It's not that I don't want a sleek new MacBook that's been lovingly carved out of a single block of aluminum—I do. But, ah ... have you seen the stock market lately? Let's hope the rumors of a sub-$1,000 MacBook pan out.

I'm sure you know by now that Apple is holding yet another event Tuesday in San Francisco, at 10 a.m. sharp—it's third such event in five months. This time, as the media invite proudly declares, "The spotlight turns to notebooks."

Indeed, short the iPhone, Apple's laptops—be they the old iBooks, PowerBooks, or the newer MacBooks—are the sexiest products in the company's already sexy lineup.

Rumors about the "Brick"—now widely thought to be a new, "revolutionary" manufacturing process that allows Apple to carve its MacBook shells out of a single piece of aluminum—are everywhere, not to mention a truckload of leaked photos.

Fortune's Apple blog has a rundown of predictions, including thinner, redesigned MacBook Pros with updated specs and gesture-based trackpads, as well as a pumped-up (if not wildly different) MacBook Air. (No tablet Macs, according to an analyst quoted in the Fortune story.)

But the big news that may come out of Apple's event Tuesday could be a new, aluminum-clad MacBook—with a price tag in the $899-$999 range.

That'll be the headline (if the cheaper MacBooks do, indeed, come to pass), because ... well, you know why.

Seriously—I'm the Gadget Hound at Yahoo! Tech, and I'm thinking of putting that $179 Slingbox Solo I've been eyeing on the back burner, much less a new laptop.

So, tell me, I'm curious: Given our current (and apparently ongoing) market meltdown, how many of you are actualy considering buying a new laptop—Apple or otherwise—in, say, the next six months or so? Would an $899 MacBook do the trick? Or are you (like me, frankly) holding off?

Update: Wow—from looking at the comments so far, looks like we've got a bunch of bulls in the house (or at least plenty of gadgeteers who want a new MacBook, come heck or high water). Am I the only bear? Keep the posts coming.

Related:
Apple schedules laptop event for Oct. 14; leaked photos abound [TUAW]