should be pretty interesting for productivity-minded Mac folks.

If you're attending the show, please swing by and say hello!

After a 9-month refurbishment, "it's a small world" has finally re-opened at Disneyland. However, the apocalypse-inducing placement of Disney characters in the ride is on hold until the new year:

The changes to the interior of the attraction are more subtle, and those who were eager to see how the Disney characters would be incorporated into the show scenes will have to wait until the post-holiday refurbishment is complete. A few characters from the rainforest scene have been relocated, reportedly to make room for a new America scene after the holiday overlay is removed.

Photos and more detail are at MousePlanet's weekly Disneyland update.

The new trailer for JJ Abrams' reboot of Star Trek hit the wire today, and I'm ... enthralled. It's got a vibe, an energy, a freshness that's been missing from Trek for, oh, about 15 years now. It's damn exciting. Give it a look and decide for yourself.

I know I've been covering the makeover of California Adventure a lot of late, but if you're interested in getting another perspective on what's coming down the pike, turn your eyes over to YouTube. There's a terrific video presentation on what's being done, where, and when - and although it was put together in March (thus predating the opening of Toy Stoy Mania), it's still pretty interesting.

(Tip of the hat to RansomThink.)

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Disney and Verizon have cut a deal that will let visitors to the parks use their cell phones in a more intelligent, interactive way:

Visitors to Disneyland or Walt Disney World would be able to download an application to their mobile phones to make trip plans, including booking hotel rooms and creating a checklist of attractions and shows to see. Once they arrive, they'll be able to use their phones to check wait times at Space Mountain or find the nearest pizza.

... Using technology in a mobile phone that pinpoints the device's location, Disney would be able to recommend activities or restaurants to users. For example, Disney could help parkgoers avoid a long wait at Pirates of the Caribbean by alerting them to shorter lines at the Matterhorn Bobsleds, or exploit the phone's location awareness to suggest burgers at the Tomorrowland Terrace to visitors who've just exited the nearby Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters ride

It's launching in early 2009 at Epcot, and will initially require a special, Disney-supplied device. However, given who Disney's largest shareholder is, I wouldn't be surprised to see the iPhone supported sooner instead of later.